Miguel´s Perspective, Part I

It has been about one week in ecuador and I am writing to you all to update you on what has happend, first off Emily will probably be doing most of the blogging but I will be adding my two cents in so you can get an idea of the trip from my end. Secondly grammar, spelling etc will not be edited because there is no time for that, the keyboards are spainish, and we are in montanita where everything is laid back...thirdly my blog will be jumping all over the place, whatever comes to my head i will be writing about.

So i am living with a family here, there is a mother and father and 6 brothers and sisters but only 3 of them live at home. the two girls both have little babys 3 month old and 3 year old, and the son is the number 1 surfer in ecuador which is pretty cool. oswaldo, norma and fabiola are their names...the first night we arrived at 3 am and had to wake up for class at 730. just as i went to sleep the roosters woke me up at around 4, and then ifell back asleep again to be woken up by dogs at 5 am, so lets just say i was late for my first day of class...not beecause i overslept but because my mother fed me too much food in the morning and was talking too much and i didnt want to be rude and leave....

class is good, 4 other students, two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon...we have a german in our class who is pretty funny and has become a good friend his name is stefano...he also has a friend called sven so they are cool guys. not a big fan of the grammar and rules of the spanish language..i would prefer to learn just by talking to people. so i have become friends with emilys brother hamilton as well as oswaldo so they teach me words that i need to know to get around and talk with the locals...which at this point is more important then some boring grammar rules, its not like im going to become an ecuadorian political leader.

my favorite thing so far here is surfing for sure...i knew i was going to like it a lot before i came but wasnt sure how hard it was...i got up on my second try and now i have graduated from the white raft to the big waves...i surf about 3 hours every day at least...this weekend we did a surfing adventure to los tunas which means the cactus town or something, but the waves were perfect there and very big...so we were there for at least 4 hours...also took a mud bath off the beach and toured a really nice hostal....we left at 10 am and got back around 7...but on the friday night we partyed till about 4 am - yes emily too, so the wake up was a bit rough...lets just stay the first few waves did not make my stomach feel too good...after surfing all day we had an amazing meal...i had a seafood rice dish with a fish soup to start...emily liked the fish soupe more than me so it is now her go to meal...i enjoyed my seafood - shellfish, shrimp, octopus etc...will probably go back next weekend...then i came home and was so tired i looked at my bed and passed right out at 830, only to be woken up by oswaldo at 1130..he had a shot of sugar cane in his hand which he forced me to do, and then gave me some drink made out of sugar cane..they are 60 percent alcohol..so that got my night jumpstarted...i then went to the cocktail stands which is about 15 different stands by the beach all serving different cocktails..fresh fruit goes into all the drinks, probably one of the best mojitos i have ever had too...and they only cost 2 dollars..after knocking off a couple of those we threw back some cervezas costing less then a dollar each for the tall bottles..750 ml...then i ran into hamilton and he took me to cana grill which is one of the discoteques here...we partyed there till about 3-4 then people started clearing out so we went to hola ola which was packed and partyed in there with stefan and sven till about 6...at this time i dunno if i was more drunk or tired but it was time for bed, so i slept till about 2 pm today, grabbed a hambugesa, and hit the waves for 3 hours....then sat on my surf board for about an hour and watched the sunset...pictures will follow it was verry nicce...

tomorrow is more spanish classes and surf lessons, i am thinking of getting a private tutor and do spainish for 3 hours a day one on one instead of 4 hours a day in a group...we will see...i rented my own surf board so i will be doing that in most of my free time...i surf a long board right now which is about 7 feet but hamilton is going ot give me his short board probably sometime this week, so i am excited for that...

montanita is very laid back and everyone is very nice...i liked it so much that i got to talking with some of the locals about owning land here and buying a house...my surf instructor said there are houses that can be bought for 10,000 just outside of montanita and they are very nice, so im going to talk to him this week so he can tour me around a bit...might have to buy my first house in montanita! we shall see...it is growing at a very fast pace though, in the last 2 years the amount of beds and hostals have quadrupled...so the question is how long will it last for, and if too many tourists will take away from the small community of montanita...

i got myself a pair of custom board shorts, with my name written on them. i designed them myself and everything, they are definetly my favorite board shorts now..

ok i have typed enough for today...going to go say hello to my friend jose who runs the playstation center which is basically like a house with 5 playstations in it, every screen they play PES which is soccer...so i am going to show them how canadians play...then go see what hamilton and the other locals are up too...dont have class until 10 am tomorrow so a fiesta could be in order...

adiiiiiioooooooooossssssss


Emily´s Note:
Here are some pictures of Miguel. No sunset pictures yet, as I am carrying around the camera and was not with him to watch the sunset. (I had hiked way up high and watched it from the top of a montañita, which means small mountain!)

The mudmasks near Los Tunas:



Miguel and our surf instructor Isidro at Los Tunas, our day trip yesterday (Saturday):