Ecuador

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Well we finally made it to Ecuador after spending a good part of the day in limbo after missing that darned flight from Bogota. All said and done, we arrived at a good time and got to see the night lights of Quito to make for a stunning landing, right in the middle of the city.

The hostel we stayed at, Revolution Backpackers, is in the old area and our Aussie host, Matt, has maps and everything on hand to give an overview and safety brief of the area from the top of the building and look below to the happenings of a Saturday night in Quito.

As we are here for Sunday only before catching a midnight but to Bahia and then Canoa we cram what we can into our day. Headed out to look at the old Basilica and walk our way to the bus station to buy our tickets, here is a handy hint 101 that we should know by now, when buying bus tickets you need a passport. So we were back to the hostel to grab our passports and back to the station again. On the way back we wondered through the town which being a Sunday is the city is quiet and families are riding and spending time together.

We end up with a coffee and watching a local football match for about an hour before the screening stopped and in no time at all everyone called for their bills, paid and had moved next door where there was a smaller screen still showing the game’s last 10 minutes. From here we walked back past a big park that had heaps of paintings, a majority of them original oils and found a few that we really liked and took photos of to think about for our return.

With a quick bite for dinner we settled in with a DVD whilst we waited for our 11.30pm bus to Bahia. The preliminary checks done we were onboard with a crowded bus. Our seats are right in front of the exit door and I have the aisle seat and am knocked and hit in the head every time someone moves around the front of the bus. I recommend anyone doing this trip to ensure that they don’t get these two seats. I did have a great view of the near death experiences of going around hairpin corners in the wet without slowing down and some overtaking that defied odds that we are still on this planet. But all in a night’s journey, to give you an idea we made the 8 hour journey in just over 6 hours.

Arriving into Bahia at close to 6am we made our way to the water ferries and managed with our luggage not to tip the small boat over for our trip to San Vincente and just 1 taxi off our destination. Fortunately there were some others heading the same way so we split the taxi bill and as they spoke Spanish they were able to tell the taxi to stop. Being dropped off at the Sundown Inn at 6.10am we waited for someone to wake up so we could check in and get some sleep. Finally around 7am we were met and assigned our room which was quickly changed to a room with balcony and view over the beautiful ocean.

For the next 4 weeks we were based at the Sundown Inn to try and grasp a little of Spanish. I was never holding my hopes too high to learn much and will be lucky to remember 10 words so am hoping they are 10 useful words to add to my limited vocab. The personalities here are Juan Carlos, his wife Maria-Elena and daughter Lindsay and father Heimiy. Dana, one of the other students who has fluent Spanish and is there to practice her conversational techniques and finally Ross who introduced us to the “death sauce experience” of eating at the Sundown.
After a sleep we walked the 2km or so into Canoa and ended up grabbing some food at the Surf Shack which is to become our “local”. We had our first lesson in the afternoon we arrive and I will confess to not liking it one bit. The next 4 days brought out the worst in me and as much as I hated being that way, there was nothing I could do to stop it. Eventually we opted for separate teachers and things got mildly better however I didn’t take to the method of teaching that well and struggled to learn the whole 4 weeks.

As part of our package we had full board and the meals were consistent with fresh juice with every meal and for lunch and dinner freshly cut fruit to end with. Most meals were fried and after awhile you get a bit bored with the same thing over and over hence the Death Sauce excitement.

Now the Death Sauce will need explaining as it was such an important part of dining conversation along with yacht rock classifications. Death Sauce is a mixture of about 6 or 7 different chillies and cayenne pepper made into a chilli sauce of immense power. The tiniest drop on the top of the knife was enough to take the daily lunch time soup to an extreme eating experience, powerful stuff. It was also mixed into the mayonnaise regularly to form a dip for the standard fried banana chips.

Ross also added entertaining thoughts on yacht rock and gave both myself and Jay an education into music that would be classified into this genre which rapidly expanded into many other genres and kept both Ross and Jay entertained for almost the 2 weeks that Ross was with us at Sundown.

