The Jungle, Montanita, and an adventure

I am sitting in a little internet cafe in a surfing town called Montanita. Pete and I had no plans to go on any trips but suddenly, I found out that my old college roommate, Danielle, was coming to Quito for a month. She came along with my other friends from college, Dannee and Matt. I went to Argentina with both Danielle and Dannee, so we have travel experience together. I wasn´t sure what to expect when I heard they were coming in town, but soon after their arrival they asked us to travel with them. Without even having to ask, our boss, Clark, offered to give us the week off for traveling. Thus, what started out as a regular week in Quito, quickly became a road trip adventure through Ecuador. This could not have come at a more opportune time. Pete and I were both experiencing what we like to call the "six month hump" and were feeling a little homesick, and this unexpected visit has seemed to revive us.

After renting a car for the week, we decided to go back to Tod Swanson´s place in the jungle, which we previously went to in July (see our blog). It was great fun, swimming in the Napo river, seeing all kinds of scary bugs, hiking in the rainforest (in pouring rain), tubing down the river, and once again going to the jungle reserve where we saw all kinds of animals. It was great to be in a warm climate again but the best times were had laughing with old friends. From the jungle we travelled south to the beach. Our orginal destination was Montanita, but as fate/luck would have it, they closed the roads due to provincial protests to Montanita and we were forced to stay in a gross, dirty town called Playas for the night. The next morning, determined to make it to Montanita, our Mecca if you will, we took little dirt back roads for 3 hours where we passed villages that may have never seen white people before. It was a grand adventure but when we got within 3 miles of Montanita we found that the roads were blocked again. But by this point there was no stopping us from achieving our destination we took some more back roads, including a very scary muddy downhill to finally get to Montanita. The town is everything we hoped it would be, a beautiful, quant surfing town. Our hostal costs $10 per person and we have ocean front with balconies with hammocks. The weather has been cloudy, but this has not stopped us from surfing until our heart´s content. Tomorrow we return back to Quito and back to work, but I feel revived and I miss our kids (all 45 of them).

There are more stories of this adventure, including meeting local celebrities, and riots but that must be saved for another blog.