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Country: Ecuador.
City: Quito. Currency: 1Euro = 1.00 United States Dollars Elevation: m / ft Arrival Date: Sunday Dec 8th. Yeay!! I made it! the border crossing was just as I was told it was but seing as I was on a fancy bus I managed to avoid having to walk across the 100m long market to be mobbed by people trying to sell you things!! Anyway I met Lyndell on the bus and we´ve now got a place together in Guayaquil for the night before she goes to Quito in the morning and I go to Montanita to try my hand at relaxing for two days and learning to surf!! Well I heard Guayaquil was nothing special and so far I´ve come across, millions of crickets or locusts or some type of crawley things that can fly!!! and they´re absolutely everywhere!! In the bus station, on the street, on some guys shoulder that walked past us tonight!! so there´s that along with the dead rats in the street, homeless dudes in doorways..and kids sleepiong in potato sacks on the pavement..etc..etc..
Well I´m leaving tomorrow anyways...so I´m off to bed now...til some other time when I´m not surfing in Ecuador I´ll update again then!! ciao for now!!! heheheheee Date: Tuesday the 10th, 1pmI´m here!! I made it to Montanita and WOW!!! just WOW!! I was dumped off the bus and had to find my way to the hostal but then again after you´ve been here 5 minutes you know that there´s not much to the town and so it´s impossible to get lost!!! heheeee So I booked into my 3 dollar a night and Very nice place I must say!! I have a room with a single a double bed AND a hammock if I wish to change beds!!! heheheee So let me set the picture!! There are maybe two streets here, a few little hostels and restaurants and a few little shops and thats pretty much it!! It´s quiet and peaceful and basically I think I met all the people staying in the town last night when I sat down and had a drinks with about 15 people!!! It´s amazing!! all the people here just bum around and surf and thats pretty much it!! I think I know what I want to be whenb I grow up!!! a surf bum!! heheheee So I met two people a guy and girl from Switzerland at the hostel and we went to a place to eat dinner last night. That´s where I met all the others in the town and joined them for a drinks after the Swiss went to bed! So I hung out with them ...cant remember all the names...til about 12 and went to bed cos I wanted to be ready for my surf lesson today!! It´s a lot more cloudy today which is good for me cos I´ll just get burned anyway. So myself and Ricky went to the beach and he had me lie on the sand and practice jumping up on my imaginary sand surfboard. He gave me some tips about the waves, the current and what to do and where to stand etc...etc.. and then we went surfing!!! I just wanna stay here forever and surf!!! I´m totally shit at it... but I still wanna stayyyyyyyy!! heheheee So there was no-one else out cos the waves weren´t good aparently and the tide was kinda low so I have to wait to 3pm to go out again!! oh that´s aaaaages away!!! another two hours!!! aawww maaannnn!!!! yip I´m hooked!!! So this is the most bizarre town I´ve ever been in!! I walked down to the beach yesterday and it was just beautiful!!! It looked like heaven the way the sun was shining through the clouds onto the sea and the silhouettes of surfers just sitting out there on their boards waiting for a good wave to come along!! Then there was this guy standing in the water playing his guitar to himself!! there´s hippies and surf bums and hte locals and everything is just soooo relaxed...no one is in a hurry to do anything but wait for the next tide to surf!! There are chickens and dogs and cats and all sorts fo animals just running about everywhere!!! I love it here!!! heheheeee I think I´ll have to come back for a few months to just chill after I do everything else I wanna do over the next two years!!! oh god!! This is just never ending!! heheheee I´m off to Surf!!! later!!! Date: Wednesday the 11th, 9pmHeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy check it out!!! I'm a surfer chick maaan!! heheheee oh wow surfing is sooo cool!!! not that I can surf ... but it's cool to try it!! and to watch the guys that CAN actually surf!!! WOW!!! You should see those waves!! I though yesterday was the last day of my life when I saw the size of them crashing down!!! SH***T!!! But I still got in none the less!! The weather is perfect! it's warm and kinda cloudy so I dont get burned!! So I surfed for about another couple of hours last night before coming back and having dinner with Ricky and Andrea (the owners of the hostal) Mel from Holland, Danni and Fanny from Swizerland and Ivan from Venezuela. It was soo nice yesterday... we all cooked some lunch and ate together and just chilled and chatted and hung out for a bit. Then I slept for a bit and got up to surf again in the afternoon!! I have to say that teh guys at the hostal are just the nicest people!! everyone is so laid back and relaxed!! nothing is a problem and everyone is welcome here!! It's funny cos Danni was saying today that it was like a family the way we all cooked some food and then ate together!! And Ivan is a very good cook so no-one was complaining that he was cooking for us!! Awww it's really nice here I dont wanna leave tomorrow!! :-( But I have to get to Miami so I must go!! But only after another day our at a different beach with all the guys for my last day! It's was sooo nice last night we all got some