Most evenings were spent playing card games or ping pong and after Ross left Jay would head down to the Surf Shack for Monday night poker whilst Dana and I played cards. There is something about this simple life that is really attractive. Not having all the material things we do at home I am enjoying playing cards and interactive games with other people and will be something that I hope Jay and I continue when we do return to home.

During our breaks between lessons and lunch most of our time was on the beach. I finally got back onto a surfboard again after 2 years not going near one due to a sports injury and had a ball surfing most days. Another all day event and entertainment was watching the Red Fiddler crabs on the beach making their burrows. Each crab has its own personality and when they come up onto the beach out of their holes with another load of sand to dump we started to notice that some will dump and pat down the sand, some work on a roll and flick method, the roll and pat and finally the stand at the edge of the hole and see how far you can scatter the sand method. I will admit to spending hours fascinated by the crabs burrowing techniques along with their interaction with each other. One other thing I learnt whilst studying the crabs is that they all enter their holes right side first I thought that was pretty cool as well.

Jay was always worth watching when the crabs were out and about as he would get one trapped and chase it all over the beach and try and see how long he could keep the crab from an escape burrow. In the end all that was left of this crab torture was a heap of Jay’s foot prints in random patterns all over the beach.

I went into San Vincente and Bahia a couple of times on the local bus or hailing a lift from the road side as the buses have no real time table for something to do and Jay and I went with Dana for a day trip to Portovello, 4 hours to get there, 4 hours to get back and 3 hours at the destination which the best thing was the $2.00 shop where we picked up cheap Uno cards but it was something different for a day. Jay also got a haircut and whilst Dana and I waited (Dana was valuable in giving directions on how the cut was supposed to look) we were offered live chickens (that looked like they had had healthier days in their poor little lives) and a myriad of other delightful things by venders passing by.

Jay and I would head down to the Surf Shack for Sunday brunch to get away from the morning fried eggs and would opt for a sleep in, gentle wonder down the beach to Canoa and get French pressed coffee along with juice and breakfast chosen from the simple but tasty menu. Pete and Miya had part ownership of the Surf Shack and have been in Canoa for about a year. Moving from Colorado this sea change seems to be working for them. Our first introduction to Pete was our first day in Canoa when asked if they have real coffee to be told that “they don’t f*#@ around here with coffee” from that statement we knew this was going to be our sort of hang out. Sunday afternoon at the Surf Shack is American Football time so Jay would stick around after brunch and hang out with the “boys” and get his sports and socialising fix in.
As mentioned earlier, Jay started to head down for poker night on Monday nights at the “Shack” and made some contacts with many of the other Gringo’s in town and with that some contacts. There was Canadian Mike who sort of rocked up to Canoa and forgot to leave because he liked it so much and larger than life Greg a guy from Kentucky, asked Jay for some advise on landscaping one of the houses he was building so Jay agreed and this kept him occupied with something more interesting than Spanish for a couple of days.

Canoa was subjected to regular power cuts so between 12 midday and 3 pm there was no flushing water or power in the town. Any morning surf after lessons would be timed to get the last of the water to rinse off under. In addition to the scheduled weekday cuts we would also get power-outs randomly through the nights. On my last Friday night at the Sundown we had a power cut and I managed to miss the last 2 or so steps and badly twisted my ankle that as I write this blog nearly 2 weeks later is still swollen and a bit painful to walk on, but you get that.

Nearing the end of our time at the Sundown Jay was owed about 10 hours and me 4 hours as we had missed lessons due to the Family having to do stuff for their daughter. Jay reasoned that we have already paid x for the lessons and we will just pay the difference to stay the final week. Turned out a bit too hard so we left the following Monday in what turned out to be the best thing for us.

With a walk down the road we made it to another hostel where there was a mix of Americans and the odd Canadian that had moved to Canoa for retirement just forgot to leave and others to get away from the materialistic world of America for the simple stress free life of Canoa. The rooms were simple and had HOT WATER for longer than 60 seconds so that in itself was an improvement.

