Sand, Surf and Spanish...

We got back to Guayaquil last night after spending a week in Montañita. It was a fluke we arrived in Montañita on Sunday as the Spanish school has classes a week at a time, Monday to Friday. So 8am Monday morning we were into it, 2 hours twice a day of study, plus homework! Pretty intense for the week, but it was really good.

View from our classroom

Looking up the beach towards the point break

Our accommodation - not too bad for US$8 each per night

Montañita is a crazy little place, pretty chilled out in a way, but also a party town, parties every night till all hours of the morning. We at least had one day there where we did not have to be at class at 8am! We had originally thought we would hire boards for the week, only the swell was huge for most of that week! Huge as in 8-10ft waves, with maybe a few bigger ones. The point at the end of the beach has the best break, crowed with amazing surfers, we sat for hours several times just watching, it was like watching a live surf dvd. Pretty much no wave goes to waste, and everyone is ripping! We saw some guys getting full stand up barrels. We got out there a couple of times (when it was a bit smaller!), such a novelty for us to surf in water +27°.

Would you believe we have already bumped into several people from NZ, even a pack of 9 ex Dunedin Uni boys, carnage. Some we knew from Dunedin too. They were definitely making the most of “cocktail alley” were some very tasty/strong cocktails started at US$1.5!

"Cocktail Alley" by day...

and by night.

Yesterday we got a bus down the coast to Playas, where we had planned to stay for a few days. Only we got there and it was bigger than we thought, and not really what we wanted so jumped on a local bus back to Guayquil, and have decided to head to Cuenca earlier. I think we are just keen to get cycling soon! We will bus there tomorrow, hope to do some more Spanish lessons and set up the bikes. We thought best to avoid the insane roads/drivers out of Guayaquil, and the 4000m pass within 3 days of riding if we were to ride to Cuenca. This will also give us time to acclimatise in Cuenca at 2530m.

Next update to come from Cuenca, Ecuador.