Spring Break 2009: Pick a Direction

Spring break on the coast was a blast. We (Erin, Ashley and I) named the trip “Spring break 2009: Pick a direction” because whenever you ask people directions here they don’t want to look they don’t know so they pick a random direction, wave their arms pointing and very convincingly assure you that your destination is 2 blocks straight, then turn left for another block and you will find it. Lies. You follow their directions only to be directed back exactly where you came from. The same thing happens with time until arrival at a destination. It’s always 2 hours more until you get there, whether you have been on the bus for 3 hours or 7...We had a general idea of where we were going and when-ish we were going there but our trip was pretty much just go with the flow.

Quick summary:
Friday night we took an overnight bus to Canoa, a small, relatively quiet beach town where my friend from grade school and middle school is currently living. We crashed with her for a couple nights, hung out on the beach, met her friends and relaxed. Monday morning we left for Puerto Lopez and spend most of the day traveling. We arrived in Puerto Lopez sunburned, sweaty, hair going crazy from the wind whipping through the buses and starving. Our Couchsurfing friend randomly found us in the restaurant we were eating in and we headed to his house. While it wasn’t a bad situation with him by any means, it was slightly awkward and uncomfortable so we only stayed with him one night then found a hostel the next morning. Puerto Lopez is very dirty and slightly bigger than Canoa, but it is really a service town for a National Park, tours to islands and paragliding! We spent one day out on a boat snorkeling, fishing and checking out the birds on the islands which was a really good time. The next morning Erin and I went paragliding—INCREDIBLE! I was up in the air for about 20 minutes riding the wind back and forth along the cliffs lining the coast. So beautiful! That afternoon (Wednesday, I think) we headed down to Montañita, an incredibly touristy party town with a beautiful beach. We met up with a couple other groups from CIMAS that were traveling the coast and spent the whole day laying on the beach and swimming in the ocean. I freaking love the ocean. I could spend all day just swimming and body surfing. Montañita was fun for a day, but the music was blasting all night until 8 in the morning and it was a little too crazy for me. Canoa was definitely my favorite beach town, but we only saw about a third of the coast and only 3 beach towns. On Friday morning I got up at 4:30 to head down Guayaquil, the other big city of Ecuador. There is a Maharishi School there, similar to the one I attended for 10 years and I wanted to check it out. Fátima, the mother of an Ecuadorian woman that I met in Fairfield before I left, spent the whole day with me showing me around the city and took me to the Liceo (School) Maharishi. They are on vacation now so I didn’t meet the students but it was really fun to see the school and I could feel the consciousness and peace there similar to the feeling in Fairfield. That afternoon I met up with Erin and Ashley who had slept in and we crashed at the house of her “host-nephew” who is actually 30. The next day we strolled the Malecón, a beautiful walk along the riverfront of Guayaquil, then Fátima and her mother and aunt took us to the Parque Historico, an interesting museum/park/art exhibit/zoo. Last night we got on a bus back to Quito and arrived home this morning around 6. It was an amazing week of adventures, friendship, relaxing and enjoying!

Today is a laundry and errand day. Tomorrow is orientation at CIMAS to go to our internships then on Tuesday we all head out of Quito. Time is flying!