Langostinos

After six weeks of highland climate and culture, we took a bus to the coast. We chose the sleepy beach village of Canoa, Ecuador. We arrived at our beachfront hostel in the night, ate and finished our beers before the dark crashing waves.

In the morning, we got ourselves oriented. Our hostel had a very nice, open-air, beachfront, common area with a bar, pool table, ping-pong table and hammocks to supplement the scene.

Our hostel, looking from the beach

The main road that runs along the village's beachfront spans just 4-5 blocks and the underdeveloped tourist attractions reach, for the most part, only 2 blocks in.

4-5 blocks of road along the beachfront (beach to the right).

The tourist development reaches just a couple blocks in.

In descending order, the village is populated by locals (beach bums, street dogs, shop and restaurant owners and fisherman), Ecuadorian visitors from the city or elsewhere, backpackers and expat business owners. It doesn't take but a day to start recognizing street dogs and business owners.

Then, there's the beach... which looked like a beach.

After exploring for a bit on our first day, we headed back to the hostel. At the hostel, while passing the bar en route to our room, I recognized someone.

A quick aside: you'd be surprised how often you run into travelers that you met in other cities. At the moment, for example, I am writing this blog entry in a hostel/cafe in Cuenca, Ecuador next to two guys from California who (less than a week ago) we met in the jungle and briefed about the typical behaviors of various species of monkeys.

Anyways, like I was saying, I recognized someone at the hostel bar.

"David?" I asked.
"Ryan! The engineer from Texas, right?" he replied.
Just kidding. He actually said, "hmm... where did we...? you look familiar..."
I said, "Hostal Del Mundo in Quito" (this was the party-time hostel I mentioned in a previous blog).
"Oh, hey man!" David said.

David and I met and talked just once before, during the day at the party-time hostel in Quito. He told me that he was from New Hampshire and in response I asked him, "Lake Winnipesaukee, right?" He looked surprised and said, "yeah, do you have family in New Hampshire?" I said, "Nope... 'What About Bob?'". He laughed and we continued getting to know each other.

David is a really cool cat (interesting person that's not nerdy). He just finished up a term as project leader for a volunteer organization in Ecuador and recently accepted a position to train project leaders in the Caribbean. He's fluent in English, Spanish and Thai, plays jazz piano and is in his late 20's. When you meet him, however, he just says: "eh, I'm from New Hampshire."

At the beach, David, Sheer and I hit it off. David had intended to leave the day we bumped into each other but ended up staying 3 extra days. In those 3 extra days, we developed those traditions and inside jokes that come along with good company that is subject to a new environment. In this case we had: "langostinos", "waves" and "happy hour".

Our typical day went something like this:

Sheer and I would wake up and have breakfast outside in the common area. After breakfast we'd take a walk on the beach, then sit down, play with sand, listen to the waves and talk (usually with a local dog at our side). Around this time, David would be out and about from his tent (he was camping out within the confines of the hostel) and he'd join us. We'd talk about what time his bus was leaving that day (among other things); then, we'd go our separate ways.


Not too much later, around lunch time, we'd spot each other and one of us would say, "langostinos...?" and the other, "por que no?" (langostinos are prawns or "big shrimp" in Texan). We'd munch on our grilled langostinos, sip them down with cervezas and, afterward, gaze at the beach with our full bellies. Then someone would ask David, "so... when's your bus?" We would all laugh enthusiastically for a minute then slowly return to gazing at the beach.

Sooner or later we'd decide to do something productive like take a walk or check our emails. One day we tried surfing (not successful). Often, when walking on the beach in silence, David would mutter under his breath, "waves... waves..." I got a huge kick out of it. Anyway, invariably, it'd be getting close to 5 pm and someone would say "happy hour...?" We would all laugh because we knew very well how helpless we were against the spell of this sleepy beach village. We fell victim to its routines, its moments and to its indulgences each day.

Cappuccinos and cakes... hard times.


Happy Hour (the dog joining us is named Oso).

Watching the sunset with David and a local Ecuadorian lady.


We had a really good time at Canoa. We relaxed, read, indulged (a bit too much) and made a new friend.

Disclaimer: no animals (kosher or otherwise not kosher) were eaten by Sheer in the making of this blog entry.