I apologise for the delay… internet access was quite expensive in the remote beachside village of Montanita. The little village is filled with crazy party’s, hot sun, full nude beaches, where the beer flows like wine… except during voting week in Ecuador. (This town was like Quincy on a slow weekday) In order to vote, for one of the hundreds of candidates in your province in Ecuador, you must embark on a journey to the largest city for a four day voting spree. Montanita was empty… but the surf looked nice… and food looked good.
We found some familiar faces: a group that we met In Cuerca while getting maps in the city square, the two Hawaiian girls that talked us in to going to Montanita, Paul from our “guest malaria Monday” and our local Ecuadorian bud also staying at the hostel. With those powers combined with booze and the worst foosball table I have ever played on (A small lime for a ball, hand painted army men for one team [looked similar to the bad guys from superman 3], frilly white soccer jerseys on the other team, missing men… some were totally gone others would free float, and of course broken poles that would slide with ease but dip down to hit the floor with every revolution) it was time for international foosball. Taking the helm for USA… Brad. WHAT ME! You’ve got to be kidding.
Final Score
1st – Germany
2nd – Holland
3rd – England
4th – Ecuador
5th – USA…damnnit
Sorry, that was kind of an anti-climatic ending considering the massive build-up. But come on the table was terrible. Plus, I had the funky army men…ok I just suck.
There is some good in this story… because there were two main reasons we chose our hostel. First, it was right on the beach. In fact there was no front door; access was only from the beach. Second and my favourite reason… it was 3 dollars a night. After a swell full nights rest (remember no night life… I went to bed the same time as my grandfather including the time difference) I awakened with approximately 30 red sores…regardless of what people say Bed Bugs are not a myth. For your viewing pleasure, I’ve included an artists rendering of one of these nasty creatures.
September 27th, 2007
Dark jagged domes reached up through quite hazy mist like dozens of drowning mute quadriplegics bobbing along the clouds of oceanic rhythm. Eyes big as saucers were transfixed to the beckoning peaks. Like a small child staring at his fathers penis in the shower, “I’d never seen anything that big.” As if Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terminator like appendage was stuck grinding in the transmission the beaten bus climbed slowly up a river of mud, beside one of these 3,000 foot spires. Heavy equipment lined the road, still clearing the deepres from recent rock slides. As semi-trucks with breaklines cut, barreled down the hill. We left the city of Quito though the volcanic center of ecuador in search of a backpacking trip amongst hundreds of mountain lakes. Our journey brought us to Cajas National Park. Most national parks have descent signage, restrictions and regulations. For this 100KM squared area… just a map and make sure you have a compass… no signs… no restrictions. Using way-finding we hiked peaks, found Inca ruins, wondered high mountain lakes, and slept in dense cloud-forests. It was very exciting.
September 20th, 2007
We landed in Quito, Ecuador head first ass up. Lucky for us Quito is incredibly easy to navigate. Divided in two sections: the Old (consisting of large churches and historic places) and the New (taller buildings, nightclubs, and shopping) with central transit running in between them. Headed for the only cheap place we knew about called the “Grand Hotel” in the center of Old Quito. This funky old rickety place is loaded with charm and we had the entire top floor to ourselves, including the roof. I was tediously working on our broken 1970s wind-up clock while Mark was out on the roof with some local… A spring shot out and hit me in the head. Well, works done today… grabbed a beer and joined them on the roof. The corky character with Mark was a short man (taller than me) with a backwards white baseball cap named Alberto. Soon as I stepped down to the roof he shouted “Shit… see that red sign, right there… 5 dollars they’ll fix it… stop wasting your time!” Even a pun, I liked this guy already. After telling a few racist jokes in mixed English/Spanish.
“So whats the difference between a white woman and black woman anyways?”
“Not much!” we replied.
“Yes, they are the same… until you get them naked. The only difference is, white women are in Playboy, Black women are in National Geographic.”
He revels to us that he is the manager of the hotel (We left a beer for the guy at front desk that the he gave to Alberto. So he had to come cheers us on the roof) and challenges us to a few games of ping-pong to which the bet is a beer a game. He smoked us… time to pay up. I thought we would be going out to a bar or something. He takes us into a little convenience store, sits us down and does a magic trick, then introduces us to the locals.
“You need a Latino woman!” he says after eyeing our ring fingers. “Not any of these white prissy women… somebody that will be there to give you massages and knows how to treat a man… two weeks with a Latino woman and you will be speaking full Spanish.”
I looked around the small store. There was a little middle aged woman store owner, her son who is probably 15 or so, this rascally looking Spanish lumberjack character with a huge handlebar mustache, an off duty police officer, and the occasional derelict that would stumble in the store and purchase some form of cheap alcohol and share it with the group. All of them agreed, “Si, Latina chicas es muy bueno!” We hung out there all night long, listing to the occasional, “Latino women bro” and stuff I couldn’t understand like, “Sit down to pee there is no light in the bathroom and you’ll piss all over everything.”
Finaly we headed back to the hotel. Alberto disappeared into his flat to pop out a few seconds later saying that he will calm down his wife and come on in. With wife yelling in the background Mark darted in and I snuck off to bed…
But before we left the store they said to come back around 3:00 tomorrow there will me many hot Latino women in the store. I turned to Mark and said, “What, like high school getting out.” Sure enough, yep… after Mark was done flirting with the 16 year-olds he challenged the store owners son to a drinking contest. You had to drink the entire 600ML beer through a straw. Mark, of course won and the boy spit up foam before reaching the top of the label. Way to go Mark… beat some 15 year old in a drinking contest… JERK!
September 16th, 2007
