Canoa again

Today as I type I am sitting in the Surf Shak in Canoa, Ecuador. A thatched roof peaking at around twenty feet decorated by surf boards with legs of manakins surfing, fans stirring the air, a row of small colored glass square windows, and a wall of clear glass windows facing the ocean. There is an abundance of ragae music in the air as well as smells of sea breeze, wet sand, onion, and my own sweat drying on my shirt.

The town is quiet this morning, prepared for the weekend. yesterday it was bustling with noise and people moving about, fixing things up, repainting, putting out signs, putting in an overhang in front of their store, etc. The reason for the buzz is Carnival. It is currently low tide. A good metaphor for this weekend. In roughly 5-6 hours the town will experience a flood of people. There is a projected twenty to thirty thousand people coming to Canoa for the weekend; ten to fifteen times the population of the town. From what we have been told there will be a shortage of sober people throughout the weekend and a severe increase in eggs and flour in the air.

Our original plan was to go to a town called Puerto Lopez during carnival but as we could not find one hostel or hotel that had vacancy online and that all the coastal towns were to experience such a flood of people, we decided to try our luck here. As luck would have it we ran into a couple of travellers whom we connected with in Quito. They are two very sweet Irish ladies and we get along very well. We will be staying in Canoa until next Wednesday when we commence the last leg of our South American trip. Seven hours by bus to Guayaquil and thirty-one hours bus ride to Lima after there. Ugh is all we can say but it beats a five hundred dollar plane ride.

We rented a surf board between the four of us and will be splitting the cost for the week. I tried it out yesterday and stood up for the first time every I believe. It felt good but was short lived. Speaking of such things Ashley is currently in the ocean some where taking a surf lesson. She informed the surf instructor yesterday that she doesn't actually like water all that much to which he replied that they would work on that. I hope that they are finding it easy to work on that.

With Carnival starting we have moved hostels. Out hotel owner Felix will be charging $25 per person starting today and as there is no chance that he will not fill all of his rooms and each full room is worth around $100 per night he was not willing to allow us to stay for our combined $16 per night. Just as well because we found a hostel about 15 minutes walk down the beach for a reasonable price. The owners of the Surf Shak are managing the hostel for a friend and most everyone who has been here has said it is best not to stay in town with how crowded it will be. We are expecting madness and plotting how we can stay outside of the town for the weekend. The actual holidays are the 11th and 12th of February.

Good times.