Down the Coastline

Next morning, we got to Chiclayo excessively early and were thrown out of the bus around 4:30am. We slept all right on the bus, although the early hours still got to us a bit. It was even that bad, that Chris forgot his camera in the bus, which unfortunately continued its journey to Trujillo right after and it took us a little bit of effort to convince the Bus staff to look for the cam on board and after confirming its location in our seats, send it to Chiclayo for pick-up. Fortunately, the staff was extremely helpful, and after telling us the cam would arrive some when after 8pm, we happily started our tour through the city to look for a travel agency, which could tell us the most interesting sights in town.

As we walked out of the Bus terminal, we met the very helpful young man from Chachapoya’s travel agency, which whom we had booked our Kueláp tour and he voluntarily guided us to the next travel-agency (of course a  friend’s place) and additionally worked a massive discount for a 3-site culture tour. And just like this we hoped on the bus around 10am and did a 8hr tour around Chiclayo.

Places to see included

The Sipán Pyramids, this time differently presented

The Sipán Museum

And the actual Sipán Excarvation Site

After the tour, we figured that our two weeks jungle trip without internet and Facebook had passed, as well as the 2 weeks of alcohol abstinence. So we checked in a kind of expensive 2 star hotel (the only one with free Wi-Fi in town) and went nuts on FB and Youtube for the rest of the night. Also, we rewarded ourselves for this strong two weeks of no Booze or Facebooking with a nicely chilled brewsky.

The following day, we hit the next bus south to Chicama, the longest left-braking wave in the world. Apparently, one can surf one wave for over 5 minutes, from the very end to shore. *WHOOP* *WHOOP*, if that doesn’t sound fun! :D

There, we arrived and desperately looked for cheap accommodation, an old military hangar, which a friend had recommended, and where we could have put our hammocks. BUT, didn’t find it and the cheapest option available was a shithole directly at the beachfront, which was still overpriced. So after a later afternoon arrival, we got ourselves some food and spend the rest of the day watching Family Guy on my laptop, waiting urgently for the night to come and pass, so we could hit Chicama around 9am, high tide.

We still needed to rent gear, which also was kind of expensive, so we decided to save money and forget about the wetsuit, as we only intended to surf about 2hrs or so, before leaving for Trujillo, the next biggest town south. Thing was, Peru is not nearly as warm as Ecuador, and since we were already quite a bit down the coast, the water was FRESH! The off-shore wind didn’t help the situation so that after some freezing 90minutes, we rapidly left the water and used the last 30mins of our rented gear to tan and warm up in the sun, before returning to our shithole hostel and packing up.

The north of Peru is very distinct, so that on the way to Trujillo at times we thought we’re lost in the desert, among bare rocks and heaps of sand. After a 4 hours drive, we finally arrived and asked a cabbie for the nearest, cheap hostel. Guess what: First option he offered a 3 star hotel where a night would cost us approximately 80 Soles (23€) per person. The next option was shit too, and in the end we abandoned the guy and found an amazing hostel for 20 Soles per person, including breakfast and free Wi-Fi. The place was neat and the people cool, plus even the owner was an absolute sweetheart. Tchackaaa, looking around a bit can have its upsides. :D

As we didn’t have enough of the beautiful Sipán Culture, we checked out some agencies that would bring us to the nearest archeological site, featuring the pyramides de Luna y Sol, as well as the museum that belongs to it.

BUT, the next day was the first half final Champion’s League match of Barcelona against Chelsea on, as well as the British Queen’s birthday, which is why we postponed the tour for a day and got plastered in front of the television instead. Later we also met the weirdest Peruvian guy ever! He spoke fluent German and constantly said words like Schwuchteli (Gay) and Arschlöchle (little asshole) and despite the fact that it was hilarious hearing this dude speak German, it was still really creapy.

Anywho, after the culture tour, our time was already over in Trujillo, although it really is a nice place, with an average of 30+ °C and as little as 2mm rain per month. Attractive place to hang out, but, time doesn’t stop and we needed to keep going, to get all our sights done, and visit everything we aimed to. OFF to Huaraz, to the amazing Lagoon 69 ( hr hr hr ) and then hopefully off to Lima!

