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Hi, Well almost finished my month in Manta and not written about any of it yet so think this blog is going to be a little long! Been here learning Spanish and volunteering at a local hospital. I'm staying with a local family- Gloria and her 3 sons- who are very nice. They have a lovely house with a swimming pool- very different to what I was expecting! They cook me traditional Ecuadorian food and get to practice speaking Spanish with them. I have a nice room-ensuite with a tele and air conditioning so it been really good. Spend mornings at the hospital helping the doctors, seen a few operations and practicing Spanish with the patients. In the afternoon I have 4 hours of lessons at the Spanish school- the teachers have all been really good and I think I´ve learnt quite a lot. Met lots of other nice students and been on trips with the school to places like montanita- the origin of the panama hat (and bought one), and done salsa lessons, cooking classes, dinner parties/karaoke, and been on nights out in Manta, and to the cinema and stuff like that, been really fun. Manta has a really nice long beach so spent some time there at the weekends- no time during the week as goes dark at 6:30 and busy all day! But most weekends I've visited other places along the coast. The first weekend on my birthday, went to Porta Lopez and joined a trip going over to the isla de la plata, which was fantastic- saw loads of whales, really close to the boat, we walked around the island and saw loads of birds like blue footed bobbies, and afterwards snorkelled in the sea and saw so many different fishes- was amazing- made me want to go diving again! Its known as poor mans Galapagos and really looking forward to going to the real thing next week! The next weekend met up with Alex again and we went to Canoa- a small town with a 20km sandy beach- which was really nice. We rode bikes and horses along the beach and up into the mountains (only the horses!), swam in the sea and had a good night out at a local disco with some people that id met the week before at porta lopez and bumped into again there. Last Sat went to Crucita- another town with a very nice beach but spent Sunday in Manta, again mostly on the beach and in the sea! Anyway, think I've written enough for today and managed to upload all my photos!Ive only 2 days left here in Manta, but off to the Galapagos islands Sat for a short cruise, which I'm really excited about, and then onto Peru.Nic x
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