NEWS # 015
Hi everyone!
The next few days are spent surfing, doing Spanish, eating, drinking and
sleeping. The rain becomes more regular and the surf more inconsistent, though
I still have a few good surfs. I meet more crazy people, Felipe and Rafael
from Chile, Doug from Oregon (who surfs amazingly!), Mark from Hawaii (lucky
sod!), Maria and Penny from Denmark and three girls from the Quito area who
are on holiday from university. These people together with myself, Susanna,
Nick and Chris make a motley crew and a fine time is had by all.
One day
the surf is much larger and one of the guys gets bounced off the bottom
resulting in some stitches. Luckily one of the surfers is a doctor and does
this on the spot. I offer to carry his board back and whilst doing so meet
up with a very nice girl from Lima. We meet up the next night for a drink and
I shall be going to see her whilst in Peru.
Over the next few days the Newquay crew come back from Ayampe and leave for
Panama, Doug and Mark go to and return from Ayampe, Rafael comes back from
Las Tunas and I take life easy!!
Doug, Mark and myself do the Puerto Lopez trip again, though the satellite
internet linkup is rather bad and we leave in disgust. We hitch two rides
back as far as Ayampe and catch the bus from the same place where I had
caught it before, a good thing really as the rain pours down on the way
home.
The rain seems to be getting to everyone and this coupled with the lack of
surf and some Montanita twostep all round makes us all hungry for a change of
scenery.
the crew, just before we went our separate ways
Felipe heads off towards MomPiche in the north, supposedly one of the best
lefts in South America, when it's on. Rafael goes home to Santiago, Chile,
in search of some real surf. Doug, Mark and the Quito girls go to Guayaquil,
with the boyz heading south to Mancora in Peru. Maria is rather worse than
the rest of us and goes home to Denmark with Penny heading for Central
America. Susanna, Nick and Chris stay in Montanita but will all be leaving
in a few days to Mancora, Cuenca or MomPiche.
At 5.00am on Monday the 1st April, I wave goodbye to Montanita and get on
the bus to Guayaquil with my friend Rafael. He is flying to Chile from there
and I will get the bus to Quito.
As we get on the bus he asks me for some toilet paper, which rather worries
me as there is no toilet on the bus!! He then explains that on the way to
the bus stop, he stepped on a huge mudbath and nearly lost his sandal in the
process. On looking down I notice that one of his legs resembles that of an
elephant! Helpless laughter from the pair of us.
We get to Guayaquil after four hours and say our goodbyes. I then race for
the Quito bus (run by Transportes Ecuador) which is excellent air-conditioned
luxury and eventually gets me to Quito at 6.00pm, thirteen hours after I
started. After a quick taxi ride I check into the Nassau Hostel (7 dollars a
night and very nice people) for a couple of nights. I crash out and sleep
well.
The next day, I do some outstanding mail and arrange some Spanish lessons.
Don't do much else but have some good food and relax.
This morning, Wednesday, I'm up early for breakfast, move back to the Hostal
Amazonas and go to Spanish classes for four hours which is lots of fun. Then
I do lots of mail and have a Chinese meal which seems expensive at two
dollars!
Seeya,
Halesy