Peru Cross Country

We got off the boat and looked for the next cheap hostel to park our asses, get a shower and do some laundry. The first dude told us there are no hostals in Yuri and the second told us the same. Only the third TukTuk driver mentioned there was a hospedaje close by, which would cost 2 soles to drive to. In the end, the place was shit and we could have walked the 300m to the place. Didn’t matter, next up: walking through town, looking for a decent bus company to get out of there and a laundry place. We found the laundry place with ease and had already planned the day ahead in a bar, when we came across a little hostel right at the waterfront of the river who offered Ayahuasca-Experiences with a local Shaman

As we had heard so much from other people about this stuff, we thought we could postpone our journey towards the coast and dip into this experience right in the spot. Said, done, we jumped one of the TukTuks and grabbed a sleeping bag and our hoodies and drove out to “Don Pepe’s” place about 30minutes outside of Yuri.

There, we discovered that Don Pepe’s domicile was more of a Russian retreat for the physically ill. Not only his wife was Russian, but at least another 10 people that hung about on the ranch. As the ritual is only performed at night, we had to kill a few hours by ourselves and upon sunset Don Pepe summoned us to prepare us for the ritual. This preparation showed strong similarities to a physiotherapist and he not only corrected my crooked spine (possibly from 4 days in a hammock O.o ) but also cleansed my 7 main chakra points. During one of those cleanings I was about to punch him in the face because it hurt so much, but I kept my shit together and suffered in silence.

After this the Russian bunch, Chris and me gathered around a table and were ready to drink our Ayahuasca. To your information: This stuff is a brew from a vine and contains the highest hallucinogenic concentration of the strongest hallucinogenic substance and it was used by the shamans to clean body, mind and soul. Along with it, people told us, they were tripping hard and after experienced something one would call an epiphany. As I wanted to know in which direction I might head after my SA trip, I could have used such an epiphany and was ready to get down on my Ayahuasca.

Unfortunately, the stuff smells like ass and has this disgusting stinch that you smell when fruits are vegetables have gone bad and started to ferment. So we fought the stuff down our throats and waited. I should mention at this point, that throwing up is not only a common side effect of Ayahuasca, but in our case, as Don Pepe only uses this brew to clean peoples’ bodies, it was even required. So after a few minutes one Russian lady started to vomit into her carefully placed bucket between her legs, and one after the other joined her in releasing their stomach contents.

The worst part was that after every “Huuuaaaarg” Don Pepe gave us another bowl with Ayahuasca and hot water, which we were supposed to drink straight away. And so we kept vomiting for consecutive 3 hrs and after were releaved to be finally able to leave the table and head towards bed. The shitty part about this now was, that we might not have had the correct preparation before the ritual, which meant that the hallucinogenic effect didn’t even set it. We just felt like you would feel at 5 in the morning, after a strong night out, and you just returned the last two drinks from the bar orally to mother nature as you were heading back home. In the end, Chris and I agreed that our 40$ were not well spend, concerning the expected epiphany, which Chris also did not experience. From the healthy point of view, we might have taken some useful information, as I got to know that my stomach is a bit messed up and I am most likely to get arthritis soon, and should urgently do something about it. (No worries, when I get back home, I’ll to a full check at the doctors of my trust).

The next morning we still felt really weak and urgently awaited our breakfast, which was the best thing about the whole trip. After we impatiently awaited our TukTuk driver who was supposed to pick us up, but never came. The worst part about it was that we waited in the rain for like an hour until we decided to grab one of the collectivos for 3 Soles and get back to town this way. After a little stop at the place who organized the Ayahuasca experience for us, we got our money for the TukTuk back and returned to the city, in urgent search for a bus that would get us out of there. We also collected our laundry and were off to what the Lonely Planet calls “a second Machu Picchu”.

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After this rather unpleasant experience with the jungle’s plants, we wanted to get back to the coast, where the sun was shining and the climate was mild and easy. We read that along the way to the coast there was a second Machu Picchu hiding in the Peruvian Andes, which we thought could be a nice little appetizer for the real thing. So we jumped the next possible bus to Tarapoto, from where we could easily catch another bus to “Kueláp”.

The trip was long, the collectivos were packed and uncomfortable, and to all my misery in one of those rides a little girl behind me threw up due to the drivers racing skillz in the serpentines and thus made it even worse. But after a long 18hrs of travel, we finally reached the little town of Chachapoya, a beautiful little place in the Andes from where we started our daytrip to the ruins.

