sometimes i forget how much of an impact a shitty place to sleep can have on your experience in a place. on the flip side, you find a good hostel/hotel and they might have to pry your cold, dead fingers off the spatula in the shared kitchen, or tear you screaming from the comfy bed and just-fluffy-enough pillow. just over one month into my travels, I feel like I’ve had a pretty good sampling of what there is to offer. thanks to the joys of the internet and my affinity for taking recommendations from other travelers, I’ve managed to avoid anywhere with more roaches than people.
my home for the last week, and some of the crazies I’ve been hanging with
view from our patio- nightly ritual
the last 5 weeks, I’ve added 5 notches on the proverbial hostel bedpost- some good, some GREAT. the problem is, the better the hostel, the harder it is to leave! I’m on my way out of montanita tomorrow to make my way down to cuenca (world heritage site, bring on the architecture!)- and i will miss my little kiwi hostel family here so much!
johnny, my surf guru and smoothie maker extraordinaire
the last week has been filled with family dinners, beach time, a terrifying surf session (overhead waves on a 5’8 board, no thanks) and about a thousand movies. I’ve learned at least 6 ways to cook plantains, and only made my way down to the montanita fiesta madness twice.
blas, making us testicle soup (basically ecuadorian matzo balls)
its been a lovely, relaxing week, but i am ready to get out of lala land and back into adventure mode- i have a great base tan, have gone through an entire bottle of sunscreen, and am totally caught up on my oscar season frontrunners. ($1 movies, woot).
I’m getting hungry, so ill leave you with this- montanita is one of those places that is exactly what you want it to be- if you want to party your face off, you have this:
yup, that happened.
or if you’re like me and already went to a full moon party and now feel like you’re too old for that shit, you can lay on the beach, eat a ton of mango and ceviche, and catch up on your reading. *which i wasn’t able to do because i traded dune (amazing, btw) for the worst book known to mankind. i would seriously murder someone for a john grisham novel at this point..
Bite Size Pieces 