Montañita-there really are no words that can do it justice. After we arrived-and we practicaly kissed the ground when we did-i literally felt like we had arrived on this new planet or atleast a place tucked so far away that no one really no it actually existed other than in movies or our dreams. i clearly showed how far out of the way this little town is-8 means of transportation i believe to get there- the good news (buenas noticias) is that it might have been worth it lol (depending how you look at it) looking at the town-or more of a paradise consiting of a beach and about 4 streets it was definitely worth it. It was...
hot, paradise, tourist central, crazy, beautiful, too good to be true, hippy land, care free..... extremely hot
there were only 3 types of building in the town: hostels, restaurants, and bars. And it had the rule : no shoes no shirt no problem We stayed at the hostel Casa Blanca complete with breakfast, two double beds-one in the loft, bathroom with hot water (which was key because not every place offers that) and a small balcony with nonetheless than a hamock
One of my favorite things-i mean other than the beach, the waves, the weather, the amazing food (the restaurant Ola Ola was my savior) and strawberry daqueris- lol was the fact that every other person you met was from another country-literally our neighbors in the hostal were from Argentina, Germany, and Chile. And my favorite was a guy we met who said he lives in the galapagos islands-and was here on vacation???.... Last i checked the Galapagos was the destination for a vactaion but clearly vacation is year round here. And i couldn't have loved it more
We napped on the beach, read a little (i had to stop reading dear john because i was crying too hard), jumped in the water to cool off, and then napped again...pretty rough Also, probably one of my highlights of my trip was that on our last day there we got private surfing lessons! So much harder than I remembered in Hawaii. I definitely blame the surf board because it was so small and the waves (olas). They weren't olas-they were tsunamis!!!! (*this beach is world known for surfing competitions). I think i might have got up 4 or 5 times-ok maybe 3 or 4 in the two hour lesson. I spent more time taking in water up my nose. But it was so much fun-and i somehow managed to get a pic that makes it look like i know what i am doing. It was also comical to see all of us "practicing" how to get up on the board on the beach. People actually stopped and stared haha Our lessons ($13 per person for 2 hours) were compliments of our new friend "Rico Suave" haha he is prolly 22 or 23 and lives in montonita. his job is teaching surfing lessons and occasionally working at a tiki bar with his dad.....tengo celos (im jealous) I told my own dad that if there ever was a place to wear his hawiian shirts and swim and have a hut on the beach this is it. You could make a living selling hotdogs on the beach.
However if you're looking for sleep this is not the place. Music-LOUD music blasted all through the night and i mean all night these people put a whole new meaning to partying. Idefinitely couldn't keep up-I told molly we should have trained going there. lol People either didn't sleep or would take a nap from like9-11 after dinner and then would go out-until 7 in the morning It didn't stop. The town was more alive at night than in the day. And it didn't stop. I'm pretty sure we got called lame for going back to our rooms at like 3am. Lame. haha To get an even better idea of what it was like we had to wake up super early on sunday to be sure to get a ticket for a busride back (because we didn't think to get one as soon as we got to the beach-but that is fo later) but anyways....we got up at 6:30am (after 3 hours of sleep) and walked a block to the bus station in our pjs-and i am not kidding. I felt like i was in some sort of twilight zone-EVERYONE was still out. There were still people waiting to get in the bars.......the small tiki bars lining the streets were just closing up-i had nooo idea. The sun was just coming up!!!! and i also had always wondered where all these people stayed at night because there was a TON of people and it was a very small town with only a few hostels-then i realized the answer...either they dont sleep OR they crash on the beach. There were atleast a 100 people sleeping on the beach-some even with tents. lol
once we got to the bus station-our nightmare travels started-again. You'd think we would have all our mala suerte (bad luck) behind us after our trip here. nope. First off-the sign at the station said it opened at 7am-but no one was there. Welcome to ecuador. That is when i lost all my patience (prolly due to a lack of sleep). And on top of it there were a couple of ecuadorian guys who clearly had just gotten back from the bar were trying to talk to us in spanish. And we were trying to ask them when someone will be here to sell us tickets......it is soooo hard to talk spanish in the morning. So-we went back to bed until 9 and then came back thinking worse case scenario would be having to leave at a time a little earlier than we wanted-we were wrong.
worse case scenario= ALL the buses being full
we had no ride back. but then this guy was yelling "Guayaquil! Guayaquil! Guayaquil! Quiere ir a Guayquil??" (Do you want to go to Guayaquil?) Of course we did!!!! That was our halfway point where we could get another bus to Quito. The guy said he was taking a van-first come first serve-and it was leaving in 30 min!!!!!!!!!! crap!!! (actually that is not the exact word that ran through my head) lol we were in our pj's still and had planned on leaving around 3pm-not 10am. So we literally ran back to our hostel, threw our stuff in our suitcase, and ran back to the bus stop where we were crammed into a 12 person van-hot stinky van full of people with hangovers-but it was a way home. That was until not even into the next town-the police stopped the van and turns out-the driver didn't have a valid business license. So.....everyone got their luggage and got out of the van. And the van left. and there we were. On the side of the dirt road with our luggage-just outside of Montañita....12 hours away from home.
Looking at the glass half full instead of half empty-everything worked out-and all our bad look could have been really really bad luck. We got instructions from one of the passengers who spoke fluent spanish-told us that we would just wait for the next public bus that passed by and take it to the next town and buy a bus ticket to Guayquil from there. We only waited about the longest 10 minutes of my life for the bus.. But it came and from there-we had a smooth-even though that word is probably out of the question by now-trip home. Lesson learned: always book return tickets ASAP and dont wait to the day of.