It took us 3hrs in a cab to drive up there, and in the end we were rewarded with nasty rain and uncomfortable wind and dark clouds. But nevertheless, the place looked amazing. It was high up in the mountains and on a clear sky’s day the view must have been even more breath-taking. Funny little anecdote: Right on the mountain, during our tour, we met Chris’ friend from Quito, Sarina, who didn’t come with us on the jungle tour, as she was afraid it would take too long and she would eventually miss her flight back home. In the end it turned out, we were as fast as she was with her bus-rides, but we saw more stuff along the way, HA!!!

After this, we jumped the next Bus towards Chiclayo along the coast, which we had already booked in advance, and happily fell asleep in one of the unusually comfortable seats of the Movil Travel Operator’s Buses.

Welcome to the Jungle!

The next day we packed our stuff and headed towards the harbor in order to board a boat for Yurimaguas. But there we were immediately disappointed by the local fishermen as they told us there was no ship in this harbor. So we headed to the next one. And the story kept repeating for about 70 minutes, until we finally reached the place where “Eduardo 10^” was leaving for Yuri. The whole trip took about 1,5hrs and costed us S20 (ca. 6€), during which we unwillingly did a whole 3 laps around the city and literally bathed in exhaust fumes in our little TukTuk.

Departure day / 12.4

So after we finally found the right dock for the boat to Yurimaguas, we split up quickly, to prepare ourselves a bit faster. First, Chris went out to buy a Tupper bowl for the food and some water, and I was assigned to hang up the hammocks. After we switched and I went on a food run, to get ourselves some really late lunch. Around 5:30pm I came back and Chris had already chatted up some random chick that talked way too fast & way too much. Around us, it was absolutely buzzing and the whole deck was packed with people. Also, there were freaking Babies everywhere. Half of them playing on the floor, the rest was either sucking on Mommy´s titty, screaming their asses off because they wanted to suck on Mommy´s titty or shat their pants, so Mommy had to change them. And despite a strong evening breeze, the air was filled with the stink of pee and poo from all around us.

Since the both of us already ate and there wasn’t much to do on the boat at night, we called it an early one and resided back to our hammocks. All locks put on, sweatpants on our legs and sweater at hand, we closed our eyes and waited for the next day to come.

Day 2 / 13.4.

The day started incredibly early as all of the “tribe people” (respectively locals) aboard got up normally around 5am. So within 5hrs of the day, the first boom-boxes already started smacking classic reggaeton music right into your face before u even had the chance to prepare yourself for this mayhem. And it would take even another hour for the cheap spiral light bulbs to be replaced by the sun. So I turned around in my pink hammock in search of anything between latino-music enhanced trance and normal sleep.

6:30am: breakfast time. Half the boat, about 90 people were already standing in line at the food dispense, waiting for their two buns of bread and a weird hot cereal soup. Chris’ new friend Linda is also already awake and machine-firing words towards us, which I don’t understand as my brain yet. My brain refuses to accept input at this early hour, especially if words keep shooting out, without even being asked for. Chris must have understood something as he tells me, it would be my turn to get food first, since we were sharing a plastic bowl (required) and it would take him longer than me to climb out of his hammock and mosquito net. Fair enough, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t have had the energy to fight his logic, so I moved towards the kitchen dispense area to grab breakfast. The soup was almost boiling and the bread was insanely dry, but I somehow stuffed it in me, handed the bowl to Chris and got back to bed for a second round of sleep.

I woke up again around 11am, almost in time for lunch, and ready to begin the day. To my right I heard this snoring sound under a mosquito net and figured that Senior Kaiser had the same glorious idea as I did and escaped Linda’s desire for conversation, by going back to bed.

She too, was there again to drown us in words, when we woke up, and this time it even made some sensse to me, what she wanted. She told us lunch was ready in a few minutes and that she didn’t eat any of the cooked food there, as she doubts the quality of the chef.

“Why?” I asked her, and as she didn’t give me reasonable explanation I drop the topic and continue to do prepare for lunch. The only thing going through my head then was that with her not using the ticket to get food, I could take that and go for a 2^nd round after I used my ticket for food. :D

(At this point, I would like someone to remind me to go see a Doctor about this, cuz during the last months I’ve been eating like a whale without gaining weight. )

The rest of the day we were hanging about, writing a little bit in our diaries. Eventually we were going nuts on the cards and later on the dice for Kniffel, but this was about it. For almost half the passengers, we were the absolute highlight playing these weird card games. It might have helped that we were the only white passengers and let alone this attracted people and made them stare like hell. And while other peeps hung about in their hammocks, some children were playing and the little ones were again sucking on Mommy’s titties or getting their asses wiped.

