Crossing the Line

Arriving in Quito was reminiscent of an arrival at a water abundant town after a spell in the desert. The nightbus journey from hell had been just that and my decision not to take a jumper or any valium on the bus was almost instantly regretted. Every moment of every minute on the 8 hour journey was duly experienced and arriving at 5am in a dark and deserted Quito was tough. However, after finding a room in a splurgesque hotel called the Magic Bean we crashed immediately. We awoke to discover the delights of our hostel and the surrounding area, reacting like delighted children: the room we had was more of an apartment with a sofa, furnished private kitchen, fast wireless internet and massive comfy bed; the surrounding area a myridic mix of trendy bars and restaurants in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes. We ventured out to buy some dvds, food and wine, and holed ourselves in our luxurious pad for the rest of the day.

The next day was not quite so wonderful when we went to check for possible revised dates that Emily could change her flights to, to discover that one flight was to be discontinued a week after she was scheduled to fly to Italy. This potentially meant that there was a possibilty that Emily would have to leave in four days to catch her flight, and that we would have to spend three months apart. Both in a state of shock at this possibility spent an evening looking timid and nervous. Fortunately, the next day we were told that there must have been some problem on the website and that she could change them. Utter relief. Emily and I would therefore be able to travel Central America together before both returning to Blighty for Christmas. We spent the remainder of day exploring the old colonial capital of Quito, which was not as enjoyable as hoped due to the altitute sickness that had set in.

On our final day in Quito, we caught a local bus to the monument on the Equator, clad with cameras, tripods and enthusiasm for some silly photos of us jumping from the Southern to Northern hemisphere. We returned to find half of Quito powerless, so popped off for a candlelit dinner before bumping into an old friend from Montañita and Canoa. Obviously this had to be celebrated by getting blind drunk, which, I can tell you, is extremely advisable before catching a long distance bus the next morning. Unsurprisingly a painful 7 hour journey to the Columbian border followed, which, complemented by a terrible night in a truly shitty hostel, left us desperate to get over the border to Columbia and adventures anew.

Emily

In recent posts many of the usual "I..." comments have been posted in the form of "we...", and the very essence of my travel has evidently changed to a different one from that of before. In fact travelling seems so different now that travelling doesn't seem so much like the travelling I knew before. So why write about Emily now? Well in truth, in my mind she has become virtually synonomous with the time in Canoa and many of the very best moments are specifically Emily related. Before, we were pretty much unsure about what was going to happen and how right for each other we actually were, but of late things have gotten more serious, and since we're likely to be together for a while to come it is something more than significant enough to deserve an explanation on the blog. But these thoughts will mostly be set out later in a post that kind of falls in between a profile and the usual rundown of travel events. But first; the vital statistics:

Name: Emily Elizabeth Hale
Birthplace: Austin, Texas
Age: 24
Hair: Brown (also visible in picture)
Eyes: Blue (speckly)
Status: My girlfriend
Occupation: Largely unknown; potentially Hobo.
Met: On the road to Machu Picchu - it was "romance on the ruins"
Time together to date: 1 Month 1 Week
Likes: The worlds tallest people; Geese; the Sun; Arrested Development; talking in German; Piggytails; Earth colours; Mexican food; getting on random buses; new music; Qechuan; Avocados; returning through recently locked doors; moisturizer; various local cats and dogs.
Dislikes: Bicycles; Heights; being tickled; me scaring her everywhere; sugary juices; hawkers; shoes; stereotypical Texans; being cold (which is often).



So onto the story in hand. We left Montañita on a local bus bound for Manta, with hopes to arrive early and go straight to Canoa. Unfortunately we appeared to have climbed aboard the slowest bus in the whole wide world, soon to be discovered to be bound for the most depressing, drab and dull coastal city in the whole wide world. We checked into the most depressing, drab and dull hotel we could find and settled down for an utterly exciting night in. Morning came and we shot for the bus station like a rabid rabbit thirsty hound from the proverbial gates, in search for a Canoa bound bus. We found one with haste and we soon bumping down the bumpiest road in the whole wide world before arriving in Canoa.

Canoa was powerless to our charms. Well actually it was just plain old powerless after a pack of locals had stolen the powerlines for the copper. The place was full of deserted beach stands and there was almost nobody about. We checked into a stupidly cheap hostel (£1.50 a night each) and went off to explore the town. Before long we had gravitated to the Gringo owned, and populated, hangout which was to be both our daytime and fiesta hotspot, and were soon surrounded by a great bunch of people. After an early night the first night, we hit the beach the next day for a spot of book reading and sunbathing in the hot equatorial sun. Unsurprisingly I reddened in a matter of minutes and retreated to the shade to read my book and drink a cold beer. With little to actually do in Canoa (especially considering my inability to surf due to my sore rib) the days were spent chilling or recovering from the previous night's whoring from happy hour to happy hour in the local beachfront bars before finishing the night off at the Surf Shack.

