Like Renae said, we decided to stay in Sua for one last weekend
with the guys, in honor of Jonathan's birthday. We spent the
afternoon at his house, eating delicious homemade food and hanging
out with his family. They are about the most welcoming people you
could meet. The night was spent hanging out at the beach-side bars,
jamming to reggae and, like always, trying (and failing) to keep up
with the guys' salsa. How does EVERYONE here know how to dance so
well? They tell us it's the Latino blood, but I hope that's not the
case because that means I'll never catch up. Sunday we had one last
lazy day, watching movies and making taco-in-a-bag for the boys. I
know it's nowhere near their cooking skills but they loved having
U.S. cooking night anyways.
Feeling lonely, Renae and I headed to Canoa, a beach town a few hours to the south. The stretch of beach was absolutely gorgeous, and we finally got to use the tent, but other than that the town was a bit disappointing. It's a big tourist town, but as it's currently off season the town was pretty dead. There was a handful of other gringos (white people), but not the travel sort. Mostly it was older couples or families, there for a quiet vacation. Totally fine, but not exactly what we were craving after our lively days in Sua. But then we realized Tuesday was the big Day 50 of the trip, so we decided to adapt to the Canoa lifestyle and spend the day walking the deserted beach, reflecting, and answering a series of questions we came up with for ourselves to answer every 50 days. It may have been just what we needed. Plus we got a laugh out of being the town lunatics (not that it's a new thing): whereas everyone else was sitting around in cute beachy outfits, texting and sipping expensive cocktails, Renae and I would come crawling out of our tent, pitched right in the middle of it all, with our peanut butter and smashed bread in hand. It also may have been a few days since our last showers, oops!
Having had enough of Canoa, we spent the majority of Wednesday bussing down to Puerto Lopez. It took about 5 minutes after hopping off the bus to know we were going to love it there. It is bigger than Sua, and therefore has more to do, but still has a friendly, small-town feel. It is a fishing village, so the bay is always filled with little blue fishing boats, and tons of birds overhead. We found a lively hostal, Turismar, ran by a big Ecuadorian family, and settled right in.
The next day, Thanksgiving, we decided to hike over to Machalilla
National Park, which has some of the most gorgeous beaches on the
whole coast of Ecuador. We wanted to save some money, and everyone
said the walk was super easy, so we hiked the 12 km to the park
entrance, down the highway. It took a bit longer than expected (2.5
hours to be exact), and I don't think walking on the same expanse of
highway as all the loco drivers around here is actually that safe,
but we finally made it. We had to hike another few miles through the
park, which was pretty exhausting by then, but it was definitely
worth it. The beaches... WOW, way too beautiful. We got to talk with
a nice Colombian couple and take in lots of sweet views. But the
day's surprises weren't over. We made it to the final beach, Los
Frailes, with the plan to swim to our little hearts' content. I'm not
sure if we even made it 2 minutes in the water before realizing it
was jellyfish central! We both got stung on the legs multiple times,
and were soon running back to the sand as fast as we could. So that
was pretty painful, but we couldn't help but laugh. What a day. On
the bus ride back to town (that's right, no more walking!) we decided
to treat ourselves to ceviche, the best seafood ever, for
Thanksgiving dinner. But when we went to find some, we found out that
all the cevicherias were closed, and wouldn't be open until the next
day when the fishermen returned with the week's catch. We were super
sad, and told our hostel people about our troubles, just to have them
say, “no, let's go buy some fish now and we'll teach you how to
make your own!” So we hopped up in the back of a truck with one of
their sons, 10 year old Jordan, and went to buy some fillets from one
of the family's friends. We set up a little table and some plastic
chairs out on the sidewalk, and got to work chopping veggies and
slicing the fish. We were super surprised to find out how easy it is
to make, and that it only takes about 15 minutes, since all you do is
marinate the fish in lime for 5 minutes and throw it all together. So
you can all expect some ceviche made by us when we get back! The
whole crazy extended family was there helping, including a grouchy
old abuela, a son who wanted to know which one of us wanted to date
him, and a bunch of kids running around and grabbing food off our
plates. So although it wasn't quite a typical Thanksgiving dinner, we
were FAR from lonely.Having discovered that we like settling into a town and getting to know it and its people, rather than moving to a new place every day, we ended up staying in Puerto Lopez for 4 nights, until today. One day we went out on an ocean tour with Wiston, one of the hostel guys, for super cheap since he already had a group going and of course since we were now a part of the family. The group consisted of a couple with dreads from Belgium, two girls from Germany, Wiston, the boat captain, and us. We piled into one of the tiny blue boats, and got to fish out in the ocean, which was super exciting since you catch something about every 4 minutes. Then we boated over to Isla de Salango to snorkel and lay on the beach while Wiston made fresh ceviche from the fish we had caught. It was a perfectly gorgeous day, we got to see a sea lion, a squid, and a bunch of blue footed boobies, and literally for a minute there we were considering if we had actually fallen off the boat, died, and gone to heaven. We spent another day in nearby Montanita, taking in all the travelers and shopping in the street markets. We also made friends with an adorable couple from Florida who manages a coffee shop right on the beach, ate the most delicious fried street vendor food I have ever had (I take back the millions of times I walked by platanos in the grocery store without a second glance, because HOLY they are delicious), and got to work on our salsa some more last night with the locals. So it was a pretty perfect way to spend our last few days on the beach.
The last couple weeks have been so amazing I would say I don't think it can get better from here, but I've said that at least a hundred times before in the last 50 days and end up taking it back every time. So here's to hoping the rainforest is EVEN better than everywhere we've been so far, although right now it seems impossible. I am VERY excited to get back to volunteering though, so assuming we survive this crazy long bus ride across the country, we'll get back to you soon with details of what we end up doing over there, as well as how big the bugs actually are. Gulp!
I also gotta give a birthday shout out to the best mama out there, who turns 50 tomorrow! So everyone make sure and make fun of her old self at least a little bit, since I'm not there to do it myself. Kidding, love you, mom!
Yours truly,
J Fly
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