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Sorry I haven't updated this for a while, it's harder now I'm on the real travel part of my trip! So I left Tena last Friday and spent the night in Quito. It was hard being on my own in Quito after spending a month in a place that felt like home. I arrived at my hostel and found that the padlock on my bag was jammed so I had to practise my crappy Spanish and ask the man in reception to help me....he came to my room with a saw and had to cut the lock off my bag. When I finally got in my suncream had leaked everywhere...aargghh that was not a good day! I left early on Saturday morning and got an 8 hour bus to Atacames on the North coast. It was totally mental when I arrived, it's a 24 hour party town and was quite scary arriving on my own, especially as I'd heard it's not that safe! I found a hostel which was so loud I left like I was sleeping in a nightclub, it was horrible!! Luckily I bumped in to some foreign looking people in the internet place (seems to be the best meeting place here!) and got chatting so I moved to their hostel, which was nicer, safer and cheaper! I've been travelling with them for the past week, although we went our separate ways yesterday. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Atacames, just enjoying the beach and swimming in the waves! On Monday we headed South and caught a bus to Mompiche. We had to get a bus out of Atacames, then catch another 2 to a town called el Salto which is in the middle of nowhere. We had to wait there for about half an hour for another bus to pass. We were the centre of attention, we did NOT blend in very welll with the locals! "Gringos hit el Salto!" While we were waiting I got stung on my thumb by some insect (maybe a wasp or a bee, I didn't see) and my thumb swelled up so badly for 3 days, not fun! The scary journey was worth it though, Mompiche is beautiful, it's like a little paradise that no-one's discovered yet and we had a gorgeous cabañas on the beach! It's a small chilled out surfer town with only 500 people living there. The town is so small that they have to turn the power off between 7pm and 8pm every day as the power lines can't cope. We spent 2 nights there and then headed South to Canoa, an even nicer surfer town! My favourite place so far! We stayed at a beautiful hostel on the beach...an amazing unspoilt beach and a surfer´s paradise! There was loads of nice bars along the sea front and everyone was so friendly. Our favourite bar, Surf Shack, was owned by an American couple who went their on their honeymoon and fell in love with the place so they bought the bar and never left! The town was quiet small and there was no ATM so to get some cash I had to get a bus to the next town (15 minutes Ecuadorian time, 35 minutes real time), but the only ATM in the town was out of order, so we had to get a boat across the bay to Bahia! It took 2 buses, 2 boats and 2 hours just to get some cash! We had a bit of a scary incident while we were there when the German guy I was travelling with woke up to find a guy in his room going through his stuff, he chased him and broke his foot! I was sleeping in the next room and woke up to lot of screaming and shouting, very scary!! So Greg had to fly back to Quito to go to hospital, as we'd been told the health system anywhere else is not worth bothering with!! Now I'm in Puerto Lopez with a Swedish girl I met in Canoa (in the internet place!). Today we took a boat to Isla de la Plata, which is the poor man's Galapagos for those people that can't afford the real thing! It was amazing, beautiful weather and saw lots of nice birds etc, and went snorkelling. I'll upload some more pics when I get chance xxx
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