Montanita

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  Montanita, Ecuador
Thursday, May 1, 2008

The smell of salt in the air and sand between the toes...we were itching for some beach time so we set a course for the coast of Ecuador and a small town called Montanita. An unfortunate detour on the way was Ecuadorīs largest city, Guayaquil, which is perhaps ready to qualify for world`s worst 20 cities to spend the night. We agreed that the Hotel California failed to live up to expectation and is probably the dodgiest hotel we have ever stayed in. We managed to see off the afternoon drinking beers in one of the nicer parts of town, which has been restored into a colourful arrangement of funky houses and cobbled streets. We got up at 4am the next morning to head to the coast. Phew!

Montanita fits maybe somewhere between Bali and Byron Bay. Dirt roads lined with bars and restaurants all trying to play their crap Spanish discoteque louder than the other, hippies selling jewellery, fake tattoos, parties till 7am, surfer boys and beach babes, street vendors making seafood cerviche - thereīs so much going on and people from all walks of life, itīs hard to know exactly where we fit in

Montanita Main Street

. For all that, Montanita is a really cool place to hang out and so thatīs what weīve been doing for the past seven days.

We decided to stay at Montanita Point, about a kilometre walk up the beach from town, which allowed us to avoid the craziness of town when we chose to. Our bamboo bungalow is right on the beach in front of Montanita Point - with a hammock out on the front porch and a bill of $20 per night, who can complain. Montanita Point is a right hand point break and the pick surf spot in the area (and the whole of Ecuador). There is also a nice left hand beachbreak in front of our bungalow. PT rented a decent board and spent as much time as possible surfing, while Leesh used that time to take rights over the hammock.

We made a few Canadian friends here and we all piled into the back of a truck one day to head up the coast. Itīs quite beautiful with the forest running right down to the beach in many places. At the town of La Entrada we spent a few hours surfing, playing frisbee with the local kids and helping the fisherman bring their boats up the beach - no winches here, just two logs to roll the boat hull over.

Ecuador had a four day long weekend holiday to celebrate we dont know what but by Thursday lunchtime the town was packed and we were asking people to please stop lying in our hammock and on our porch. On Friday we took a bus north to hang out at Piquero near Rio Chico, a really cool and pretty place to laze about without the crowds.

After a fun week of fun, sun and surf and with the weekend crowd getting bigger at Montanita, we decided that it was time to say farewell to Montanita and Ecuador, to start the trek to Peru. The 5am bus drove past streams of party people still yet to make it home and by lunchtime we were on a bus to the Ecuador-Peru border and the border crossing frequently described as the worst in South America.

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Montanita Sunset	Our Bungalow	Paul Playing Frisbee With The Kids At La Entrada	Piquero Near Rio Chico

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