Manuel, the owner of the
Oceana Hostel in Montañita, had redesigned Julez’ room a little during his
absence: It now features the old bed and a new bunk bed, enough space for a
family. Or for Carina, Julez & me.
We talked with Manuel for half
an hour or so – he turned out to have a super interesting past! I would have
loved to listen to him for a little longer, but Carina had to get to know
Montañita.
We had dinner at some Thai
place, where they discover half an hour after you ordered your food that they
are currently out of the necessary ingredients. But hey, flexibility is the key
to a happy life in South America. And in the end the food didn’t taste too bad.
Our first cocktail at hand we
wandered along the beach, wondering how few people were around. We got told
that we had just missed a massive razzia by local police for some three days,
when immigration office, drug police and health ministry had all sent their
people to clear out the village. Given the fact, that Montañita’s charm
requires illegal street vendors, drugged hippies and rules in general are a
little bended here, the town was shockingly charmless those days. At least my
favorite cocktail vendor Emilia was still around…
…and once we entered the Caña
Grill to bar feet dance the night away in the sand, we found that some people
were still in town. For sure enough to have some decent celebration. :)
Waking up at 3pm the next day
had not been planned. Carina and I originally imagined we would hitchhike
further up north, but given the fact that the sun was almost about to set
again, we spontaneously decided to stay another night.
We would take it easier that
night – but didn’t take it easy on the breakfast: Another massive fruit
salad-yoghurt-cereal-honey-mix went down to fill our stomach well. Really well.
Top rim of the lower lip, as my dad would say. ;)
Julez’ boss found us sitting
there, sat down with us and filled us in with all the village’s gossip and
stories of the past few days and weeks. She is German, too, and seems to love little
village life. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows what everyone else
did last night. Crazy stuff.
The three of us went down to
the beach. After some sun and a chilled beer, Julez left for work. Carina and I
updated ourselves on the internet, walked around, picked Julez up from work,
had a shower and went for dinner. While Julez met with his Dutch friend Gwen to
dine a little pricier, Carina and I opted for the Rastapan option, a delicious,
pizza Calzone like treat.
After a cake and a doughnut for
desert we reunited again and headed towards the beach to watch the sunset.
But not without passing by and
stopping at our favorite cocktail stand before. ;)
Gwen left us after a while.
Carina left us a little while later. And Julez and I once again were the last
men standing. Two friends under the bare stares, glaring at and listening to
the nocturnal waves at Montañita beach. It’s the small things in life that are
priceless.
Julez had to leave for work
early the next morning. Carina and I took it a little easier, and found the
next fruit saladed cereals before putting the thumb out at the road again. I
think I have seldom had that much fruit in such a short amount of time before.
We were lucky that day, never
had to wait longer than 20 minutes for a ride, and a friendly sun tanned our
skin while waiting.
A pick-up brought us into some
small village, where a banana truck picked us up a short toilet break later. We
ended up in another, even smaller village, and decided to stroll around a
little.
Well, not much to see. One
main street. That’s it. Usually. But that day was big soccer tournament. So we
stayed, had an ice-cream and watched some matches. As I said before: The really
good memories are those no one can buy for money. :) (And, unfortunately, no one can
properly picture them either.)
A small car finally brought us
to Puerto Lopez, our todays’ destination. We booked our bus tickets back to
Quito for the next day, chucked out stuff in a hostel room and hitchhiked up to
Los Frailes, maybe the most beautiful beach on Ecuador’s mainland coast,
situated in a National Park. As luck was with us, we got picked up by a park
ranger, who drove us all the way straight to the beach.
The only problem at Los
Frailes is, that there is no shade. Well – hardly any, at least. Two trees.
That’s it. The shade they gave was packed with people. We didn’t mind, started
to stroll along the beach – and found a tree trunk, which just gave enough sun
protection for two persons. You know, there are those days, when things just
work out perfect. This was definitely one of them.
I immediately fell asleep, and
got woken up by two park rangers asking us to leave. The National Park would
close in half an hour. So I quickly dipped into the water and we took off.
Again, luck saved us some
walking time: A school bus brought us to the main road, where we paid 40c to a
commercial bus driver to bring us back to Puerto Lopez. No worries at all.
After a 2$ dinner we walked to
the Puerto Lopez beach and lied down in a beach chair to watch the sunset while
sipping another delicious fruit juice for 1,25$ underneath some palm trees.
Have I mentioned yet how amazing life can be?
The sun and the action made us
head back pretty early, but Troy on television kept us awake for another two
hours. But then, finally, we gave in to our weight-gaining eye lids…
Another morning. Another fruit
salad. Another late check-out. This time two hours late. 3$ is what they
charged us. Capitalistic bastards. To digest our anger, we spent the rest of
the day in a resting chair, sipping fruit shakes and watched thousands of
butterflies pass by. Wherever they went, we don’t know. But we finally went to
catch our bus at 7pm and headed back to Quito. Carina would fly out the next
day. *sob*
So, there’s the question
again: Why do all good things come to an end? And how can two weeks pass by
that quickly?
Whatever the answers might be,
here is a statement: Carina, thank you sooo much for coming over to Ecuador! It
was a terrific trip! And I hope you can dream away in good memories should
there ever be a boring day at your new job position in Stuttgart… :)
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