What a week! I had such a blast this break and I really don't want to start my internship. Well, that's a lie. I am excited about it but I would love to have another week of vacation or at least another week in Quito. I leave for Cotacachi in two days. This week is definitely going to be one of the more difficult ones for me because I have to get situated and figure out my lessons plans, when I will be teaching, and just get used to everything. I am going to miss my family in Quito a lot. I was really excited to be heading home this weekend because I knew I would be able to hang out with them before leaving.
Anyway, let me tell you about the rest of my spring break! I think it will be easiest if I just go day by day.
Monday evening we went for dinner at a Pizzeria called Viña I believe with Becca and her mom and sister. Afterwards we hung out in El Cafecito before passing out. We were all pretty exhausted from the day. The next day we headed over to the Museum de Banco Central where we walked through a gallery of christian artwork from Ecuador and a gallery of the ethnography of the indigenous groups in Ecuador. It was pretty cool. The craziest thing was seeing the shrunken heads of the Shuar. They would take their victims and take out the bones, stuff some plants and stuff inside and then let them dry and shrink down. So creepy but so cool. There were also some ruins out back from the Cañari people. Around 12:30 we made our way to the bus station and took a 6 hour bus ride to Guayaquil. Talk about the worst bus ride I have ever taken. The roads were awful and at some points the road had caved in. I was so glad that the rain didn't happen until after we were out of the mountains. I didn't want any landslides or falling rocks on our bus. We wanted to take a bus directly to Montañita that night but there were none going so we stayed in Guayaquil for the night. We found a hostal and got them to let us stay in a three bed room for $7 a person. Thank god there was air conditioning. We would have died otherwise. It is definitely tropical humid in Guayaquil. Before we went to bed though, we checked out the barrio (neighborhood) las Peñas. It is on a hill that has about 400 steps that lead to a light house at the top. It was so cool and there were shops and bars all along the way. It was kind of a rainy night so there were not many people out but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. I am glad we were able to see it. I would like to go back there during the day at some point but I have a feeling it won't be happening unless I come back to Ecuador at some point (which is highly probable).
At 4:30AM we got up and left for the bus station to take a 5:30AM bus to Montañita. It was great. First of all it was the nicest coach bus I have ever been on and there was air conditioning. Heaven. I fell asleep and when I woke up I looked out the window to see giant waves and beautiful beach. What a sight. I was so happy to be on the coast. We made our way to Montañita and checked into a hostal called Montezuma. It was super nice and we had a panoramic view of the beach. It is too bad we weren't able to stay there the rest of the nights but they had reservations. Anyway, we spent the day at the beach and ran into Dan, Chelsea, Rachel, and Megan as well as Becca and her family who had arrived the day before. It was nice to see everyone and we all had dinner together that night. Dinner could definitely have been better though. We waited for 2 and a half hours before getting our food. We got free desert but it wasn't worth it. I ended up going back to the room after dinner and sleeping cuz I was exhausted from the traveling. I am glad I did because I didn't get much sleep the rest of the week since our second hostal was in front of a bar that didn't turn its music off til 5 AM.
Thursday was a chill day at the beach. I made friends with a Peruvian guy and his fam that he was visiting. They were really cool and nice. Later that evening we met up and went out dancing til about 4am. So much fun! Before that though, Dan, Jason, Hannah, Mujtaba, and myself took a walk to Manglaralto which is a town 2 KM south of Montañita. It was a nice walk along the beach. The tide was really low and the moon was super bright. We stopped at a hotel that was along the beach to play on a swing that Dan knew about from a previous trip. It was so cool! It was about 20 feet tall so we were able to get really high on it. Afterwards we headed into the town were we took a ride on a rickety old ferris wheel for $.50. I was kind of scared but it ended up being really fun. We considered hitch hiking back to Montañita but decided the walk would be nicer and less buggy.
On our way to Manglaralto Hannah asked us some questions. It was favorite color and two words that explain why, fav. animal and two words for why, and favorite body of water with two words that explain why. I said Maroon because it was calming and warm, dog because it is playful and loyal, and Ryerson Lake because it is comforting and beautiful. The reason for fav. color is supposed to be how I see myself, the animal is what I look for in a partner and the body of water is how I see my future. Finally she asked me to close my eyes and imagine a white room with no windows or doors and explain what I felt. I said uneasy and weird. It is supposed to be how I feel about death. Kind of cool huh? I really like it. I am going to have to try it on my friends when I get home.
Montañita had great places to eat and everything was pretty inexpensive which was nice. On Friday we spent more time at the beach and figured out where we wanted to go to snorkel. We decided on Isla Salango which is cheaper than Isla de la Plata but I am guessing there is more wildlife to see at Isla de la Plata. I really liked the snorkeling though. That was super cool. There was a gorgeous blue and yellow striped fish. The water was clear and the sun was warm. I was in heaven.
After Isla Salango Jason and Hannah headed back to Montañita and eventually Guayaquil to take a flight home today but Mujtaba, Lindsay and I waited for the night bus to Quito. It took us 8 hours to get home which is incredibly fast. We left at 8PM and got in at 5:30. It usually takes about 11 hours from the lonely planet book. We were definitely booking it though. I thought we might topple over at some points because we were being rocked back and forth through the mountains.
Overall, the trip was great and I had the best spring break of my life. I am completely exhausted but I am ok with that. There will be time to sleep soon.
Ciao!
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