Viaje

I have been running around the country, left all the wierd awkwardness of leaving for a few days, have lots of pictures which I will have to post once I get back to Cuenca and my camera cable. Monday, I left in the late afternoon with Gustavo, Esteban, and Monica for Guayaquil. We continued on overnight to Esmeraldas, which is on the North Coast of Ecuador. We got to Atacames, a beach town full for the holiday weekend, on Tuesday morning and spent a lovely day on the sand. We ate lots of patacones, ceviches, menestre, carne asado, camarones apanados, jugo de coca y tamarindo. Wednesday we went to Mompiche, an almost deserted beach only accessible by gravel road, unfortunately we left late, without really checking out the geography, arrived at three, only to have an hour on the beach because the last bus back to Atacames was at 4:40 and we had already paid for our hotel there. Thursday we went whale watching and saw a gigantic whale, I think it was a humpback, but need to look it up. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn´t been huddled in the bottom of the skiff, green in the face, just wishing to be on tierra firma, but it was still really beautiful. Friday Monica left us to go meet her parents in Playas, y we headed down to Muisne to visit Ali, another volunteer from my group. Muisne has a giant, deserted beach lined with palm trees. The town itself is very basic, running water only once a day, but Ali treated us royally, cooking for us, making the first real coffee I had had in six days. Gustavo and Esteban headed back towards home Saturday afternoon and Ali and went and walked to the end of the island by the beach. Last night I came down to Quito, fighting a cold and killing time in the terminal until it was light enough to venture out to Lynnsey´s house in South Quito. Tomorrow I go the visit my host family from training, to buy gifts in Otovalo and if things work out as I would like to el Valle de Chota before heading back to Cuenca.