i could be a beach bum

It has been about a month since my last post...and what a month is has been. Mountains. Cities. Teaching. Dogs. Hostals. Beaches. New friends. Old friends. More and more and more. So get ready for a whole lot of pictures!

We started the month of march in Quito, working with Summit Advdnture, instructing 9 students and 2 staff members from Waynesburg university in Pennsylvania. All in all we worked about 2 weeks.

Colin's portrait of one of the local kids.

Old friends. Illineza Norte. Working with locals to plant 1,000 trees. Playing with kids. Learning about recycling in Quito. Introducing students to Quito. Playing with some local children.

After the course wrapped up, Colin and I made the move to the coast. After a 4 hour bus ride that turned into 7 1/2 (though I am not complaining...some of the stories I have heard about long bus rides are truly horrendous), we arrived in Atacames. The next morning we took a motor taxi and headed to the tiny town of Sua.

Sua has basically one street. The town is tiny and one wouldn't give it much of a thought if it wasn't for the peace and tranquility that is so easy to find there. A beautiful beach with beautiful locals that seemed always willing to lend a hand and give advice about other locations that a couple young drifters should head to on their journey south.

Following advice, we headed out the next day to the town of Mompiche. This town was larger than Sua, but still very small. Here we made friends with others staying in our hostel, walked miles on the beach, and got the worst sunburns either of us had ever experienced.

After 4 days in Mompiche, and another 4 buses, we got to the next recommended town. Canoa. Oh, Canoa. If I could spend 6 months there, I think I would still be sad to leave. Everything one could want in a little beach town you can find in Canoa. Restaurants. Tours. Friendly locals. Cheap yet beautiful hostels. A great number of fun people that are all looking to make friends. Beautiful sunsets. Surfing.

Colin had surfed two different times near Santa Cruz, CA in the past, but I had never so much as touched a surf board. But with common sense, caution, and my phobia of sharks thrown to the wind, we rented a couple of boards for three days and attempted to teach ourselves to surf. It was not a pretty sight to begin with. I am sure that I entertained loads of beach dwellers with my antics, but eventually I was able to stand up and catch a few waves. What fun!

We made good friends and had great times in Canoa, but with our limited time and the Easter Holiday causing priced to literally quadruple,we continued south.

Then, Puerto Lopez. More beaches, more mosquitos, more restaurants, more friendly people. More dogs that I want to adopt. We were there about a week. Being the brilliant, hard-working man that he is, Colin arranged to work 4 hours a day alongside our hostals owner in exchange for our room cost. Colin saw lots of sun last week as he transplanted bambo and hacked at things with a machete.

We went to Isla de la Plata. It is a small island about one hour from Puerto Lopez. It is also known as "the poor man's Galapagos". Many animals that inhabit the Galapagos are also found on Isla de la Plata. Beautiful.

And now we are at Santa Marianita. It is a whole other story....basically we are running a guest house for a couple of weeks. We have the keys, the phone, the money box, the car, and the owner's permission to do whatever we want....oh boy.

More to come!