Sunday, June 29, 2008

The festivals of canoa continued and there was another parade, mass, music, and a large dance. IT was very fun. Julie and I danced cumbia, merengue, and a bit of salsa til 3 in the morning. The people of Canoa are really nice...very friendly. The dance is for all of the pueblo, so there is young, old, everybody dancing with everybody. The new presidents of Pedro y Pablo were selected- the two governments that run this town together, and everybody celebrated. We spent today hanging out on the beach, playing soccer, reading, and meeting awesome people. There are more tourists here in the town of Canoa, so we´ve met people from Colorado, KEntucky, Massachusetts...all very cool people. We are still looking into doing parapentes, paragliding, tomorrow, if the wind picks up enough. until then,... check the pictures out on facebook if you have access.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Festival de Canoa

Well fiestas are really cool. The beaches have stuff going on during the day, eco-bvolleyball, swimming, surfing, jewlery sellers...and the night, music blasts through the streets, bands march, and there is a huge dance in the school for all of the community. IT is quite an adventure. Other than that, life is pretty tranquil...as it total of Latin America. It´s been a little cloudy, so little chance to go in the warm water...but those chances will come. There is some amazing wildlife here...howler monkeys, monkeys, tons of birds, fish, everything.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Canoa...

We left Pedernales...saw all that it really had to offer. Now we have reached the beautiful town of Canoa. We took a 3 hr bus ride to get here, passing throught the beautiful ecudorian jungle!! We made it to Canoa and we searching for a firend of friend from Esmeraldes. So we decided to plop down on the beach with our bags and asked these two random guys walking down the beach. What luck, tey know the guy we were looking to stay with, BUT he is in another town right now!! Ah so "tiburon" the guy told us of a place we can stay for 3 /night! chevere! So we planted ourselves...
To occupy our time, we went to Bambu bar owned by a guy from Kentucky. This man had a brilliant idea that we took him up on. If you pick up a bag of trash from the beach you get a free cocktail! Hey we`ve got two hands and nothing but time! So we each grabbed a bag and started picking it up. Canoa just happens to be at an unfortunate place were the tide brings the trash...so in no time our bags were full. Well also met some chicos on the beach who helped us out. We picked up trash until sunset,and what a sunset it was! Canoa also lies between two sets of huge bluffs so there are very cool cliffs right on the beach. Also has provided us with an opportunity to do paragliding, parapentes, which we are trying to do later this week! *which reminds me, have fun skydiving leila* We ate yummy food and drank our cocktailes that night. We also ran into people from Mompiche, guitarists that are traveling down to argentina, cool people.
Today we went with the same guy we asked for the room and his friend on an awesome bike ride out to a finca, or farm. But this isn`t a regular farm, it was the only house for miles right on the beach with cows and a crazy bike ride there. It was a blast!!! Julie ate it bad on the way back...ug she has a huge bump on her head. She went head first after hitting a rock beacuse the bikes didn`t have any breaks...and the hill was steep as heck. But we made it back and our butt bones hurt after a whole day of riding. We meet some other cool people and found out that we arrived just in time for Canoa festivals this weekend, what luck! So that should be fun...until next time.
Hope everybody is good back in the states.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

We have now left the little pueblo of Mompiche. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay ad met some pretty awesome people and did some pretty awesome things. WE also visited an island right off the coast called Muisne, and semi large trading town. We had to take a boat to get there...and took a boat bake to our beach front property at sunset....while raining...what fun! We have now reached Pedernales a large market town right on the beach. We have friends that we met in Mompiche that live here and showed us around, but today we plan to head to Canoa. We had a crazy bus ride here on a bus make of basically woodon a road that was nonexistant, phew... We are having a blast and being safe...of course.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Is this a dream...???


Ok....we are not dead...just lost in a dream. How many of you have read those romance novels where there is a couple on the beach with palm trees and all that stuff. Well that is kinda of what is happening. We are traveling what is called La Ruta del Sol...it is a way downt he coast of Ecuador that travels through all the beach towns and everything. We are having an amazing time. We stayed in Esmeraldes with a friend for a week and meet everybody i nEsmeraldes, or so it seems...and we also stayed a night in Atacames. A beach with a different bar every 20 feet right on the beach. We´ve meet tons of people, all nice, and continue to meet great people, eat great every day, swim in the wamr water right outside out secluded cabana everyday, and just relax. Our most popular saying... ¨we can´t believe how much people would pay to do this...¨aaahhhh too much to write here and not enough money to pay for the internet, but we´ll tell you in the future. We are safe and completely enjoying ourlselves- we hope everybody is ok and doing well. Talk to you soon!!!!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

