Balsa Surf Camp
The change is almost immediate when you cross the border into Ecuador from Peru; the landscape is now lush greenery, banana plantations and even the roads are smooth and wide enough for two way traffic. After a late night arrival into Guyanquil I’m up early the next morning to try catch a local bus to Montañita… first I just need to figure out which bus in this massive terminal is the right one.
So I’m using what little Spanish I have learned (thanks Google translate) to ask around the terminal and blindly follow their vague directions that I think I understand. Suddenly this seemingly generous guy offers to take me to the bus; so we’re winding around corners and up escalators when he requests $1 for his troubles… the bus is due to leave in 15 mins and I still need to find it, get a ticket and score some brekkie so I oblige thinking, what’s the harm. Then he requests another $1. At this point I’m already too far in so I give him the second dollar (US mind you as it’s the only legal currency here so already I’m down $2 and the 3 hour bus only costs $6). Anyway we get to the ticket booth and he quickly scrambled to helpfully grab my change and then he hands over most of it thinking I wouldn’t know how much the bus ticket was or that I was too passive given the previous $2 he scored from me for basically nothing… anyway I decide to finally stand up for myself and I force him to give me the rest of my change, thank him for the experience and send him on his merry way; I’m not even 24 hours in the country and already I’ve been scammed of $2.
The rest of the bus ride was non-eventful; again the only foreigner on the bus which seems strange but whatever. I arrive in Montañita to my home for the next 5 nights - Balsa Surf Camp. What an absolute treat this place is. Cute little double story thatched roof bungalows, a luxurious garden, hammocks strung up everywhere, and a little sandy pathway straight to the beach - I have literally landed in heaven!
So the next six days are filled with yoga, surf lessons (I’m particularly shit at this but what the hell, I had fun) the most amazing brekkies (french toast is to die for), learning new card games (even played my first poker game and won), and plenty of hammock time to catch up on some reading (I was trying to read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez but I’m not intelligent enough for the Nobel prize winning “magical realism” of this novel so I swap it for something with an actual plot).
Also one of the coolest things happened when we were playing beach volleyball; some humpback wales started breaching offshore - we also saw more of them at sunset super far away on the horizon. Such an awesome thing to see; got me super psyched for Galapagos tomorrow.
