Atacames

This past weekend, I visited the beach town of Atacames with three volunteers (Katie, Sebastian, and Ameya) and Katie´s Ecuadorian boyfriend, Pablo. Friday was a holiday celebrating the independence of Guayaquil, so we left on Thursday night and arrived in Atacames early Friday morning.
Atacames is really just a party town with a great beach, which was kind of exactly what we were looking for. The weather was amazing and the beach is beautiful, so we did nothing but sit around, eat, drink, and swim. You can sit on the beach all day and buy buckets of fruit and bottles of beer from vendors, so there´s really no reason to move. We stayed in an absolutely terrifying hostel, but it´s all part of the experience right?
The town has a very Caribbean feel to it, very different from the big cities in Ecuador. The lifestyle is much more relaxed and casual and not nearly as religious and conservative as Quito. Apparently people from the coast think people from the mountains are stuffy and people from the mountains think people from the coast are wild. I can kind of see it...
The beach is lined with ¨bars¨, which are really just straw huts that serve alcohol, but they´re a lot of fun. Some only have hammocks for seating, which really adds to that ¨miles away from ordinary¨ sentiment. The food was especially wonderful. For $2.oo, you can get a gigantic plate of rice, vegetables, ¨menestra¨ (lentils and beans), fresh fish, and a drink. Delightul and economical.
Between the five of us, we managed to incur three jellyfish stings (none by me personally), one missing person alarm, and one malaria scare, over the course of two days. It was all very exciting, I must say.
On Saturday, Ecuador played Uruguay in the World Cup qualifier. Most of the bars brought out little TVs to show the game, so we watched on the beach with a massive crowd of Ecuadorians. Ecuador lost in overtime, which was quite sad because it looked like the town was gearing up for a huge celebration if they had won. The whole experience was very entertaining, lots of angry Spanish yelling.
On Sunday, we spent the whole day on the bus returning home. It was a great, relaxing weekend away from Quito, which I really enjoyed. Today I booked my trip to the Galapagos (!), so I´ll be leaving on Thursday for about eight days there. Can´t wait!

Lots of love!

Sarah