Canoa y Cankles

This past week, there were 2 Ecuadorian holidays. On Monday, it was Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) and Tuesday was Cuenca's Independence Day (Cuenca is an Ecuadorian city). Aside from eating the traditional snack of Colada Morada y Gua Guas de Pan, that meant that we had a 4-day weekend and some time to get out of the sierras and head to the beach. Saturday night we boarded our night bus, and that's where our adventure began.

Colada Morada y Gua Gua de Pan (Dia de los Difuntos Tradition)

This bus was about 4 sizes too small for my tall gringa legs. As soon as I scooted into the seat, my knees were permanently pushed into the back of the man in front of me. He didn't seem to mind, because he reclined his chair... all. the. way. Being a night bus, the seats reclined almost horizontally. So while my legs were permanently cramped in the space in front of me, this stranger's head was literally in my lap. Let me paint a picture of the rest of this 8-hour trip. Air conditioning: broken and stuck on freezing; fluorescent lights: randomly flipped on and off; techno music: blasting every 2 hours. Krysta and I snuggled up and tried to sleep as the time slowly creeped by. YAY night bus! Once we arrived in Bahía, we got on a water taxi that took us to San Vincente, only to get on another bus to take us to Canoa, our final destination. We made the trip and were in our hostal all before 7:30am.

View from one of the hammocks at our Hostal

Canoa is a quaint beach town with sand streets and little shacks on the beach. Each shack sells ceviche, cocktails, and fresh juices as well as blasts their favorite song, trying to overpower the noise coming from the other shacks a mere 15 feet away. It's a mixture of sun, sand, and reggaeton.

Canoa is nothing but a little fishing town

We had a nice relaxing weekend reading, napping in hammocks, kayak surfing, collecting shells, and doing a lot of nothing. It was a much needed rest, and we had a blast exploring a new part of Ecuador. We left late Tuesday night on another night bus (not half as bad as the first trip, minus the swollen ankles I had from not moving and increasing altitude), and were back in time to work on Wednesday.

Our budget trip had us eating tuna out of the can
for lunch. Mmmmm.