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  Loja, Ecuador
Monday, January 15, 2007

So we are still here and it is the 14th of January. I know we said we would ship to Panama on the 12th but that was before we were told that the boat was delayed by nine days! It has played havoc with what time we had left for Central America which was already very short because of two work trips I have to fit in. We've had to radically change our plans for Central America and we're really only going to have two excursions and the rest will be Sheila at Spanish school in Leon (Nicaragua) and Antigua (Guatemala) whilst I earn money, and the eating up of the miles to get us home, although we plan to do the latter a little more leisurely than we did coming down! The two "excursions" will be the Corcovada Peninsula in Costa Rica which will be for about five days and will be camping and hiking, and the second will be 10-12 days in Belize. We had a merry time trying to change our flights to Panama which we had booked on the Internet. We finally went to a Western Union office in Esmeralda who said that a local agent might do it; the local tour office could not but they sent Sheila off with a young man (even though we were doing no business with them) and he squired Sheila around for about an hour until successful and then very reluctantly accepted a tip for being so wonderful: a perfect example of how kind Latin Americans can be; cancels out the unkindness you experience from the traffic police, for example

Deserted black beach

!

When we learned of the boat delay we moved with Fin about four hours drive north up the coast to Mompiche. This is primarily a surfers hang-out and consists of the road in and a cross road along the beach with a few hostels and grungy eateries but exactly what you would expect a beach village should be: dusty streets with dusty chickens and dogs scratching about; waving coconut palms; fishermen mending their nets; gaggles of dirty but happy kids; and every late afternoon a pick-up soccer game right in the centre and you better keep your hand firmly on your beer bottle as the players are no respecters of the restaurant patrons - well shack patrons. Lots of muscular and tattooed dudes staring into the far distance looking very cool waiting for that magical wave; then they all stand up, and out to the "waves". The wave is a left-break and peels off a point and then over a reef - on which many soft bodies and boards scrape - and once it starts to break the same wave slowly makes its way in a perfect curve all the way to the beach. Fin caught waves which he rode for over 400m; gave him as much surfing on one wave as he was getting in a whole session at Canoa. Of course if there are thirty surfers waiting their turn some arguments arise over who is dropping in on whom; I realised that if you are a pretty girl you definitely have the upper hand as being sworn at by a girl means you cannot punch her and you also look a little foolish as everyone immediately takes her side

Dusty Monpiche

. Watching Fin surf is usually an exercise in futility as if you blink you have missed his best wave of the day; but here, although the surf was not big, you knew when he was going to catch it and then watched his every move as dutiful parents should; we could then discuss the intricacies of each swoop and swerve and whether he was holding his arms in the correct stance and whether he was making spray etc.

We really enjoyed our five days in Mompiche and got into a steady routine of providing breakfast and dinner for Fin and kicking back on the beach with our beers watching the sun go down. Town simply runs into the fisherman's boats and nets and then into the sea; the bay is beautiful and you can walk for miles if you have the will to take the heat and humidity. We camped in the grounds of a posh hostel well away from any noise so were able to sleep without ear plugs and the throbbing of big base speakers. We were sad to leave and I think Fin will stay there for a long time as unlike Canoa there are no gigolos making life difficult for single male travelers.

From Mompiche we drove back to Canoa to pick up the boxes we had stored at the Bambu (since our car is packed to the roof we can't fit anything or anyone extra without storing four of our boxes and doing a circular trip to retrieve them!); then to Bahia to spend the night with friends we had made at Canoa - Paul and Maria who live in Barcelona but have an apartment near Bahia

Everyone in on the kill

. They are typical of many couples we have met on this trip: no permanent job and no family ties and move often but no security either; a completely different way of living; has its pluses and minuses. And then, via a night in Naranjal, to Loja in the south of Ecuador which we missed on our first visit. In Naranjal we stayed at the Three Brothers' hostel which should have been called the three brothers grim(m)! I am sure they never got any repeat customers.

We just had the one night in Loja which although it is a lovely town with the typical narrow bustly streets it has already been completely rebuilt twice due to devastating earthquakes so has no old colonial architecture to see. We stayed in possibly the best hostel for its price we have stayed in anywhere, Hostal Londres, in the centre of town. Since Sheila was looking very shaggy we had a trip to the hairdresser and although the young girl who cut it was very grumpy she did a good job...but with each cut it's definitely becoming shorter and shorter! From Loja we turned south and dropped 500m very quickly to Vilcabamba sharing the road with hundreds of hurtling young local cyclists riding all over the road on defective bikes with no helmets; what were their parents thinking - or not?

Vilcabamba, where I sit writing this blog, is as laid back as it is possible to get without being comatose

NO I do not want to be washed

. It has that unique 1,500m climate that coffee and people love - never cold but never hot; how can only 1,500m altitude right on the equator be so perfect? We went to the end of a terrible little dirt road hoping for camping but settled instead for a "rustic" cabin up on the hillside surrounded by an unkempt garden, coffee bushes, citrus, guava and bananas; just the sounds of birds and farm animals and a rushing river in the valley below. So relaxing that we are staying three days; even though rustic cabin means just about to slide down the hill with none of the knives or pans with handles, gaping holes in the roof etc. The expatriates that own the place are again typical: great idea when you are in your early twenties and traveling with a romantic outlook; twenty years on you have a place that cannot in your best year give you more than about $15,000 of income which is not nearly enough for the capital improvements needed to gear yourself up to better paying guests. As one of our other hostel owners said "a prisoner in paradise". But we had a wonderful hike up the valley into the nearby national park; nearly killed ourselves as we have done very little for so long and are thoroughly out of shape; this eternal moving on leaves you little time or volition for that regular exercise routine.

So please keep your fingers crossed for our boat to be in Manta when she should be; that we get our car onto the boat; and that the car is safely in Panama when we get there; and that everything that should be in the car is still in the car!

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Those perfect waves

Ultimate surfer dude

View of Vilcabamba

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