Dinner was served, again rice with something, but this time I hogged Linda’s card and got two portions, which kept me busy for at least an hour. After that we made a little bit of conversation with different people around us, and finally the night was topped off by reading in my hammock before the lights were switched off.

Day 3 / 14.4.

Again, the day started excessively early for my taste and to be honest, the night before I never really slept, as the little bastards rug-rats were crying non-stop. So when it was time to get in line for breakfast, not only Linda, but 3 other people tried to wake me up and get me out of bed. I was a bit on edge and impolitely shrugged “leave me the fuck alone, I want to sleep”, which Chris tactfully translated as “he’s not hungry”.

As the night was already dominated by screaming of the young and little, the day itself didn’t get any better. And although there were plenty of toys and comrades to play with, including an open deck with loads of space, the little devils grew more and more impatient by the day and got more and more cranky. So in order to blend out the youngster mayhem, Chris and I grabbed our books and started to read the shit out of them. For hours we sat in our hammocks and read page after page and thus successfully ignored whining babies to the left and right of us. Once in a while, we’d get up, stretch our legs a bit, take a walk around the ship and even become witness of one of the most amazing double rainbows of my life, just before dinner. (Again chicken, rice and banana).

The rest of the evening, we stuck to our books and kept a low profile and finally switched off the lights around 10pm.

Day 4 / 15.4

As in a routine, boom boxes started to blast out raggaeton music before even one of the 20  rooster first krieked for sunlight and again breakfast was horrible. Luckyly it was only a few hours for us until we finally landed in Yurimaguas. And upon landing at the port, we were happy and relieved to escape this baby hell and were looking foreward to the next shower that wasn’t installed over a toilet bowl. Bring it on!

Hello Peru, how do you do?

So, that was it Ecuador, hu?
We finally decided to move on, despite the great, GREAT adventures and experiences we made here. BUT you should always stop and leave when it’s best, right? So, good bye Ecuador, I guess I’m gonne see you no more.

On our way out the country, we had to stop by in Coca, a city on the boarderline between civilization and jungle, from where we’d hopefully get a boat soonish, which would bring us along the river Napo to “Nueva Rocka Forte”, the last town before the boarder. Upon arrival there in the early morning hours, we looked for a hostel, as recommended in the Lonely Planet, and after a good time of searching finally found it and instantly tested our beds for solid 5hrs, to make up for the lack of sleep from the shitty busride.

When walking through the town, to look for unchecked items from our shopping list, we met a friend of me from Montanita “Maxx”, who fled the coast, and told us that the once so magic place was dead and they would soon begin to tear open the streets and build in a sewage system. And although Coca was his hometown, he didn’t speak to fond of it, which is why we didn’t leave the hostel that night to grab some drinks, but rather stayed in and watched Troy and 300 one after the other on the rooms TV.

The next day we got up early to get our boat to the boarder around 7 and were already afraid what kind of boat would be expecting us. At the docks we saw it and at first didn’t think too bad of it, but after the first few hours, the tiny seats and the little space for the legs really got on our nerves. The ride was scheduled for 10hrs and after 5hrs we had our only break at a little restaurant along the way. But the stop was only for 15 minutes, during which we only managed to eat a thin noodle soup and couldn’t even take-away order a proper meal. Another 7 hours later, we finally reached our destination and wanted to directly look for people who could bring us across the boarder in their boat, and preferably take us directly to Iquitos, Peru.

Along the way, we met a Belgique couple who had the same plans in mind and thus we started our search together. After 5mins of walking along one of the 3 streets of Nueva Rocka Forte, we encountered an Argentinian couple and a German girl, who had a boat at hand, that would take them to Iquitos, and luckily for us there was still room to hang our hammocks. It wasn’t really cheap with 90$ per person, but as we had no idea when the next boat would arrive that could take us down the river, we preferred expensive security over cheap jeopardy.

They also were just on the way to the Immigration Office, to get their departure stamps, so we tagged along, I at the back, with a weird feeling in my stomache. On the way we found out the German girl had went to the pub with half the precincts staff the previous night, and said they would be all very cool guys and that I would get my stamp, without trouble. To be honest, I still wasn’t calm about it, and when the police officer in charge finally looked at my Passport, he couldn’t his eyes. He triple checked the current date, to be sure the Ecuadorian visa in his hands really was expired since 5 weeks, and immediately called his superior in the next bigger town. Upon return he mentioned that he would have to arrest me and put me in jail until he was told what to do with me by higher levels of the police.

