Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Pictures from Mompiche (see previous post)

This guy was racing us as we sat in holiday traffic on the way to the beach

On the road to Puerto Quito as the sun was setting...

A car that was worse off than ours...no rear windshield, broken windshield and windows,  a piece of metal hanging off the bottom and the passenger door was falling off!
Mompiche Beach

Mompiche...the view  during breakfast



Local kids playing on the beach
Relaxing in front of our hotel, Hostal Gabeal
Sabrina and Mike
Dan and his sandy toes relaxing after breakfast
Breakfast, plus a cheese empanada, scrambled eggs and a coffee, plus a coconut with a straw...$3.00

Mompiche

It's amazing what a couple days at the beach can do for your soul! After a hectic week of marking at the end of the grading period, we had a four-day weekend for the Carnaval holiday. Dan was craving a last chance to surf here in Ecuador, and I was craving some beach time, so we decided to head to Mompiche, a scruffy and charming little beach town in the Northern province of Esmeraldas.
We hadn't been to this part of the country yet, and it was interesting to see the differences between the North Coast and the South Coast, where we spent several weeks last summer. We only went to Mompiche and a nearby beach called Portete, but I found the area to be much more lush, clean and more beautiful than those further south. The beautiful weather helped, of course!
The food was incredible - I believe I ate shrimp in a different form for every meal: fried, in ceviche, encocado (cooked in a rich coconut sauce), al ajillo (cooked in a buttery garlic sauce). And a platter of fresh fruit for breakfast everyday! We definitely ate like kings.
Our friends Sabrina and Mike joined us for the long trek from Quito, which included an overnight stop in the jungle-y town of Porto Quito, where we found a hotel with an incredible pool and jacuzzi, yet no toilet seats. Our dinner there was frequently punctuated by dive-bombings by the largest (flying) grasshoppers I have ever seen - Dan estimates they were eight inches long! 
As we drove through the cloudforest by Mindo to get to Porto Quito the rain poured down in buckets and we passed an enormous mudslide, which we were fortunately able to pass without a hitch. However, we realized a little too late that the straps holding Dan's surfboard to the roof made the Bug a little less than waterproof. Mike tried to combat the water sliding down the straps into the backseat but by the time we arrived we were all damp, to say the least, and there was a sizable puddle throughout the car. 
The next day we heard a strange rattling in the car and decided that we needed to get it checked out before we went any further; the car turned out to be okay but the delays landed us in the traffic we had tried to avoid by leaving on Friday. Fortunately, we had downloaded about fifteen old podcasts of CBC's The Vinyl Cafe, which helped pass the time. Also, we never went hungry thanks to the many young entrepreneurs in the small towns we passed through, who brought baskets of homemade treats to sell to the drivers.


All in all, it was an interesting time getting there, but it was worth it for the perfect vacation we had in Mompiche. It felt so good to slow down for a couple of days, and take the time to float in the warm ocean, indulge in rich seafood and watch the pink and orange sunsets over the Pacific.