Canine Delicacy

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  Esmeraldas, Ecuador
Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Iīm in a bit of a foul mood since the dog just decided to eat my sandals. They were cheap two dollar target sandals, but they were comfy and I liked them...and they were blue. Never in my life have I actually disliked an animal, but Iīd like to just smack this one...I said `like toī, I wouldnīt actually hit the dog. It bites, it jumps up on you, jumps on the bed, barks, hassles the cat... Iīm in a house full of animals that I wonīt go near because oneīs a monster and the other one has already torn me a few new ones (the cat). On the up side, I was just pissy enough to disregard the constant warnings of not leaving the house unescorted. For the first time I got to wander up and down some of the streets nearby, popped into a few tiendas...found a new pair of sandals. I like that itīs never quiet here, people always bustling about. And Iīve
pretty much got the hang of jaywalking without pausing or even looking either way for cars or buses. People weave in and out of traffic, in front and behind cars and buses, and no one seems to pay any mind to the large metalic objects speeding towards them. Anyhow, I think Iīm now done mourning the loss of my blue sandals.
I got so caught up in the football game Friday that I forgot to mention this weekend. My Tio decided we should all go to Atacames for the weekend. Naturally, itīs more fun with more people because that means someone has to ride in the back of the truck. Tough break, but somebodyīs gotta do it. The scenery is by far better speeding through hills of dense trees, shamble towns and the occasion herd of donkeys. Atacames is the typical vacation spot for the family during holidays or carnaval, and we stayed at their usual hotel, Playa Hermosa. Cute cabanas surrounding one of those pools with the bar that you can swim up to, genious whoever came up with that one. We got there Saturday morning and Dianna and I spent the rest of the day lying on the beach drinking `batidos de cocoī(basically a coconut smoothie...but made fresh from real coconuts).
And for the third time, the same guy has found me and tried to sell me this agua de coco, aparently a very strong bronzer. As if my Norweigen skin needs any help getting color, but I give him credit for persistence. Before my skin even sees daylight out here Iīve got about three layers of sunscreen plastered on. It was sunny but windy, which I thought would work out nice in keeping us cool, instead it turned the beach into sort of a saharan desert with the wind sweeping the sand into those inticate swirl designs. I exagerate, it really wasnīt bad except for the fact that the sand in Esmeraldas is so soft and finely ground, that it sticks to everything like glue. Still trying to shake the sand out of my bra...but itīs so worth it.
That night we strolled down the `maleconī for some eats. Atacamas is warm, sunny, and fairly relaxing (during the weekdays...and the weekends if you donīt mind all the children running around screaming) during the day, but at night is when it livens up, especially on weekends.
On one side of the malecon (basically the main drag) are the shops, hotel entrances (theyīve got a nifty little system where thereīs only a small door to a hallway that leads farther back to the main complex of the hotels), and tiendas. The beach side is then packed full of cananas, only separated by about five feet, trying to outblast the next. The food vendors come out at night in droves and the smells are delicious. Brianna was begging for corn on the cob, grilled as you stand there and with shredded cheese on top. Now I love cheese, a pure midwestern in that, but here they combine cheese with everything. In chunks from a block, with this sweet spread on top, with marmalades, on corn, fried in plantain... Naturally, once the corn was done she decided she didnīt want it anymore. It wasnīt bad, but the corn down here is a far cry from
our Minnesota sweet corn. My tio gave it to a little poor kid that walked by, so at least it didnīt go to waste.
Eventually we made it to the pizza place Dianna said had the best shrimp pizza, and they do. We snagged the bar-style seating the faces the outside of the pizza place (one floor up) which gave us a perfect view of the malecon as we munched on shrimp pizza and cheap beer. The street is a one-way, and jammed full of pedestrians, yet cars still manage to honk their way through along with the tri-cycles that ferry people in little carts from one part of the town to the other. It happened to be the time of year where all the secondary (middle/high school) kids finish their exams, and are all here to party. Droves of girls in clubbing outfits (more appropriate here given the heat) and boys trying to look cool scramble from one cabana to the next, then make their way to the diskoteca Scala. The cabana in front of us was packed full thanks to itīs upstairs dance floor and superior speakers. It was a good mix of american rap remixes and latin techno, and they even had a DJ shouting out to all the cities. With all the noise and music thereīs only so much you can hear, but then I see a bunch of girls climb up onto
the bar and start dancing, and my Tio explains that the DJ is offering a beer/pint/something to the best dancer. So for the next half hour we got to watch as the best girls got eliminated and literally the worst dance won because she had the loudest possy of screaming girlfriends. The dancing is a bit raunchier than I remember, but thatīs no doubt thanks to American influences.
Sunday morning my uncles and I headed for a drive down the coast. Sua is the next town down, and you can easily walk there along the beach from Atacames on low tide. Not nearly as exciting as Atacames, but far more quiet and relaxing. Same has the worst stretch of beach but itīs full of wealthy Ecuadorianīs vacation homes, stark white and tiered up the hillside. But theyīve got a hotel and a couple of golf courses if youīre looking for a country club setting. Passing few more towns, we eventually reached Mompiche. Elias has a friend that owns a sort of eco-resort there. And after a head-knocking ride through a dirt road we got to Pabloīs little beach resort, Hosteria Gabeal. Gabeal represents his three daughterīs names; Gabriel, Belen & Alejandra...actually the first three, he now has five...five daughters. Poor guy. The place is absolutely gorgeous though. Lots of low impact cabanas, one is even located in the mangrove forest in back. Mangroves are important as a habitat and for maintaining the coastline, as well as providing jobs and shelter, but since the 80īs commercial shrimp farmers have decimated the forests. Hosterias like Gabeal are one of the ways theyīre now being preserved. And for the next history lesson...okay, okay, back to the beach. Mompiche has beach for about as far as the eye can see, and even better, itīs a surfer beach. Montaņita is a ways farther south and far more well known for itīs waves, but Mompiche is how everyone always remembers those little surf towns before the hotels got there. Right next door to Gabeal, literally beach front property is absolutely nothing, completely undeveloped. And not only does Mompiche have surfer waves, because of how flat the beach is, you can walk a football field out into the water and the surf will toss you right back onto shore instead of sucking you out to sea. It was even
more startling when I walked back up the beach and thousands of little red crabs scattered across the sands. Iīd never seen so many. Aparently Atacames used to be just like that, but with all the people theyīve long since dissapeared there. Sad to think that within a few decades it will probably be the same in Mompiche. Still itīs nice to have been able to see it as it is now.
Sunday night we packed up and headed back. And for the first time ever, they let me ride in back of the camuneta at night. I want to say this is thanks to me being an adult now, but itīs probably more due to my mum not being there. I do get that itīs not the safest to ride around at night in the cities where someone could drag you off at a stoplight, but we were driving through the countryside mostly. Being Minnesotan, the air was plenty warm even at night, and there was no moon to see by, only the passing carīs headlights. The towns are lit up and there are just as many people passing by. Itīs not so much the views that you get from the back of a camuneta, but how itīs viewed. Even sitting in the front of a car, all you get to see is whatīs through the window, out in the open itīs a pure panoramic vista. Tomorrow I leave for Quito and hopefully figure out where Iīm headed next. Oh yes, and did I mention that the US lost 3-0 in the World Cup?

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