It´s raining its pouring (lluvia cae lentamente sobre mi)

Well guys today is our last day in Quito before we leave for Mindo and Esmeraldes and the beautiful Ecudorian coast... so internet access is iffy :)

We met a awesome guy David on a hike we did up to Pinchincha and we are staying at his house. He just got back from a 4 month biking trip down South America- chevere!! (cool) We went to Sangloqui yesterday and checked out the cool markets, and ate Indian food here- how good. We met the cool group of hiker people that we hang out with so it´s cool. Today we walked around Quito and took it easy staying in the beautiful parks they have everywhere here.
Today was my first Ecuadorian storm, thunder lightning, rain and a little bit of hail- it´s awesome and the sky here is amazing!

Julie and I are both in good health, have gotten plenty of sleep and had plenty to eat...so no worries. The food here is delicious be the way. 1.00-1.50 for rice, beans, meat, soup and juice. So delicious!!! We´ll try in keep in best contact as we can for the next couple of days/weeks but no gaurantees. We hope everyone is doing well. And as far as pictures go... we´ve taken plenty but haven´t uploaded the majority of them to the internet, takes too long, so sorry...but if we find free internet access at one of the hostels...of course we will. Adios for now

Monday, June 9, 2008

Quito

I´m in Quito with Julie. We are having a blast figuring out how to get around and all, the public transportation here is amazing, and only cost .25 per ride. Quito is a huge huge city much bigger than new York. We have visited the Old Town were there are a lot of cool churches and old type houses and streets. We went to one church, the Basilica, built in the 1700´s that was very cool and climbed all the way to the top of the towers to see a beautiful view of Quito!! Que bonita. The people here are very nice, you can ask anybody anything so it´s very gun. We also went to Mitad del Mundo- middle of the earth were we stood with each side of our bodies in different hemispheres. and took a little hike to Puleahua, can´t really describe that. We also spent a day at the thermal hot springs with a family we found on couchsurfing who has lent us a bed for free for three nights. chevere! We plan to go to Otavalo manana to see the Indigenous market and check up el norte de quito. Should be fun. I´ll try and keep you all updated, keep in mind uploading pictures is a pain in the butt...so bear with me : ) Buenas noches



June 8, 2008


Well today was supposed to be our day of relaxing because we had taken a long bus ride to the towns of Otavalo and Ibarra yesterday to check out the markets and then went to dinner with Julie´s host brother and sister form last semester. So today we decided to go up to the teleferico qhich is a rail thingy like in Palm Springs or at the Zoo that takes you up the mountain in a cable car. It takes you up mt. Pinchincha which also happens to be teh name of this province. We are in teh province of Pinchiincha and the city of Quito. At the top of this mountain you can see all of Quito which is amazingly HUGE!!!! It would take 3 or 4 photos next to eachotehr to captrue it all. We ran into a guy we know and hima nd three of his friends were going on a 2 1/2 hr. hike up into the mountains behind teleferico. So in our jeans, t-shirt and sweater with 1 bottle fowater we decided to go along...
What an adventrue the scenery is amazingly beautiful and green, it is gorgeous, ro hermosa. We took plenty of pictures, don´t worry... It actually ended up beign a crazyy ass hike. It is similar to the scene in Lord of the Rings where Sam and Frodo are on their wayt o mordor in teh clouds and sharp rocks, EXACTLY like that except we didn´t have a Golum tied up and walking behind us...and we don´t have huge hairy barefeet...our shoes are actually pretty nice Well it actually started hailing and raining on our way up there and I couldn´t really feel my fingers for a large part of the time, but it was still and amaizng adventure. We made our way to the top and enjoyed the scenery up in the clouds and practically on top of the clouds. We then had to go down the sand part of the mounhtain by running for the most part, really similar to skiing it was really cool, but know our feet look like something out of Lord of the Rings. We made our way down just in time for dark and on our way down Quito lite up, what a sight! We went and had dinner with this group who are really nice and we aer going to stay at this guys house tomorrow night for two nights, for free. It is cheaper than the hostal we are in now, which is only $5/night. Well we aer now goin to munch on some candies and drink some cola...look for updates later.
p.s. While in quito we are trying to check our emails more frequently because it might be a bit more difficult later on...