Spring Break 2009

3-15-09
SPRING BREAK ’09! Last Friday was the last day of class before spring break and also my 21st birthday. Class was pretty painless since all we were doing was giving presentations about our Tiputini research project. After class we went to the bar across the street from USFQ, Carlitos, for a few beers. My host family planned a birthday dinner for me and invited Dave and his family, my mom (who arrived in Quito on the 3rd,) and my friend Nicole. Dinner consisted of champaign, spaghetti with a mushroom alfredo sauce, and some wonderful birthday cake. Then the real 21st birthday activities started and I headed to the Mariscal to meet my friends for drinks. We started at Middle Eastern place where they have 1 dollar beers and 3 dollar hookahs. Then we headed Chupitos for my free birthday shot(s) and continued to dance the night away to reggetone music. It was definitely a birthday I will never forget, it would have been nice to celebrate with all of my Milwaukee/Madison friends but I cannot complain at all. The next morning I woke up at 8am (without no alarm somehow) and headed to the bus station with my mom to meet Nicole, Carl, and Alex to start our spring break travels. Our plan was to go to Banos for a couple days then spend to rest of the time on the beach in Canoa. Banos is a popular destination for foreign tourist and Ecuadorians alike. They are most noted for being next to a Volcano and having natural hot springs. The first night we went to the hot spring pool and it was incredibly packed with almost no gringos, a pleasant surprise. The next day we took a bike ride to see the numerous waterfalls outside of the city. Renting a bike was 5 dollars for the whole day and was advertised as mountain biking. Turns out the whole trail is on a busy road, a little scary because Ecuadorians drive a touch crazier than in the Midwest. Although most of the tunnels had a trail around them for bikes, the shortest tunnel did not. These are tunnels through the mountains and have no lights, and we did not bring our flashlights so it was mildly scary riding a bike though a 100 m tunnel in the dark, but we made it out alive and continued our journey. Nicole had been having some trouble going up hills and we noticed her tire was slightly flat, so we stopped quickly to pump it up with the small hand pump they gave us. Very soon after I was riding behind Nicole and noticed that her tire was completely flat. So, we stopped to change the inner tube. Luckily they gave us a spare tube, but only gave us a wrench to remove the tire. None of us had ever completely changed an inner tube, but my mom and I had a pretty good idea of how it was done. So we took the wheel off and attempted to take of the tire with the wrench, but were horribly unsuccessful. We got information from a local that there was a bike repair shop in Rio Verde so Nicole and my mom took a bus there while the rest of us biked. We met back up and Nicole was ready to go with a fully inflated tire. We ended up in Machay, a large waterfall that you can hike down to and swim in the pools below and climb on the rocks. A friend had told me about a secret spot to go to at the falls, but unfortunately it wasn’t too secrete anymore and they put a barbed wire fence where the trail was. But Carl and I were determined to get over there and found a way. It was about 2pm at this point and although we would have liked to stay longer we were all getting sunburned and failed to remember sunscreen. So we headed back up and took a Chiva (bus without sides, the common form of transportation in Ecuador) back to Banos. We returned the bikes and tred to get a refund because we didn’t have the proper tools to change a tire, but the women who rented the bike said everyone in the world knows how to change a bike tire with a wrench, which was obviously a little bit of an exaggeration. In Ecuador and there isn’t the same sense of liability as in the States and that combined with the language barrier we were forced to leave without a refund. The next day we planned to go canyoning, which in Banos means belaying down waterfalls. I have never heard of this sport before, but I guess it is semi-popular. Since none of us had even been canoying before we had no idea what to expect and knowing that Ecuador has a different view of safety it was mildly frightening. We hiked up to the top of a canyon with 4 larger waterfalls, between 10 and 20 m, and several smaller falls. Then our guide gave us a debriefing of technique and safety, in Spanish, at this point we were more than mildly frightened. I had to keep telling myself that so many other people had done this, but then I would think about how old and worn the equipment was and scare myself more. Going down the first waterfall was more fear then adrenaline, but by the third I was enjoying the rush. The last 2 small waterfalls we slide down on our rump, it was a great way to end. We got back into town, ate, and headed to the bus station to catch a late bus to Quito where we would meet our friend Jane before heading to the coast. We didn’t know exactly when the bus left Quito but we were hoping to make the last night bus. We got to Quito at 11:30pm and the last bus for the coast had left not even 10 minutes prior. We were forced to stay in Quito and since our host parents we not expecting us we thought it would be best to stay in a hostel for the night. We saw a couple across the street and headed over to check them out. The first one we went into the man behind the front desk seemed to be drugged out and we decided that would not be a good place to