Blogs from West, Ecuador, South America - page 67

So I finally made it into the waves yesterday, and failed miserably I might add, but today I am getting some more help. I am slowly picking up some more spanish words and today have made arrangements to practice my spanish with someone. In the meantime, I am "conducting" my own spanish/english lessons. These lesson consist of me going into the kitchen with two of the guys that work there and holding up items, sayning the name in english, they say it in spanish and we both repeat it. Obviously, these guys are trying to learn english. This morning we covered butter, marmalade and the ingredients for pancakes. It is always good for a laugh! Yesterday, after the attempt at surfing and meeting a few of the locals, I walked up the road to a look ... read more

So, I made it!! Everything went like clockwork until I hit Ecuador. Turns out that we had a slight mix up with arrival times. Not to worry though I spent the night in the airport....where knew it was safe and early the next morning I made friends with a guy....rather flamboyant I mught add but he was increddibly helpful. He was awaiting for a friend to arrive but once he visited with his friend he and his brother (who drives a private luxury taxi) got me to the bus station and on the right bus. So, now i have a place to stay in the city and a private car at my disposal! Once i got to Montinata I hiked down the baeach (1KM) with my packs(which are way too full)....and by the way cheryl I ... read more

#4- The Southern Coast of Ecuador- Friday, September 16, 2005 On from Quito to the large, busy coastal city of Guayaquil to the famous surf beach of Montañita; from there moving onto the quiet fishing village of Puerto Lopez before returning to Guayaquil and escaping the coast to the colonial beauty of Cuenca. After spending about 10 days in the Galapagos, I returned to Quito accompanied by an itch to return to the coast. The ocean was calling me, and my pasty, white skin needed sun after the unsuccessful search for sun on the Galapagos. I spent a couple of days in Quito gathering up the gear I left behind and a small farewell party with Andrew and Larse (fellow passengers on the Guantanamera). Our party started at Larse’s place, and we conversed with his roommate ... read more

Can it be real? Is the trip actually over? Yup. It is amazing how something that is so absorbing as a multi-month trip, just ends so suddenly. We are back in Simi Valley, now. In a few days we head down to San Diego to look for an apartment. For those of you who do not know, Ryan is going back to school to get his Master´s in Geography at San Diego State University. That is the reason that this trip came to fruition. We had to quit our jobs at some point, might as well be in March instead of July. We actually had a Day 8 in the Galapagos. It just wasn´t exciting enough to warrant it´s own blog. We had another very early start (5:30 am) to catch the fast boat to San ... read more

My new assignment t the Sanctuario was coming along swimmingingly through the first week until Monday night (4/19) when I decided to bike into town after dinner because I needed to make a call and the phone line at the Sanctuario was dead. I hadn't used the bicycle there before and, evidentky, the breaks hadn't been properly reattached when someone fixed the tire the day before. I started down the hill toward town and noticed the lack of working breaks in seconds....fell within a minute. I'm not sure if the breaks finally kicked in and that threw me off, or if I just hit a pothole or patch of gravel. I got up and realized something was very wrong with my arm, but figured I'd probably just dislocated my shoulder, which would be easy enough to ... read more