On Holiday in Ecuador

I had Monday and Tuesday off this week (everyone else in Quito has off today as well – it’s like a ghost town. For once I didn’t have to wait 5 minutes to cross the street to get to the office.)

I woke up Friday morning without any definite plans of what I was going to do. That quickly changed when Carlos and Diana invited me to go with them to the coast – they said they were going to follow “La Ruta del Sol” (Path of the Sun) working their way from North to South. I was like, sure! So I left work early and we hit the road at 4:30pm, and arrived in Esmeraldas a little after 9pm (the trip usually takes about 6 hours, but with Carlos driving…) So it was Carlos, Diana, Mauricio, Sabrina, Jose Mateo, Peluche (the puppy), me and a couple of suitcases. We had dinner at a Cuban restaurant owned by one of Carlos’s friends. Then we crashed at a hostel and set off early the next morning to start visiting the beaches. First stop: Atacames. Here we had breakfast, where breakfast can be anything from green plantains and coffee to a full plate of fish, rice, and lentils. I had the bolones de verde (balls of green plantains stuffed with cheese) with coffee. And, of course, there are jugos y batidos naturales everywhere (fresh fruit juices and shakes). After breakfast we took a quick walk on the beach, just long enough for the kids to make a little habitat for hermit crabs out of sand and water in a plastic cup. These cangrejitos kept them thoroughly entertained in the car throughout the rest of the day, and they kept adding to their collection at each new beach. My sister used to collect cups full of hermit crabs in North Carolina – of course she would actually bring them back to the house and leave them on the back porch until they died and left a HORRIBLE stench – ah, memories…

La Playa Escondida

One of the more memorable beaches we stopped at was completely deserted, which makes sense I suppose, since it was called Playa Escondida (hidden beach). I’ll have to see if I get some of the pictures from Diana.

We decided to stay the night in the tiniest of towns, Mompinche. The beach here was also relatively deserted, and it was actually a little cold, too cold for me to get in the water anyway. And the town was basically one dirt road leading to the beach. After we had dinner, Carlos said, let’s go walk around – 5 minutes later and our walk was over. Although back at the hostel I met a guy from Barcelona and a girl from Switzerland, and chatted with them for a while.

Well I decided that I needed a little more excitement, so on Sunday I hopped on a bus back to Atacames to meet up with a friend. There were actually parts of the beach that weren’t crowded at all, so it was quite nice. Both Sunday and Monday were mostly cloudy though, so no tan L. The water felt great though. And Atacames has a very lively nightlife, to say the least. The bars that line the edge of the beach start blasting music in the late afternoon and keep it up until the wee hours of the morning. Luckily we were staying with a friend who lived outside of Atacames, so we got to sleep in peace and quiet (except for the roosters’ cocka-doodle-doo-ing in the morning).

But the best thing about the beach… fresh seafood J and so far my stomach is okay, so even better!

Another word on food:

I always find it funny the way Ecuadorians react to the things I eat/cook. In terms of eating habits, I’m no typical American by any means – in fact lots of people in the States consider my gastronomical choices with a curious glance. Anyway, anytime I’m snacking on something I’ve bought from the supermarket, Jose Mateo always wants to try some. Here’s the tally of his likes/dislikes:

Peanut Butter: like

Raw Carrots: Dislike

Raw Celery: VERY STRONG dislike

Whole Wheat Crackers: Like

Raw, unsalted almonds: BIG like (I was quite surprised at this one, since Ecuadorians, my family included, LOVE their salt)

Now, back to this past weekend. My friend made us breakfast on Monday – there were eggs, onions and tomatoes – and I had bought a carrot the day before that I still hadn’t eaten, so I asked him to throw some carrots in there too. So he makes an omelet of sorts, except he didn’t do much chopping, because the tomatoes and carrots were dispersed in big chunks. I found it quite satisfying, as did my friend, but when he offered it to our host, she declined with a look of disgust on her face, and an exclamation of how feo (ugly) it looked. She’s like, you two can eat what I cook, but there is no way that I can eat what YOU cook. I think that pretty much sums up the situation in my house too, I doubt the family could tolerate anything that I’d make for myself. On the other hand, I eat just about everything (EXCEPT intestines).