We learned a lot that trip-valuable traveling lessons - other than sufing : ) Like how to pack for example (none of us thought to bring a beach towel lol) You might not agree but it was an amazing trip : )
hot, paradise, tourist central, crazy, beautiful, too good to be true, hippy land, care free..... extremely hot
there were only 3 types of building in the town: hostels, restaurants, and bars. And it had the rule : no shoes no shirt no problem We stayed at the hostel Casa Blanca complete with breakfast, two double beds-one in the loft, bathroom with hot water (which was key because not every place offers that) and a small balcony with nonetheless than a hamock
One of my favorite things-i mean other than the beach, the waves, the weather, the amazing food (the restaurant Ola Ola was my savior) and strawberry daqueris- lol was the fact that every other person you met was from another country-literally our neighbors in the hostal were from Argentina, Germany, and Chile. And my favorite was a guy we met who said he lives in the galapagos islands-and was here on vacation???.... Last i checked the Galapagos was the destination for a vactaion but clearly vacation is year round here. And i couldn't have loved it more
We napped on the beach, read a little (i had to stop reading dear john because i was crying too hard), jumped in the water to cool off, and then napped again...pretty rough Also, probably one of my highlights of my trip was that on our last day there we got private surfing lessons! So much harder than I remembered in Hawaii. I definitely blame the surf board because it was so small and the waves (olas). They weren't olas-they were tsunamis!!!! (*this beach is world known for surfing competitions). I think i might have got up 4 or 5 times-ok maybe 3 or 4 in the two hour lesson. I spent more time taking in water up my nose. But it was so much fun-and i somehow managed to get a pic that makes it look like i know what i am doing. It was also comical to see all of us "practicing" how to get up on the board on the beach. People actually stopped and stared haha Our lessons ($13 per person for 2 hours) were compliments of our new friend "Rico Suave" haha he is prolly 22 or 23 and lives in montonita. his job is teaching surfing lessons and occasionally working at a tiki bar with his dad.....tengo celos (im jealous) I told my own dad that if there ever was a place to wear his hawiian shirts and swim and have a hut on the beach this is it. You could make a living selling hotdogs on the beach.
However if you're looking for sleep this is not the place. Music-LOUD music blasted all through the night and i mean all night these people put a whole new meaning to partying. Idefinitely couldn't keep up-I told molly we should have trained going there. lol People either didn't sleep or would take a nap from like9-11 after dinner and then would go out-until 7 in the morning It didn't stop. The town was more alive at night than in the day. And it didn't stop. I'm pretty sure we got called lame for going back to our rooms at like 3am. Lame. haha To get an even better idea of what it was like we had to wake up super early on sunday to be sure to get a ticket for a busride back (because we didn't think to get one as soon as we got to the beach-but that is fo later) but anyways....we got up at 6:30am (after 3 hours of sleep) and walked a block to the bus station in our pjs-and i am not kidding. I felt like i was in some sort of twilight zone-EVERYONE was still out. There were still people waiting to get in the bars.......the small tiki bars lining the streets were just closing up-i had nooo idea. The sun was just coming up!!!! and i also had always wondered where all these people stayed at night because there was a TON of people and it was a very small town with only a few hostels-then i realized the answer...either they dont sleep OR they crash on the beach. There were atleast a 100 people sleeping on the beach-some even with tents. lol
once we got to the bus station-our nightmare travels started-again. You'd think we would have all our mala suerte (bad luck) behind us after our trip here. nope. First off-the sign at the station said it opened at 7am-but no one was there. Welcome to ecuador. That is when i lost all my patience (prolly due to a lack of sleep). And on top of it there were a couple of ecuadorian guys who clearly had just gotten back from the bar were trying to talk to us in spanish. And we were trying to ask them when someone will be here to sell us tickets......it is soooo hard to talk spanish in the morning. So-we went back to bed until 9 and then came back thinking worse case scenario would be having to leave at a time a little earlier than we wanted-we were wrong.
worse case scenario= ALL the buses being full
we had no ride back. but then this guy was yelling "Guayaquil! Guayaquil! Guayaquil! Quiere ir a Guayquil??" (Do you want to go to Guayaquil?) Of course we did!!!! That was our halfway point where we could get another bus to Quito. The guy said he was taking a van-first come first serve-and it was leaving in 30 min!!!!!!!!!! crap!!! (actually that is not the exact word that ran through my head) lol we were in our pj's still and had planned on leaving around 3pm-not 10am. So we literally ran back to our hostel, threw our stuff in our suitcase, and ran back to the bus stop where we were crammed into a 12 person van-hot stinky van full of people with hangovers-but it was a way home. That was until not even into the next town-the police stopped the van and turns out-the driver didn't have a valid business license. So.....everyone got their luggage and got out of the van. And the van left. and there we were. On the side of the dirt road with our luggage-just outside of Montañita....12 hours away from home.
Looking at the glass half full instead of half empty-everything worked out-and all our bad look could have been really really bad luck. We got instructions from one of the passengers who spoke fluent spanish-told us that we would just wait for the next public bus that passed by and take it to the next town and buy a bus ticket to Guayquil from there. We only waited about the longest 10 minutes of my life for the bus.. But it came and from there-we had a smooth-even though that word is probably out of the question by now-trip home. Lesson learned: always book return tickets ASAP and dont wait to the day of.
We learned a lot that trip-valuable traveling lessons - other than sufing : ) Like how to pack for example (none of us thought to bring a beach towel lol) You might not agree but it was an amazing trip : )
Oh Lauren, you stress me out. I'm glad everything worked out. I miss you!
ReplyDeleteLove this story hahahaha SOOOO LAUREN LIKE! I miss it!!!!
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