It was at this point that the most romantic story of our, and possibly all, time occurred. One heavy evening at the Surf Shack Emily, myself, Lee (from Australia) and Justin (from NZ) were ploughing our way through an adult sized portion of Jagermeisters, cocktails and beers. Justin, myself and Pete, the owner of the Surfshack went into ultra competitive mode betting who could play the Nintendo Wii the best, and who could slap the other's belly the hardest. Emily and I drunkenly decided to go for a moonlight walk on the beach and stopped at an empty beach hut. At this point after somehow emmersing ourselves in sand, losing one ring, one pair of flipflops, my jumper and the room key (to be recovered later) we decided that this was the perfect moment to exchange 'I Love You's. We returned to the bar, announced it to everybody (who in their highly inebriated states were nothing short of extatic) and staggered back to our room.

In an extra special 'morning after the night before' debriefing (after retriving some of our lost items), we both agreed that we had totally meant what we said and that it felt natural. Things were beginning to become serious and any remaining doubt on whether we would continue together during and after travelling diminished. The rest of the Latin American Adventure would continue to be described in plural terms rather than the singular one I had had before and continued to expect.

We spent a couple more days doing very little in Canoa, including me being able to go out surfing now that my rib was better, before leaving on a dreadful night bus to Quito. The time for beaches had ended and the cities perched on the spine of the Andes once again beckoned.

Image: The Route So Far...

Surfing Swell

After another long and tedious night bus journey - I'm starting to think that after so many terrible night buses that it might just be better to go through the day when possible - we crossed the border into Ecuador and arrived in Guayaquil at Silly O'clock in the morning. Rather than wasting a day of potentially good weather we jumped straight onto the coastal bus to Montañita, a reputed haven for partying, sunning and waves big enough for surfing.

Finding accommodation was like the proverbial tale of 'Goldilocks and the three bears', with our first hostel being out in the middle of nowhere and run by a strange man who hardly made us want to spend any more time than necessary. We left the very next day to a place that didn't have holes in the roof. In fact the second place that we moved into was on the other end of the scale. Consisting of a pretty room with a sea view and a hammock outside it, it seemed idyllic. However that night we realised our mistake of staying on the main street: Emily was sick that night and we attempted to go to sleep early. This was not exactly possible due to the bars bellow playing their music so loud that it shook our whole room until 2am. The search continued. Finally we tried a place which had, at first impression, seemed too expensive, however after haggling our socks off we got it down to £7 a night for the room. The place was brilliant! Our room had wonderful sea views, a jacuzzi that we never ended up using and hot showers. This is where we would stay for the next eleven days.

Montañita held two specific attractions for Emily and myself: Em being a suntan tootin' Texan (although at this point I have to mention that she is actually an Austin girl and not a stereotypical redneck) was very keen to spend some time lying on the beach, while I was more interested in the massive waves that crashed in at high tide. The problem was that after learning in South Africa and getting reasonably good, I seemed to have forgotten by the time I got the chance to try again. This was confirmed when I grabbed a board, went out onto the waves and could barely catch one. It was time to go back to basics.

The very next day I was out on the board with a rather lacklustre instructor and a hellbent determination to have myself surfing again. The instructor kindly changed the stance that I was used to, bringing what little knowledge I did have down to 'scratch' again. Consequently for that reason, and the fact that my big toenail was virtually hanging off after snake hunting in small boots in Bolivia (a sight which has made many a person shudder to my own personal amusement), the lesson was an overall failure. I did get some fundamental principles under my belt but actually surfing would require many more hours practice. In spite of fatigue, I was out on the water the very next morning with a board, and a big toe clad in gaffa (duct) tape, ready to dominate some waves. In spite of regular failures I managed to catch a couple of waves and returned pleased. The following day would prove to be a much larger test when the pacific swell was rumoured to be bringing in 10ft waves. The 10ft predictions turned out to be a vast understatement and I stood on the beach, board in hand, timidly watching 15ft waves smash down onto the shore. This was well beyond my capacity as a budding surfer and in all honesty I was more than reserved about going out. A couple of fellow surfers in their learning stages trotted past (surfers appear to trot without it looking too mince-esque) and invited me to stick with them for safety. That was that; I was convinced to go out there and make those thundering tubes my bitch! We found somewhere to the left of the channel that was a little more forgiving and paddled out. It would be incorrect for me to say that I managed anything more than a meagre crouch on the board that day, and at one point I found myself riding on top of a tube before the front collapsed, taking me down with it. The dumped wave threw me around for what seemed like an eternity before launching my board into my shoulder, leaving my to paddle limply to the shore to thow up a litre or so of salt water and take a well deserved rest. It had been a dogged fight, but after three hours the ocean had beaten me; temporarily.

In the following days I continued to go out before some young local surf scamp launched his board into my ribs hard enough to keep me out of the water in Montañita, but definitely not for good. Fortunately the town that we were both so apprehensive to leave offered so much more than great waves: there were people, parties and amazing food to fill our idle hours. In spite of only having two real clubs (and that's pretty debateable) the party scene was relentless and the routine of eating well, chilling at someone's hostel drinking local spirits, and then sitting outside the cocktail stands run by the local surf boys until 'Silly AM' became quickly adopted. It also seemed that Montañita was a place that the young gap year students skipped, leaving the mid-to-late twenties travellers to enjoy great company and conversation.