sleep, the next place looked equally as run down but we were tired, it seemed slightly more safe, and the price was right at 4 dollars a night. We settled in and tried to sleep, but were all a little worried about safety. We all sleep with our money on us and our cameras well hidden as well. Nicole, Alex, and I we ready to sleep, but Carl could not stop pacing and thinking of all the worst things that could happen to us. Finally it was the morning and we had made it through a night at the sketchiest hostel we ever hope to stay at. Unfortunately we got a call from Jane saying she was vomiting all night and wasn’t going to come with us. We caught the 8am bus, sadly without Jane, and 10 hours and 3 buses later we were in Canoa. Canoa is a small surf town that during high season gets very busy but since we were there during the week and low season it was very chill. We found a hostel across the street from the beach for 7 dollars a night unloaded our luggage and headed to the beach for a drink and some food before bed. The next morning we went to Main Street to buy some groceries. The streets do not have names in Canoa, but you can tell which on is Main Street because it is one of the only of 2 paved roads. After breakfast we headed to the beach, it was cloudy but we were not going to let clouds stop us from bumming on the beach. Nicole and Alex both played volleyball in high school and were eager to play on the beach. For some reason volleyball nets in Ecuador are very high, even though on average Ecuadorians are much shorter. But we found the shortest net on the opposite side of the beach as our hostel and started a 2 on 2 game. Soon some locals asked to join then some gringos and we got a pretty good game going on. After awhile we were hot and tired and went for a swim in the ocean. The sun had came out a little and Nicole, Alex, Carl, and some of the other Americans we met went to a cave with some locals, but I was tired and decided to take a nap. When I woke up all the local surfers had come out and were enjoying the waves. I was too shy to talk to anyone, but it was fun just watching them. That night Nicole and Alex had plans to meet up with their new Canoan friends and go to a local bar. We played pool and had some drinks before going to a discoteca to dance then were invited to a bon fire on the beach where the locals played guitar and sang till the wee hours. After this first day we were completely in love with Canoa. The next day I realized I was badly burnt on my back stomach and legs, ouch, so we all made sure to load up on sunscreen because obviously clouds do not help enough with the equatorial sun. During the morning the waves are fairly small so Carl and I rented surf boards. I have been surfing in Hawaii so I could just rent a board, but Carl had never surfed before and had to get a short lesson before getting his own board. We caught some nice waves before the tide started to come in and the waves got a little too big for us. At this point we went over the other side of the beach by the locals and found our friends from the night before. We played volleyball till sunset then headed back to our hostel for some food. So, at this point it was pretty clear that the local boys were rather good at picking up gringa girls and did this quite often, but it was part of the experience of Canoa and we were having fun. We went out dancing again then to another bon fire. The next morning our boys were supposed to give us surf lessons but there were no clouds and I did not want to go out into the sun for that long. This was our last night in Canoa and there was a huge party at the Discoteca for one of the local’s birthdays. It is such a small town that everyone knows each other and by the end of the night we felt like we also knew all the locals. It should be noted that it was mainly local boys, and Carl was a little miserable because of the lack of chicas but our friends helped him find some local girls to dance with. The next morning we packed up our stuff and out it in the kitchen so we could check out and head to the beach. I spent practically all day in the shade because my sunburn had turned into blisters and it was very painful to go in the salt water. Some new gringas had arrived and we enjoyed watching the Canoan boys flock. At one point our friends called their friend over who was talking to the new gringas and his friend made a joke about “la arta de Canoa” (the art of Canoa) referring to picking up the tourists. We all had a little laugh. As we were talking my friend motioned to his surf board and said “mi tabla es mi novia” (my board is my girlfriend) and I think that pretty accurately describes the Canoan lifestyle: surf all day and hit on gringas all night. Nicole, Alex, and I were wondering what happened to these boys as they got older because we only saw the younger generation of surfers. Where were all the old surfers? Is this a new phenomenon or do they completely give up surfing once they get to a certain age? We may never know, but hopefully went I make I back to Canoa in 10 years it will be the same chill town that I grew to love. (Also, I hope to go back to Canoa for a week after my program is done if I have enough money left.) Finally it was time to leave so we headed back to the hostel got our bags and went to the bus stop, where our boys were waiting on the curb to say goodbye. Something they have obviously done before. We said our goodbyes and reluctantly headed back to Quito. Canoa is one of those places that is really difficult to describe with words but when you are there you know you never want to leave.