Canoa

Hola. I have had a very busy week! Wednesday was my friend Val's birthday so we went to Zach's house to celebrate. His house is on the side of one of the mountains and is 3 floors. On the 3rd floor there is a giant outdoor terrace that has a grill, space heaters, a soccer field, and overlooks the entire city of Quito! So we brought a bunch of food over to grill and got to eat and hang out with a view of the entire city lit up at night. 

Here is all the food we grilled! We made sausages, vegetables, squash, bruschetta and a cake. It was delicious.

Thursday night we left for the beach! The beach we went to was called Canao and its the safest beach for tourists. Its also the widest beach on the coast. It is an 8 hour bus ride so we took a bus that left at 11pm thursday night and arrived at 7 am on friday. When we arrived, we brought our stuff to our hostel, went out for breakfast and then hit up the beach! It wasn't very sunny but it was very warm! We went swimming for a while in the ocean. The water was very warm and there were huge waves that were really fun. Some of my friends slept on the beach instead of swimming in the ocean and they all got pretty bad sunburns on their back. We then had ceviche for lunch. It is incredibly popular in Ecuador - especially on the coast. It is raw fish cooked in lime juice. It is served in a soup with chifles (fried banana chips). It is really good. After lunch we walked to the end of the beach where there were supposedly caves. We climbed a bunch of rocks and saw tons of giant crabs but the tide was too high for the caves. It was still fun. After that we went back to our hostel to relax in the hammocks. Then we went into the very small town (the entire place was about 2 streets and everything is sand) and found ingredients to cook dinner. Apparently most hostels in Ecuador have kitchens that you can use. We made chicken, rice and stir-fried vegetables. It was very good. Then we went to a birthday party for one of our ecuadorian surfer friends that we had met earlier on the beach. The party consisted of us 10 americans, 4 girls from switzerland who only spoke german and about 15 ecuadorian surfers. It was a lot of fun! The next morning we slept late and had a leisurely breakfast at our hostel. We then went and spent the day at the beach. After that, we had more ceviche for dinner and spent the night dancing at a tiki hut on the beach with tons of people. Our bus left at 6 am on sunday so we figured it would be easier if we just stayed up all night and then slept the whole bus ride home. So we danced for hours then got shiskabobs at about 3 am then went swimming and relaxed in our hostel's hammocks for about an hour before the bus left. 

This is beach

My friends and I hanging out at the beach on Saturday! 

Our awesome hostel. The hostel had a pet kitten that was adorable and always jumped on our lap when we were laying in the hammocks. The hostel only cost $6 per night and it was right on the beach! On friday night I feel asleep to the sound of the waves.

Nora and I "frolicking" on the beach

The beach was lined with cool huts like this. Some sold food, some sold drinks, some sold jewelry. I think this one was a stage for concerts.