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Dude!
What can we say? We made it to the home of Ecuadorian surfing. Montanita is about 70km south of Puerto Lopez and an easy hour journey on the bus. Its a very small town, in fact it would probably be a village if not for all the hostels, restaurants and bars made for the surf mad holiday makers who come here. Most of the places are made in bamboo/wooden style with a leaf roof so it gives the place a really tropical feel. The waves are between 1 and 3 metres in height so surf is defintely up.
We arrived on a Sunday and the beach was packed. Our first night in the hostel gave us some idea of the party nauture of the place as we were woken about 3am and then again at 5 by returning party-goers. That was enough for that place so we tried our hand elsewhere. The same sort of problems came up there but we did have a DVD player and comfy sofas for a couple of quiet evenings whilst I was recovering from my latest bout of digestive related trauma.
Montanita is pretty great. I had a surf lesson on Monday and tried my hand a couple of times after depending on the waves, number of innocent passers by I might kill and whether we had tried a party ourselves the night before. During the week the surf was good and I became confident in the shallows and even caught a wave a little further out to ride all the way to shore. Radical! or something... Adventurous now, I went looking for further thrills and found only lungs full of sea water and some concerned locals. I had peaked. Still, Im converted. I am at one with the sea (well the bits I have swallowed anyway). Betty meanwhile was enjoying the beach and the sea in a much calmer fashion. She is still not happy but judge the tan for yourselves.
We had to move hostel again when the bank holiday weekend crept up on us and our landlord wanted to get more people into the room. The next place, Juanchos, was really nice and Juancho was a very cool guy. We had a little party there and met some Swedes and a couple of American guys. Carried away we even tried our hand at the local nightclub but soon ran out of steam.
Overall a pretty fantastic time. A week on the beach, some great food and friendly people, standing up on a surf board and plenty of sun and sea. Happy days.
Hope everyone is well.
Nearly there...
love Paul and Betty.
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