coconut ron and fanta (which is surprisingly nice) and had drinks together too!! I just feel so at home and relaxed here it's too good to be true sometimes!! I think Mel has the right idea!! He's staying here for a few months to surf!! But after surfing this morning and again this evening I think I'm hooked!! I managed to get caught on a rock and stratched the shit outta my leg to which I was quite proud of!! I found it very difficult today cos the tide was so strong I kept getting dragged down along the shore and it was hard work just to get out to the waves!! But I still managed to stand up for about 5 seconds anyway!!! So I headed back to shore and met a guy I'd been chatting to before (Wade) and he noticed the blood all over my shin and dripping down my leg! I was wondering what the stinging was but hadn't noticed I had cut myself!!! Woo hooo my first war wound!! hehehehee Well I've just had the most delicious dinner of BBQ fish and chips with Ricky, Andrea and Ivan so I'm pretty much stuffed now! I think I'll go find some people to mingle with for a while and then maybe go have a few drinks for my last night at the hostal!! heheheee then surf all day tomorrow before getting the bus to Guayaquil at about 5pm and then hope there is another one to take me to Quito overnight to catch my flight at 9.30am on the 13th!! ahh well if it works out then cool!!! But you know what I'll figure is out when the time comes!! as they say here "Why not" !!! no need to worry about it now!! hehehee ah I love it here!! Everywhere plays Bob Marley ALL the time!! I have all these chilled out songs in my head constantly!! hehehee well I best go chill out...probably update again when I'm in Miami!! take care everyone!! and Reeelaaaaaxxxxx hhahahaaaaa Date: Sunday the 15th, 11amWelcome to Miamiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!! heheheheee so Im in Miami at the moment but I still have to finish off the Ecuador story so here goes and I'll update the Miami page after!! WELL!!! What a day I had on my last day in Montanita!!! oh my God!! Well I was woken upat 6am by Ricky and the guys cos we were heading to a town about 30 minutes away on the bus so that we could surf these cool waves aparently!!! and not one to miss out on the fun I got up (still half asleep and got myself ready, grabbed a surf board and headed off with Ricky, Mel, Ivan, Sean, Danni, Luke and Fanny!!! Fanny (a french Canadian didnt surf so it was just me and all the guys!! heheheee) So we got there and had to trek down the side of the mountain to get to the shore!! and this was a very rocky shore!!! hmmmmmm I was starting to wonder if this was such a good idea... but then again I wasn't gonna give up and not even try!!! Even if it did mean I was gonna get mushed on the rocks by the giant waves!!! So I paddled out with Ricky and the guys and seing as I was a strong swimmer I was pretty much able to just hang out with them just before the waves break and watch how they paddled, caught the waves, stood up and surfed along!! All from right there a few feet away!! It was just amazing!!! I'd never seen surfing up that close before and I really learned a lot!!! I just need to be able to put it into practice now!! hehehee But it was amazing to see these huge waves from that perspective as well!! If you've never surfed or been out where these massive waves break!! oh my god it's hard to describe how beautiful and Powerful and scary and thrilling it is all at the same time!! it's such a rush!! You start to see how the Sea behaves too after a while...it's weird...cos I was saying to Ricky that I noticed a few smaller waves would come along and then two or three huge mother ****er's would come along and shit they were Big!!! and Scary!!! and he was like yeah Aisling....that's the SET!!! hellooooo!!! hehehee well I was only learning!! but now I know!! This is why surfers sit out in the Ocean in groups...they're waiting for a good set to come along!! And there was some Set out there that day!! These waves were HUGE!!! You could see them building in the distance as you sat there in the water...then they get closer and closer and started to break over to the right and everyone is shouting at me to paddle!!! paddle, paddle, PADDLE!!! cos if these waves hit you!!! They Really HIT you!!! So for themost part I managed to get over the waves before the white water hit me and it was like WOooo HHOooooo!!!! heheheeee Then you look back and see the wave from the back which I've never seen before and it's just amazing!! it's like this wall of water standing up out of the sea just curling in towards the shore!! and there's this spray that's swept off the top of the wave and when the sun shines it makes rainbow through it!! I've never seen anything like that in my life!! So all was well until I got a bit lazy and drifted into the point where the waves break...Baaaad idea!!! I looked around and there was this huge set breaking and about 5 foot high white water thundering towards me!! Holy Shit thats scary!!! But that was only the beginning!! It hadn't hit me yet!! So I desperately tried to take a deep breadth and duck myself and the board tied to my ankle under the wave just before it hit!! HA!!! talk about wishful thinking!! It came pounding down on me, sucked me under and just tumbled me around so hard and fast I thought I was inside a washing machine!!! I knew that I just had to go with it, let the board go and hope I could come up for air soon without being mushed against some