Learning the salsa and avoiding the urine!

Trip Start Oct 10, 2006
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Trip End Oct 10, 2007


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Friday, November 10, 2006

We arrive at Atacames just after dusk and they have a power cut, after finding a few places are full or far too expensive a friendly local couple help us out. They find us a place for a reasonable price and we dump our stuff. The room is small, basic and the only window has a very desirable view into the sandal shop from the back wall. A thin window and a curtain is all that seperates us from a noisy TV going all hours of the day and night and sandal shoppers examining the products lined up on railings across the window. We head towards the beach and can see by the moonlight that the waves are non existent. After picking up a beer at one of the many rowdy bars along the front, we wonder if it is always this busy, literally every place is rammed with punters and kicking out loud dance music. We bump into the friendly couple who helped us out and I exchange shouts with the guy, David, about our trip and Atacames. I soon find out that we have arrived on a public holiday and those who can afford it have flooded to the coast to party! It explains a lot.

We spend that night talking to locals, learning a bit of salsa and sampling the food from street stalls, chicken on a stick is delicious. The rest of our time in Atacames is pretty uneventful, no surf and cant afford to party every night, so I spend time on the beach, reading and practising Spanish. One amusing episode was on our last night there, I was walking down the main street to get some water and a suddenly have to do a side-step that Welsh legend Jonathon Davies would have been proud of to avoid a thin stream of urine shooting in my direction. After my nimble move I turn to see a kid of about 7 years finish relieving himself with a grin on his face to match the laughs from a group of old women sat close by. I presume one of them was his mum, she must have been very proud as he certainly got a good height and distance for one so young!
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