Soooo, I wrote everything down in great detail in my roadside journal, but it seems redundant to type out every last word, so here is the abbreviated version.
Dec. 8th
I started my vacaction by venturing to Mancora and meeting up with all the students from Pacifico University. Upon arriving I was greeted with vodka slushies and Aussies singing drunken kareoke. The place reminded me of a chintzy Club Med, it had little activities set up for tourist all day, volleyball, poker tourneyments...The point was they wanted everyone to be drinking and staying within the confines of the hostel, they even gave you a wristband to charge your drinks on...pretty dangerous.
Dec.10th
My buds and I decided we had enough of the party and jumped in a cramped van towards Lobitos, a local surf spot 2 hours down the road. Lobitos is an ex-military encampment that appearently has a good amount of oil beneath its borders. The coast is littered with oil rigs, both in and out of the water, spewwing out sinister fireballs every twenty minutes or so. The town itself (if you want to call it a town) has two resturants and is covered in dusty remains of the old fort; monuments, barracks, walls with inspiring slogans 'No te pidas que el país puede hacer para ti, pero que puedes hacer para tu país (Ask not what your country can do for you, but...). Additionally, there are approximately 4 things to do in Lobitos: eat, surf, read and surf, so bring some sunscreen and a good book if you're making the trip.
Soooo, Scott (Canadian), Moritz (Austrian), Mikko (Finnish) and I (Chicagoan) made up one of the oddest surf groups Lobitos has ever seen, so we found one of the oddest places to stay within Lobitos. It was an old military warehouse that was converted into a 'Surf Camp' (it had 'surf camp' written everywhere). There was no plumbing, but there was a hose which was converted into a shower. The upper level was open air and the owner rented out tents for you to sleep in. It was bare bones, but it had character...The best part about it was you could see all the surf spots after taking two steps from your tent and the colorful sunsets were unreal. Day after day we woke up and surfed, the Bob Marley playlist would be stuck on repeat and we shared stories, food, herb and toilet paper. Somewhere along the way my stomach became unsettled and I spent majority of the nights using the makeshift toilet waaay too many times...which was shitty, pun intended. I had some trouble riding the fast left handers without the comfort of my wetsuit in the chilly water, but final got my shit together and grabbed a beauty, hard nips and all. The three conclusions I took from this trip: Canadians are a grumpy people (especially in the morning), being positive is the key to survival (and learning how to surf) and peanut butter is the spread of the Gods.
Dec 15.
After a solid morning surf session, I bid my good friends farewell and began my long, treacherous journey towards Bogota, where I would meet my roommates for Christmas. The first step was crossing the border of Ecuador and finding a bus to Quito. So, I hopped on a bus toward Tumbes, a Peruvian border town, and attempted to find a company that would take me in the right direction. After getting mobbed by various bus ticket vendors, I bought my ticket to Quito and prepared myself for a long trip. However, after 20 minutes the bus dropped us off at the immigration office and took off.
In all the confusion, I put all my trust in a Peruvian mother and her child (she claimed I was her responsibility) as we hurried from the border office, jumped the highway median and flagged down a cab with semi-trucks flying by our noses. So I blindly hopped in a cab with this lady and her child and we winded down the dark and dreary streets of this Ecuadorian border town...sketchy. Turns out this lady wasn't crazy and I just ended up making the next Quito bus, plus they gave us snacks! I wish the people at the bus station would have told me about my personal escort because I was extremely uneasy about the whole night flight from the border office, in fact I was scared shitless going down some of the narrow streets of the border town, but all is well that ends well. Finally I rested my head on the bumpy bus window and attempted to sleep for the entire 18 hours of the agonizing busride.
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