El Castillo

One of Trent's favourite past times since we've been here at the beach is building sandcastles and forts. He can spend hours in the blistering sun making these huge creations and then an intricate defence system against the incoming tides complete with drainage trenches and decorative shell designs.

This particular one was a beauty, we kept on thinking we were finished, but the water was nowhere near destroying it so we had to just keep on building.


Trent would have spent a solid five hours there, but I left once to get drinks and once to pick up our washing.


In the end it was still going to be hours until the tide came up high enough to reach it so, despite our fears of dogs and children as well as errant trucks and motor bikes destroying all the hard work, we abandoned the masterpiece to the mercy of the elements.


But when we came back in the morning it was still intact. The water had made it to the outer defences, but the main wall was still intact. A marvel of modern engineering.



The mistress unfortunately didn't make it-someone stepped on her head, the only human interference with the whole thing.


We stayed and watched the first wave breach the wall and when we came back from a stroll up the beach it had been washed away entirely, with only a pile of shells and stones to remind us of it's former splendour.

A few pics

I'm sitting upstairs from the cafe we eat in nearly every day, dance music pumping out cos it's Friday and a new crowd are blowing in to town for the weekend party. I've got my camera with me and the cable to plug it in, so it looks like it's time for you to see some more photos.


We stayed nearly a week in Cuenca, south of Quito, partly because it was a really nice city with a beautiful shady river, and partly because Trent was really sick and couldn't leave.


Our hostel was on the sixth floor of a buliding full of doctors and lawyers offices, but with a broken lift. The kitchen had the most amazing view.

One morning I went out to get water and found myself in a parade- stilt walkers, drummers, clowns. I think I figured out that it was for deaf kids and kids with cancer and they had a little fiesta in the park complete with the queen of Cuenca and whole roast pigs.

In Guayaquil we found some more pirates


and a restaurant where I smashed crabs wearing a bib.

Now we're in Montañita, the Byron of Ecuador, and just can't seem to leave. We've been beaching and making castles, chilling out in hammocks, and yesterday went surfing. The waves were pretty shit,but I managed to stand up, but also get a whole lot of fresh bruises and even a skinned knee.

The hostel we're staying at is owned by an ex pro surfer, who casually leaves magazines lying around attesting to the fact. This weekend there's a comp on at the point, so we'll probably be overrun by surfers staying in the hostel and taking over our tv room so we can't watch DVD's.

We may just be able to leave after the fuul moon party tomorrow night.

Blackout

When you´re in a town on the dge of an active volcano it´s a little concerting when there is a blackout of the whole town. We were walking back from the mineral baths on the outskirts of town when suddenly everything shut down. Only headlights from cars and candles in restaurants shed any light on the subject, but most people went about their business as usual, apart from the internet and phone shops. We went back to our hostel and checked if they had any info on the situation or if we should run as fast as our legs could carry us, but they said the power should return in 20 mins or so and gave us a candle. We went and hunkered down in our usual bar, with the delightful Milton, with music provided by guitars, and abience by candle light, until the power finally came back about an hour later.

Not quite as extreme as the conditions have been back home, but slightly unnerving none the less.

Las Cascadas

Yesterday we hired a quad bike a did a trip out of town to see all the amazing waterfalls in the area. It was so much fun, burning around the streets of town, on the righthand side, with my man riding saddle on the back.
There are tunnels on the way that you can ride through which are pitch black, or you can take the woosy way around. Of course I wanted to go through the tunnels, but one of them I couldnt work our headlight, so once we were half way through we were in total darkness until a car passed us so we could follow is lights.
We also did a couple of full on hikes across the gorge and over to the falls, it all seems ok on the way down, but then you have to go up again. We were pools of sweat.


(this stupid computer wont let me put in apostrophes, or @, I have to paste it in every time I want to use it)