Beach part 2

After spending the night in the subwoofer and then the next morning walking around Atacames, declining a myriad of "cheap priced" gadgets, we decided to head to the more peaceful town, Same (pronounced 'Sah-May'). Atatacems is a really nice beach, with a nice beach break for surfing (much like north Zuma Beach, if you know it, except the waves stay open longer), but we were ready for some relaxation.
Along the beach towns, guys drive bike taxis where there is a chariot cart for two riders attached to the front of beach cruiser bike. Some of the guys have gotten smart and replaced their bicycle with a motorcycle, using the money they save in buying water bottles to pay off the motorcycle. Since Same is only about 6 miles from Atacames we found a motorcycle-taxi-cart guy who was willing to take us there for five bucks. It lightly drizzled most of the ride and then most of the day, but we didn't really care because it's so humid any way that you can hardly feel a difference in the air.
After another hotel finding adventure in which we decided to spend a little extra on a nicer hotel and then changed our minds since everything in the nicer hotel was broken, we ended up landing at the first hotel that we had looked at an hour earlier. The owners of this small hotel, "Casa De Amigos" were so nice that we decided we would have a better time with them then we would with unfriendly people in a "luxury" hotel with good air conditioning and a big bathroom. Choosing Casa De Amigos would end up being the highlight of my trip.
Same is a very laid back beach town. Take away the ocean, sand, beach huts and old fashioned canoes, and the attitude that you sense from all of the locals will still relax you. We love the restaurant that is right next door to our hotel, so we went there for practically every meal. It's beach front - of course the town is so small that everything is on the beach. The same guy who sat us would take our order and then turn on everything in the kitchen before calling his wife or sister to do the cooking. The menus are really just to give you an idea of the type of food they serve; what really happens is that you ask the owner/waiter/co-chef what he recommends that day, because that is what they just brought in off the boat. One night the waiter recommended a delicious seafood assortment plate that would have gone for at least $25 in The States - we paid $7.20 and that included tax and tip. I drank the sauce it came in like it was soup when we were done. Seafood is so abundant in these coast towns that they serve shrimp and clams as side dishes with every meal.
So back to the hotel owned by the really nice people. It was a pretty quiet weekend and the owners are doing some painting, so we were the only short term guests. The owners, 3 Germans - Gabriela, Rudy, and Michael - invited us to eat dinner with them our first night. I was a little skeptical about how nice they were at first (maybe they were going to poisen us and steal our camera or something), but soon I realized that they just enjoy life and their new hotel project so much that it gave them pleasure to make sure that we had a great time. The next day Rudy offered us use of just about everything he could think of, mostly the boogey boards and goggles, but even his washing machine. If his motorcycles would have been ready to run, he would have let us take those for a spin too. The owners have been living all over the world operating ranches and fun adventures, so we're looking forward to later in the summer when they get everything up and running. They're even planning on buying a catamaran to do sailing trips to the Galapagos islands, so hopefully I can get in on that for a trip as some sort of workhand or something. If you're reading this and planning on going to the beach in Ecuador, let me know and I'll put you in contact with the Casa De Amigos owners.
It was cool to ride through all the different areas of Ecuador on the bus - the mountains, rainforest with waterfalls, jungle, river valley and coast. We saw the super 3rd world side of Ecuador: communities of families living in huts near the river with no electricity, running water or glass windows.
Even on the coast no one seems to have hot water, but you wouldn't want to take a hot shower anyway because, even with cool water, by the time you finish drying off, you feel wet again from the humidity.
-Pete