Canoa, Ecuador

We left Cruzita pretty early in the morning and headed out towards Canoa, another chilled out surf town. We had to go inland a ways and then cross the Bahía de Caráquez in a small little wobbly canoe that felt like it would flip over at any second. The driver seemed to have this little crazy look in his eye. All the other people in the canoe were really interested in talking to this little (and I mean tiny) old lady who’s birthday is tomorrow and she was turning 90 years young.

After crossing the bahía we got on another bus and headed to canoa about 25 km north. on the bus we ran into two girls, Ariana and Johana, that coincidentally worked at the hostel we were planing on staying at, Posada de Daniel. When we got to town, we followed them to the place… it was phat! All rustic and stuff… bamboo huts and bungalos, a pool a couple bars and a restaurant all inside this oasis, definitely a cool atmosphere. There wasnt many people here either tho since it was still early in the week so we decided to hang around a few days and catch the weekend scene and the surf competition on Saturday morning.

We met a crazy swede there named Mannie who was at the end of his trip and relaxing at the coast before his flight home the comming weekend. So for the next few days we had bonfires on the beach, great seafood and veggie pizzas, and good times with new friends. What a great vacation this is turning out to be. And on the bright side, despite my burned back is starting to peel, my skin is turning a sun-baked golden brown and it’s finally feeling like summer.

We took a mini-adventure trip out to visit some interesting sea-caves that we had to swim out to which took a while but we finally made it. I carved my name into the sandy, muddy cliff wall “WILSON” and above it I drew a volleyball with a handprint imprinted with a face on it. I found a nice recuerdo in the cave, a cool volcanic stone that had been smothed on the surface from years of sand and water erosion but was still porous on the inside and had cool little holes all through it.