Our next door neighbour was Canadian Mike who had taken to paragliding and assisted Greg with giving him support when he took tourists up and also cleaned the rooms as part of his payoff on free board. There was another Mike with his wife Neena who have retired to Canoa, Anna who was backpacking and now working with one of the schools teaching, Henry, Anna and their two children DJ and Brianna who were there to enjoy the simple life of Canoa.

Henry is an early riser like I am and after he had cooked breakfast for the kids would walk outside and take in the ocean and quiet time of this small community. As I normally wake around 6.45/7am would head out and Henry and I would chat for an hour or so before Jay would get up.

Jay introduced me to Scott and Sheryl who were two doors down and it is their house that Greg is building and got Jay to assist with the landscaping design. The house is huge and broken into 3 wings so to speak. A beautiful main house that leads to an alfresco kitchen that then links into the Guest house. Just off to one side are the servants quarters which will probably continue to be used as an overflow guest house. Scott and Sheryl are a lovely couple and we chatted several time during the last week.

Our final night in Canoa was Thanksgiving and Jay and I were invited to celebrate with this small community. It was amazing the spread of food that was presented. Everyone had cooked something and Greg and deep-fired a turkey and although there were plenty of people offering him assistance did it his own way and it came out perfectly cooked. The range and variation of food was immense and all very tasty. Jay and I were honoured to be included with this small community to celebrate this important day with them and an experience that will stay with me for some time.

Our last day in Canoa started with Henry spoiling us with breakfast and then into a taxi to start our epic transit back to Quito. The bus trip wasn’t quite as bad going back as it was getting there but it was a long trip.

Getting back into Quito our first priority was a long hot shower and getting a steak to eat for dinner. The past 5 weeks we have had a staple diet of fried fish and little chicken so we hunted and found a restaurant close by where we ate our fill on steak before retiring with full bellies for the night.

On the Saturday we headed up the Teleferiqo (which means cable car in Spanish apparently) that took us to 4100m above sea level. The views of the city are awesome and you can get a true feeling how spread out the city is. We watched a plane or two come in to land on the airstrip in the middle of town and generally took in the view. The clouds were coming in through to mountains getting ready to envelope the city in a cushion of white. Behind us there is the remnants of a volcano you can climb up another 800 or so meters but that looked like hard work and it was covered with dark grey cloud, time for us to head down.

Back in town we went about buying the paintings we were looking at before we headed to Canoa. Several had been sold but there were still 2 that we liked and they are part of a series so will blend nicely together back home on the wall. With us trying to practice our Spanish the artists were helpful and encouraging in our efforts.

Sunday was our day off so I headed back into the main strip of Quito to have more of a walk around and was looking for a small hard-drive as the one I have now has some serious issues. No luck on the hard drive but was nice to walk around. I came across the local Car Club show with all the flash cars painted and polished with the owners shining just as much as their cars. This seems to be a universal thing in any city you will find the car buff. With the day moving on quickly I headed back to the hostel to get myself packed and ready for Lima.

In general the people of Ecuador are friendly and eager to assist. Sometimes you do need to try and explain yourself what you want and you might get some of it but that’s just it. Life is slow and simple on the coast and no-one is in a hurry. If you haven’t got into the groove of kicking back and chilling out this can be a frustrating experience however if you have the right frame of mind and realise the “what’s the rush” mentality then you’ll love Ecuador and its people. In saying that, put an Ecuadorian behind the wheel of a car and oh my god there is an evil transformation that takes the normally placid and patient being into a car raged, horn blowing manic that is impatient and can’t seem to get through the lights fast enough. No sooner will a light turn green there will be people honking horns aggressively to move the person in front. Crossing roads can turn into an extreme sport as well, unlike Mexico where the drivers are courteous and patient for pedestrians, Ecuadorians must have a point scored bonus for every pedestrian hit as we had many close calls where drivers just don’t stop on red lights. But all in all they are lovely people.

I loved Ecuador and can see myself coming back to visit in the future. Jay & I made some good friendships here and I would like to say thanks to the beautiful Dana whom I had many conversations with and the community of “Casa de Greg” for making the last week so special and enjoyable in Canoa.

Goodbye Ecuador and hope it won’t be to long before I see you again.

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