Hotel Washington Manta

... to illustrate rather than writing a thousand words. After an excellent sea food dinner it was off to bed at 10 p.m. again (living the dream).<br><br>The next day was spent wandering around town and beach and finding our Spanish school. Chief was none too impressed to hear we have a 0745 start on Monday. This will involve Quadruple Spanish followed by games and then further quadruple Spanish. Before you start feeling too sorry for us, "games" will be surfing on a ...

... Two guys jumped out of their pickup truck and were intent on asking us all the questions about where we were from and stuff and we said, hey sorry we dont have time to talk we have to find someone to fix this tire before its out of air. And they jumped back into the truck, saying "follow us" and they negotiated through the streets of Manta and brought us to a tire repair place but they couldnt get the tire off - so the two guys ...

sooo, i had all of these plans to stay in montañita for one day and do some more exploring. on my third morning, the sun has come out and i don´t want to leave.<br><br>but, i am flying out of quito in the morning for peru, so no choice :(<br><br>although last night was a fun way to end my time here. we went out to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and while at dinner, we could hear music. after dinner we walked over, and listened to this guy and ...

... hours of every weekday. We work from eight to about noon, sometimes a bit later. The afternoons are left to activities. The first activity most people partake in is often almuerzo, lunch. There are a plethora of restaurants around town that offer an almuerzo, which is a set lunch that redefines the meaning of value meal. These consist of a soup, a main course consisting of rice, salad and a meat of choice, in Bahia the seafood is king, and a juice ...

... of Bahia. The areas was once a bustling neighborhood, but got washed down the side of the mountain during the rains of el niño. There are still the reminents of foundations of buildings. The site is about a ten min walk from the headquarters. To do what we did today requires one tool, the machette, the tool of the jungle. Quite a sureal sight it was with 15 gringos walking through the streets of Bahia, early thursday morning, all branishing ...

Tuesday 20th January - Day 7 - Manta Ecuador We awoke this AM to find that we were docked in Manta, Ecuador alongside a Holland America cruise ship, the 'Statendam'. The mood around the ship was very somber, people seemed to be taking the Captains message very seriously and this was reinforced once again in the dining room where we had a repeat of what we had experienced the previous evening with the milk ...

... We bought cheap bottles $5 of San Miguel gold and $1-$2 coke and mixed it and snuck it into the club instead paying for the $2-$3 drinks so it saved us lots of money.  We stayed with Stacey and Liang the entire weekend.  Liang had to leave Sunday because he had work on Monday while Stacey left with us at 5am back to Quayaquil. At 5am, we boarded the bus from Montanita to Quayaquil to head to the bathroom of Ecuador...Banos...where the excitement really begins...and ends.

... to realize it wasn`t what we were looking for and said she could make us omelets for $1.25. She sent her son to the store to buy some eggs. He came running back and she got to cooking. We had omelets with some patacones (fried plantains). We asked if they had some ketchup and mayo to go with it and she said yes and then I noticed her son running out to the store again...she told us yes but really just sent him out to buy it! They were very nice. However ...

... sat on my shoulders.... "Now that's perm-a-culture". (She didn't get it either). So for the next 5 weeks, off she'd go, taking courses in how to plat her underarm hair, and power a small city with human waste; scraping the bowl as not to squander a drop. Can you imagine the love you'd find in a place like this? They'd all be opening the doors for you and laughing along as they share stories about the consistency of their poo. Smiles would abound, and I imagine a camp fire would be ...

Another week has passed...finished my spanish classes in Manta....its actually quite incredible how much spanish I have learned in just 3 weeks....probably as much as in last 3 years together....was a bit difficult to switch to another school this week, different teaching style, materials...also the accent is different here than in Quito....but it worked out well at the end and hope to learn a bit more inext week in ...