At around 9:30, everyone started stirring. We walked to the beautiful beach and took a few quick pictures. These were my first steps in the Pacific Ocean!
Some of us went to breakfast - a little cute place where they served a "desayuno americano" (American breakfast) for $2.00 - eggs, bread, jam, fruit juice and coffee. Delicious. Of course, then we headed out to the beach to settle for the day. It was a bit cloudy but we immediately ran into the water and luckily, the water was actually fairly warm. I spent several hours jumping waves with some people, while some others only lied on the beach, reading or tanning. The sun came out eventually and it was HOT. Not much to say about this - we hung out all afternoon, mostly in the water or making sandcastles. When the sun was setting, I went walking along the beach with my boys - Joe, Stephen B, and Stephen H and walked all the way to the deserted end of the beach. It was beautiful except there was a lot of trash on that end, floating around in the water. We ran into a group of younger kids poking a giant beached fish - it was CRAZY-looking - white with some sort of a blue beak thing. So weird. Anyway, when we get back, I found out that 4 of my friends were walking, all girls, with one of them in the middle holding her camera. Apparently some guy had been walking along with them for a while, just behind them, when suddenly he runs up behind her, holds her back as he grabs her camera and starts running away. Of course all the girls freaked out, and the police immediately came and tried to find him. Unfortunately they couldn't and the cops started hitting on the girls instead. Welcome to Ecuador - this is so typical you can't even understand. What sucks is that Juliana had had her camera stolen at the fútbol game and her parents has just spent a ton sending her a new one. She'd received it in the meal 4 days earlier :/ Anyway, there was nothing to be done.
Unfortunately around this time I started feeling really sick. We went to dinner and after eating my meal I had to have someone walk me home because I felt so horrible :( I spent the rest of my night in bed, running to the bathroom. Luckily another friend didn't feel like going out, so she kept me company and we talked a lot. Finally started feeling a little better by the time I went to bed.
I felt a lot better in the morning and we went back out to the beach, a little later this time. This day happened pretty much the same way. We had pizza (which I had the night before) and yet again it was some of the best pizza I've had in Ecuador. The waves were a lot crazier on Saturday... as in, much more fun.
Throughout the weekend, there were always people walking the beaches, selling things - for example, there were always kids selling sliced mangoes for a dollar, which is officially my favorite treat in the world. There were also woman walking around offering to braid hair or put in string extensions. I forgot to mention that everyone did this on Friday, except me and a few others. There are also men walking around, trying to get people to take boat tours or go out on the tubes on the ocean, etc. So on Saturday, a friend of mine set up a half our boat tour for us (for $3 each!), to take a tour of the rocks in the distance, where there are cool formations, caves, and blue-footed boobys (the birds!) It was pretty awesome... the driver thought it was hilarious to make the boat rock nearly completely sideways so I was sitting there absolutely freaking out. But anyway, we did a tour, then they stopped the boat in the middle of the ocean and we jumped out and swam for a bit. It was really cool!
After this, we took a bunch of pictures as the sun was setting. Here are a few that are already on facebook;
We hung out at the hostel for a bit after that, then headed out to the beach again to explore the nightlife. Atacames is full of tiki-hut style bars, all open-air and all blasting music 10 feet from each other. There were SO many people out! We headed to a place to dance but no one really felt like dancing, so we ended up just sitting on the beach hanging out. A few of my friends who'd be drinking all night kind of felt asleep so of course we started covering them in sand. I didn't drink anything because I had been so sick, so I was just hanging out there when this young cute kid comes up and says something. I felt like being silly so I invited him and all of his friends over. He does and I find out he's 13 (if he's not lying, which he may have been) and I laugh and laugh because that kid had GUTS - he asked me to go dance and told me I was the prettiest girl among all my friends (to which I thought, haaa I need to keep this kid around!) We talked for a while, then a few of my new guy friends came to sit down with us and started egging this kid on. Finally, he asked if I could have one of my bracelets that I bought in Otavalo to remember me by. It was so cute; I had to say yes. Then my guy friends were like, "Ohhh ella quiere besarte!" to the kid, meaning "ohhh she wants to kiss you!". Of course, I was like NO but after being told repeatedly how it will absolutely make that kid's life, I let him kiss me on the cheek. He looked so smug; it was the cutest thing ever.... so now I have a 13-year old novio in Atacames, who has a bracelet and a kiss to prove it.
Lots of other cute and cool stuff happened. Stephen B. made a friend - this adorable puppy came over and they just sat together forever. Unfortunately he went to grab a stick to play fetch with the dog and he got scared and ran off! We were told at orientation that to pick anything up and pretend to throw it is a great way to fend off errant dogs, because so many of them have been abused. Also, at any given moment, if you looked out to the sea, you saw about 6 men at a time, standing the surf, peeing. It's legal to pee outside :) and hilarious. Also, a friend of mine and I were sitting and talking (I think any witnesses would have called this flirting) for a while, and ending up covering each other in sand and throwing it at each other the entire night :) He was really cute so this was a rather enjoyable part of my night...
I went to bed at around 2 but didn't sleep until maybe 6 which sucks and explains why I can't keep my eyes open. Besides, our hostel was so close to the beach, you could hear all the music blasting the entire night, and then early in the morning as well. Where we stayed was cheap and clean though, so I couldn't really complain. No hot water, but it was so hot and sticky that this didn't matter at all either.
We had about 2 hours left on the beach in the morning, I was the only one who went in the water, and everyone else just lied there on the sand. Finally, we got our stuff together, checked out ($7 night! booyaa), had lunch, I bought a few things from the market and then we took the taxi-motos to the station and we were on our way. It took closer to 7 hours. We watched two movies, one about a killer crocodile in Australia and was Blue Streak with Martin Lawrence. The movies were dubbed in Spanish but I could understand most of both of them :) After that, they turned off the TVs and started playing this god-awful Spanish music that is pretty common here. It was basically 5 hours of the same melody and bassline... my own personal hell. Finally got back to Quito at around 9, talked with my host family and got back on the computer!
I'm not sunburned too badly; just a little bit on my back. I'm so tired from not sleeping too much last night and unfortunately have class again tomorrow. Am happy though because on Thursday I bought myself a cheap little guitar which I'll be playing tomorrow! I love it! I've also been teaching myself German to keep busy as having a project keeps me from feeling homesick.
Anyway, that's what's new with me! I can't wait to go to the beach again... spring break!! So in exactly a month. Also, did you know I have less than a month and a half until I come home? It's going to be so bittersweet.....
Buenas! Cyn
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