la vida en la playa

Back from another beach weekend here in Ecuador!

I've always loved the beach, but I've never loved it quite as much as I love it here. I think it's the style of life at the beach here -- so incredibly chill, it's hard to describe. The friends we made in Canoa this weekend spent their days doing the following: waking up to an incredible view, doing some chores around the hostel (they worked there), heading out to catch some waves, watching the bar, eating some empanadas, surfing some more, hanging out the cool gringos (us), getting some ceviche for dinner, then partying/bartending all night long. What a life.

Canoa was agreed upon as our favorite beach (followed very closely by Montañita) simply because of the people we met. We ended up purely by chance at a great hostel that had just opened (actually hadn't even opened yet, but they made do), owned by a 60+ American named Len from Kentucky and operated by some pretty awesome Ecuadorians. We were their first guests, so they loved having us. On Sunday, we even lucked out on some free surf lessons! It was an incredible weekend, and last night, none of us wanted to board that bus back to cold, rainy Quito. But we'll be back soon enough!

View from our hostel window - could it get any better?

Wood & cliffs down the beach

The girls on the cliffs

Alice Ann & I got hair wraps!

On the beach at sunset - favorite place to be

churches & ruins

It took me a while to get around to writing this post, but I'm finally catching up about last weekend as I head out on another weekend adventure tonight! So, last Thursday night, we headed to Cuenca, a historical and colonial city about a 11-hour overnight bus ride south of Quito.

FRIDAY
We got to Cuenca in the mid-morning, checked into a hostel, and started exploring the city. It's much more tranquila than Quito, and it's filled with churches, cathedrals, and parks. We headed straight for the Chicago Pizza restaurant that was recommended in Lonely Planet, and it was definitely worth it. We spent the afternoon walking around the city, checking out the churches and plazas, and going to Museo del Banco Central, which included a tour of some Incan ruins behind the museum. For dinner, we celebrated our friend's birthday at a Mexican restaurant, which was, of course, delicious.

Church of the Immaculate Conception ("New Cathedral")

Love a good door pic

Iglesia de San Alfonso

Ruinas de Pumapungo (behind the museum)

Out for Mexican!

SATURDAY
After a delicious, slightly American breakfast, we headed out of Cuenca about 2 hours to the Incan ruins at Ingapirca. It's Ecuador's best-preserved archaeological site, and it's pretty cool. You can climb all over the ruins, which we took advantage of, claro, by taking tons of pictures. We headed back to our hostel in the afternoon, napped, and ate at a crepes place across the street for dinner.

Group pic at the ruins

Our attempt at a jumping picture

One of the coolest parts of the day was meeting another Tarheel on the bus on the way to the ruins! Her name is Natalia, she's a junior like me, and she took the year off to travel around South America. She was living in Cuenca at the time and worked at the crepe place where we ended up eating dinner!

UNC all over the world!

SUNDAY
After sleeping in, we had another pretty good breakfast and then walked around the city a little bit. After a big debacle at the bus station, we (illegally) took a bus about an hour away to Parque Nacional Cajas, a huge park known for its thousands of beautiful lakes. It was pretty chilly and started to sprinkle as we were leaving, but it definitely valió la pena! (one of our favorite Spanish phrases - means it was worth it) We headed back to Cuenca, walked along the Río Tomebamba, and ate our last dinner back at the Chicago Pizza restaurant. Then we took yet another night bus back to Quito!

Group pic (minus Alice Ann) at Cajas

The TOMS were excellent hiking shoes

Laguna Llaviucu at Cajas

pico y placa

And I thought the traffic in Chapel Hill was bad...

The traffic in Quito is unreal. Think 15-501 after a UNC men's basketball game. Then add about 5,000 pedestrians, another 10,000 cabs, and about 3,000 buses. And welcome to Quito! Luckily, last May, the municipal government implemented something called Pico y Placa.

PICO = basically rush hour traffic, when the traffic is super bad
PLACA = the last digit in everyone's license plate

So, Pico y Placa takes place Monday through Friday, from 7:00 to 9:30 in the morning and from 4:00 to 7:30 in the afternoon. During those hours, the drivers with Pico y Placa are not allowed to be driving in certain areas of the city, the busiest and most trafficky areas of the city. The day that you have Pico y Placa depends on the last digit of your license plate (placa). For example, on Mondays, people whose license plates end in 1 or 2 have Pico y Placa. On Tuesdays, those whose plates end in 3 or 4, and on and on.

I'm not sure how well it has worked in the last year because there still seems to be a ton of traffic, but maybe it's still an improvement from this time last year.

what a life

I just finished dinner with my mom and my little brother Leandro, and it hit me how easy the life of a four-year-old is. He was upset during the meal - he's not much of an eater. The biggest complaint he had was that he was cold (while dressed in a turtleneck, pants, and socks) and that he didn't want to eat. All he wanted to do was put on his pjs, watch "Lazytown" (his favorite T.V. show), and go to sleep.

What a life.

In other news, I'm now on my second Ecuadorian phone. I may or may not have dropped mine for the 3rd or 4th time, and it was on its last leg anyway. But thanks to the black market, I got my new(ish) one for only $20!

nothing better