#1 Escuela de Espanol

Greetings from Montanita!

Post #1 comes from the internet cafe in a quiet (?) little surfing town on the coast of Ecuador. The power in the town has been off for most of the day and just got switched back on, so we have taken advantage of this window of opportunity to post our first blog. So how did we get here?


After the marathon plane journey via Santiago, we landed in Guayaquil in the middle of last week. We had two nights at a great little hostel on a mountain overlooking the city and ventured into town to sort out some final logistics. While we don´t miss the cold of Switzerland, we do miss the logistics! Speaking of Switzerland, we also found a great steakhouse in town which served massive steaks on a flaming grill at your table for US$6. Ok, maybe we´re not missing Switzerland that much...




We then steeled ourselves for our first bus trip in South America. We had been well prepared by prior travellers and expected a windowless bus full of chickens with no suspension running down a potholed road at 30kmh, especially when the tickets cost less than an inner-Sydney bus ride. However we were then shocked to find ourselves on a fully air-conditioned coach with a steward serving drinks and a movie (American, dubbed into Spanish with English subtitles)!

Which brings us to Montanita. Before long, we signed in for Spanish lessons and now Dave has a strange sense of Deja-vu as he sits in morning classes from 8am to midday every day! That said, sitting under a beach umbrella learning Spanish in the ocean air is a little different to enduring an economics lecture at 8am in Lausanne.

The town is half laid-back surfer town and half party-town (especially as it rolls into NYE). Before we arrived, we were annoyed that we hadn´t found a pair of ipod speakers for our travels. Fortunately this has not been a problem so far in Montanita as the only available accommodation is right in the middle of town with music coming at us from several different directions, at several different volumes at ALL hours of the day!

Nevertheless, it is a great place to open our South American travels and we will hopefully pick up enough Espanol here to make us mildly comprehensible as we branch out through the continent.

That´s it for Cerveza Diaries part 1. Speaking of which, we´re about to hit the bar for another beer ... which automatically comes as a longneck at just $1.25, which is mildly dangerous.

Merry Christmas (feliz navidad) to all!

Hasta Luego
Dave and Kate