rocks or struck by the surf board!! So after about 9 or 10 seconds of pummeling you can then swim for the surface again (if you can figure out which way it is) which I did manage to do!! Only to look around and see another Huge wave coming right for me again!!! AGAIN!!!! aww man!! So the same thing again I just had time to catch my breadth before I was put in teh washing machine again!! Only this time I had been dragged so far into shore I scratched all my feet on the rocks!! When I came up again I was far to close to the shore!! I looked around and saw all the guys way out from where I was, They were all shouting at me to Paddle!!! so I did!!! I paddled like there was no tomorrow... cos there wouldn't have been if I'd a stayed there and another set came along!! yeay! I finally made it back out to the guys again!! a bit shook up but kinda running on adrenaline too!! hehehee so after a while watching Ricky said that I could try to catch a wave further away from the break point in the white water. So i figured I'd give it a try! well why not!! So i paddled out away from the guys and tried to catch two or three waves!! But you know what the sea was just too powerful for me there!! It just caught me and flipped me off the baord and sucked me under and spun me about again!! So i decided I knew who was boss that day!! and headed back over to the guys! Then Danni, who hadn't brought a board swam out to me and I gladly gave him my board to give it a try and see if he could catch a wave!! It was weird being out there and not having a surf board tied to your ankle!! I felt a lot more a ease cos I could swim through the waves a lot easier that way!! So I hung out swimming for a while before I decided to risk it and swim back to shore!! I waited while a few big sets came in and then made a swim for it!!! heheheee I managed to get quite lucky and only got hit once or twice before getting to the shore. Then even when you get there the tide sucking you back out to sea is pretty strong too!! You have to grab onto the rocks so that you dont get sucked back in before the next wave hits!! Then I was out!!! Woooo Hoooo!!! I'm still alive!!! YYEEAAAYYYYYY heheheeee I climbed back over to the guys on the shore and hung out watch Luke, Sean, Ivan and Mel strutting their stuff!! Man they're good!! But what a rush!!! To be out there with those huge waves!! almost crushed on the rocks by them!! Just to give it a go!! I'll never forget it!! it was soo cool!! so when Danni was coming back in he got trashed on the rocks and ended up with blood dripping all down both legs and his elbow too!! Ivan got his leg sraped on the rocks too!! and I just thought, man I was lucky to get these little scratches I think!! hehehee what a day! Then we had to trek back up the mountain and made it to this house that had the most amazing views you have ever seen! Ricky knew the lady who lived there and she gave us a lift, surf boards 'n all, to the nearest town where we had the yummiest cakes for breakfast before hoping back on the bus back to Montanita! We got back about 2pm and so I had time to organise my things, have lunch with Danni and Fanny and take a shower before getting on the 3 hour bus back to Guayaquil! I said bye to all the guys and got on the bus!! Aaawwwww I'm gonan miss that place!! But then aparently the bus I got on didn't go to Guayaquil!! So I was put off in a town called Santa Eleina and told to run across the road where I could catch another bus to Guayaquil!! So I did that and Oh my god they are always in such a rush!!! They were shouting at me to Go GO GO Go!!! jeeze gimme a break!!! so they literally shoved me from behind up onto the bus, bags and all and I managed to get the last seat on the bus for the 2 hours to Guayaquil. Phew!!! I just got to the station at 9.05pm and luckily there was a bus to Quito at 9.15pm!! Nice one!! So I got a ticket and jumped on the next bus for another 8 hours to Quito! We got stopped twice by the Police who got everyone off the bus and searched us all and asked where we were going.. etc..etc.. I find that if you smile the whole time, even if you're tired and it's 2.30am they eventually have to smile back ....even if it's just a little smirk! hehehee it's funny when they try to be sooo serious and just can't! Well I made it to Quito with 3 hours to spare before my plane to Miami so I got a taxi to the airport anyway where I figured I'd get some breakfast! I went to try to check in my bags and the nice guy at the AA desk said that there was an earlier plane leaving in 30 minutes that I could transfer if I wanted!!! SURE!! Why not!! hehehee So I paid the bloody departure tax and got on the plane! Only after the closest searching I've ever had and having to take my boots off too!! I was like lady you really don't wanna put your hands in those boots after 4 days on the Inca trail!!! but there was no stopping her!!! heheheee ah well! I got the all clear and off we went to Miami!! heheheheee woo hoo I'm sad to see Ecuador finished but so glad to make ot to Miami!!! Well I have to go back to South America again and spend longer there!! It's just an amazing, beautiful place with so much to see and explore! I didn't get time to climb the volcano in Quito called Cotopaxi so I must go back there to do that!! But for now it's party time in Miami!!! So check it out!! And Ecuador... I have to say.....I'll be back!!! ;-) Here are the photos!! (Back to my Itinerary.) |
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