In our two week stay there two groups of friends had come and gone, and after stretching out our time as long as possible. It was time to say our goodbyes to the friendly, accommodating locals and carry on up the coast. Our next destination was Canoa which hopefully promised more of the same in a much more relaxed environment.

In Search Of Sunshine - Part 2

Mancora, frequently recommended as the sunshine haven of Peru, and described by an anonymous author in my lonely planet as 'Paradise', seemed upon first impressions to be a little desolate. Admittedly there was a rather pretty beach, and the sun was already beginning to shine, however, the rather quiet down appeared to be quite heavily populated without actually having anything to do.

We checked into a slightly pricey hotel consisting of hammock fronted cabins surrounding an enticing looking pool and overlooking the beach. After three days on night buses we collapsed to recover some of the lost sleep from 3 night buses in 4 days. When we awoke the sun was shining and the Pacific Ocean, that could be seen from our cabin, was a stilled deep blue. The next day we would be celebrating Emily's 24th birthday, and if our first impressions were to be correct then this would be a cool place to spend it. After jumping in the pool and going for a wander on the beach we went in search for food, to be presented with a large selection of stalls selling various seafood dishes. There were well over 20 restaurants with exactly the same menus and after much deliberation we picked one of the mirror image stalls because it had a picture of a happy looking lobster next to its name. Emily returned to the beach while I disappeared to explore the town and seek some birthday provisions and a present from the poor selection of shops. Emily returned burnt and feeling unwell and we settled for an early night.

The next day was spent indulging ourselves (meaning eating as it had become quickly obvious that there was nothing at all to do in Mancora) as a birthday treat and the evening was passed at The Point, Mancora's one and only party hostel, drinking cocktails, smoking weed and wondering why the rest of the hostel's population were coked off their eyeballs. The following morning was spent tending to hangovers, hoping for more sun (which had decided to hide) and looking for other beaches to try. While looking through my lonely planet we spotted another beach resort circled, this time in Ecuador. We packed our bags and headed off to find a bus to Montanita, which would hopefully endear itself to us more than Mancora.

In Search of Sunshine - Part 1

Firstly yes, may I acknowledge and apologise for the recently reduced blog frequency before my last post. This will now be dragged back from famine to feast frequency and stories anew will flow once more. Since Cusco, the primary target of a warm beach with sunshine has resulted in a manic dash north to reach a beach. This may seem a little odd that we had a desperate need to skip a large portion of Peru in search for a beach but it's time to dispel a plausible illusion: I've been pretty much solidly cold for fucking months now. Buenos Aires hit zero on a regular basis; the frozen south did what it said on the tin; Northern Argentina and Rurrenbaque provided brief warming respites, but the rest of the time working through Northern Chile, Bolivia and Southern Peru have been spent at altitudes of between 2500 and 4200 meters above sea level. For those who were too busy writing on their pencil cases or trying to stifle rogue erections in GCSE science, the higher you are the colder it is. Hence, when travelling the 'West Side' route of South America, you're almost constantly moving along the spine of the Andes. So, the search for sunshine became one of code red priority and plans were put into action.

The route to sun...

1. Lima, the capital city of Peru, and my jumbled namesake, is a large dark bustling city comprised of two main areas: Miraflores, the expensive, rich and pretty area, and El Centro: the cheaper area where the people stare and the shadows seem to loom everywhere menacingly. Naturally we went for the cheaper option and made sure that any evening deployments for food were done in taxis. In the evening Emily and I went to eat in a nunnery, which sold steak (holy steak I would presume) which could be eaten while the french speaking Peruvian nuns sake Ave Maria to us. Naturally after such a sacred experience we went out to get sozzled. We did so with efficiency and awoke to a day awaiting our next bus with impressive hangovers. Stage 1 mission: Accomplished

2. Trujillo, after an amazing nightbus journey, was to be the cultural stop on our route North. Home to the pre-Columbian (I'm not really sure what that means) city Chan Chan which once ruled the society of local fishermen for miles afar. Trujillo itself was confusing and busy, and finding a bus to Chan Chan proved time consuming (yet still much cheaper than paying five times the price for an excursion). After being dropped by the bus in the middle of nowhere, we walked 3km to the Chan Chan ruins to find the ancient mud/sand city wonderfully preserved. In fact the preservation wasn't at all preservation but reconstruction, from scratch, and the whole place, in spite of its historical significance was a rather farcical attempt to recreate a seaside Machu Pichu. We fled to a small fishing village, destroying two bottles of wine as effectively as the years of pacific wind and rain would have destroyed an abandoned Chan Chan. The next leg of our journey would hopefully be our last for a short while, as it would be to Mancora, the reputed sun, sea, sand and surf spot of Peru. Finally, after months of cold, would tomorrow be the the start of sunshine?