#2 Adios Ecuador

hello all,

Sorry it´s been a while... we´ve spent the last three weeks in the same place (Montañita) relaxing, reading, learning spanish, drinking, sleeping and getting brown (or red depending which one of us you look at! -Can you tell who is writing today?)

It´s been great for recharging the batteries, however rather than sending repetitive daily updates we thought it was better served in a longer summary of our time here...

Introducing Montañita



Montañita is a small town on the southern coast of Ecuador. It is set just back from a long beach with excellent beginner waves and is therefore popular with travellers from Ecuador and elsewhere in South America (lots of Argentinians judging by the amount of ´mate´ being sipped at the beach) and of course a few obligatory gringos like us.

The locals are very friendly and of course offer special prices which we discovered varied as Kate´s skin got darker and her Spanish got better.

Montañita has a reputation with backpackers as a party town which was definitely confirmed over the christmas and new year period. We spent multiple evenings with our favourite cocktail vendor ´Galan´ sipping on caipirinhas and daquiris all made with fresh fruit and lots of liquor (which seemed to increase with every visit). Although the cocktails were delicious we didn´t sample everything they had to offer (see menu below). We were however impressed with the friendly smile and the guarantee of muchos vitaminos in every glass so much so that Dave almost considered pulling up stumps and starting a new career (not really we just got the t-shirt)...





One of our favourite daily activities was to watch the sunset over the water, naturally with a cool beer in hand. After living most of our lives on the east coast of Australia we thought this was far more civilised than getting up early to see the sunrise. One of the things that struck us was the speed of the sunset (which we are assuming was a result of our proximity to the equator) that was so quick it beat us to the bottom of our beer.




Lost in Translation - Learning Spanish

While we finished most days with a beer and sunset, we started early with our four hour spanish classes under a sun umbrella in a garden near the beach. We were pleasantly surprised with our progress over the three weeks with many thanks to our great teacher Isabel.

The first week and a bit were filled with a lot of vocab and grammar however the second half allowed us to practice our spanish (and get frequently corrected). In these practice sessions we took the opportunity to utilise Isa´s local knowledge and asked the best places to eat, drink and get groceries. We were extremely impressed with her suggestions and even more so with her entrepreneurship as we slowly worked out that all her recommendations were her relatives in town.




While we thought that our Spanish was improving immensely (which it was of course!) we did have some lost in translation moments. Dave´s favourite was learning that the word for wife, esposa, was the same word used for handcuffs -he even took a photo of the dictionary entry. He also took a photo of the Mitsubishi Montero, because Pajero (as it is called in Australia) means something else over here (maybe the Japanese were trying to send us a message).



Over the few days of the full moon there was lots of miaowing coming from the neighbourhood cats and we had many conversations about the cats being ´loco´ (crazy). Isa attributed this to something that sounded like ´alunestra´so naturally we assumed it was because of the full moon. After we began to wonder why we were having the same conversation everyday, we eventually worked out that the household cat was on heat. This was what was driving the other cats wild and made more sense than our lunar theory.


The funniest moment - New Year´s Eve

However the funniest moment (not at the time but in hindsight) was definitely our experience of new year´s eve in a huge party town. After securing accommodation next to the loudest and biggest party in town we were excited for the evening ahead after hearing about the huge new year´s eve celebrations. Not only was the town packed with people, we learned that the locals put on huge bonfires which they threw life sized dolls filled with gunpowder into at midnight before dancing the night away.

After class on the 31st we headed back to our room when Dave started to feel a little queazy. We were sure it wouldn´t last long so Kate set out for some water and managed to fall down an entire set of stairs. As Kate´s bruises grew in intensity so did Dave´s stomach flu, so the eagerly anticipated new year´s eve was spent by Kate stiffly forcing gatorade down Dave´s throat while he worshipped the porcelain gods. Luckily (?) they were able to live the party vicariously as the base from the party next door pounded through the bedroom walls until 1030am the next day. Not so funny then but giving us a good laugh now.


Dining out

We had a lot of great meals during our time, from local fare to some reminders of home like wood fired pizza and rotisserie chicken. Sadly we lack Kelly´s dedication so the only photographic record of food we have is Dave´s adventure with ceviche (raw seafood cured in lime with onions, tomato, salt and pepper). Apprehensive after his New Year´s Eve experience and a little worried about eating raw seafood purchased from a random cart on the beach, Dave eventually took the plunge near the end of our stay. He opted for the apparently most traditional regional ceviche of oysters although it could also come with prawns, fish or octopus. Despite the apprehensions there was more than one bowl of ceviche devoured (it´s lucky he only tried it at the end of the trip!) and Dave´s stomach is still intact.





Where Will the Next Cervezas Come From?

Right now we are sitting in a hostel in Guayaquil with a few hours to spare before our overnight flight tonight (with many hours to kill it could explain the length of this entry-congratulations if you´ve made it this far!).

Ecuador has been a great wind down and introduction to Spanish with friendly locals and the smell of popcorn hanging in the air. While we have loved the relaxation we have decided to increase our iron and energy levels by swapping our towels for hiking boots and high-tailing early to the abundant meat, wine and nature of Argentina.

Hasta luego

Dave and Kate