Anike, our new German friend just went “best-buddy” with him and said that we could easily resolve the issues at hand over a beer of 15 in the nearest watering hole. Unfortunately for us, it was Sunday and thus, no one was allowed to sell alcohol to these “oh so pretentious Catholics”. Also, I couldn’t just offer 50$ to him, as there were at least another 5 people in the room, just doing nothing and already witnesses of me being in the country illegally. In the end, the problem was attended to outside of the precinct where the police officer told me he would like to do a trip to Coca with his friends, but apparently they had spend all their money during the previous night and it would probably cost them 30$ back and forth. Said and done. I handed 30$ over to him and 1 minute later I held my freshly stamped passport in hand and had officially checked out of the country. With a massive smile in my face, and an angry Chris (he had paid his 230$ for an additional visa in Quito) we went to the hostel to try out our newly bought hammocks and then go out to grab some food.

Again, the next day was an early wake up and we met the others around 5:30am in the kitchen of our hostel, where the host had already prepared breakfast for Chris and me (for ridiculously cheap 3$ per person) and then headed off to the river. There, the tiniest boat was waiting for us, in which we barely all fitted. The Belgian guy had with 1,96m the worst seating on the little boat and really did suffer for the whole two hours it took us to reach Pantoja, the first city along the boarder. There Passports were stamped and we were off to the big boat, already waiting for us along the riverside. We boarded and set up our stuff, and within 1 hour we were on our way to Iquitos.

Basically, we did not much during our 3 days / 2 nights cruise down the river but hang about in our hammocks, read, cook, chill out and once in a while play card and dice games. Concerning the food we had the good fortune of being accompanied by an Argentinian chef, who would cook up brilliant things with very little choice of ingredients.

A few of the highlights along the way were during the first day, when I somehow agreed to let Chris shave off my hair, as the chances were very little that I would ever do this again in the future and thus would never know how I look without hair. I’ve always had relatively long hair, and shaving it off, would be a radical thing to do, but again, I have no idea what I was thinking. I just know that after our first lunch, Chris and I settled on one of the decks and a good 15 minutes later, I was bald.

Another highlight was the first night, during which it started pouring down on us. And as we set up our hammocks under the stars, Petrus fucked us right over. Unfortunately, I had made a mistake when tying the knot of my hammock, and by the time my “bed” was taken off the rails, all my stuff and I were soaked. I then set up next to the engine in a dry spot, without wind, but it was still a very uncomfortable night, which only got better, as by 5:30am the engine was fired up and the heat of it started to dry me and my equipment. Lucky for me, I wore my earplugs against eventual snoring from Chris and hence managed to not become deaf by the engine noise. (We had times before, when Chris’ snoring actually could have deafened me as well, but that’s another story ;-) ). Chris and Anike, on the other side, had no earplugs, and after Chris snatched my spare ones, only she partially turned deaf.

The next day I didn’t get out of my hammock before lunch, as I was still cold and I finally enjoyed not having to get up for anything. So around 1pm I felt like I needed to move and was just in time for another delicious meal by Franco. The morning apparently was grey and rainy and sun only came out during the late afternoon, so in the meantime I read a bit and Chris and I taught one of the captains of the boat how to Kniffel. J

This evening I also helped Franco to catch some fish from the back of the boat and after a nice night with everyone on the reeling, we returned to our hammocks for a last night on the boat.

This night passed without any incidences and although it didn’t rain that night, I preferred my cosy place next to the engine. Unfortunately, I lost one of my earplugs that night and when the engine roared up the next morning, it was deafening. It took my left ear about 7-8hrs to recover from that noise and to regain full hearing again.

Around noon our ride was already over and we reached Manzán, a little town just around the bend from Iquitos. There the seven of us grabbed a Tuk Tuk to cross the island to the other side and there boarded a speed boat which would bring us to the big city. Upon arrival it was loud, noisy and stank like rotting animals. No wonder, we arrived at the production market where indigenas from all around present their hunted game right under the burning midday sun. We walked a few blocks to the plaza de armas from where we thought we could arrange either a tour through the jungle or a boat to the next stop along the river, Yurimaguas. Just before we got the plaza, we were harassed by about 5 guys that shoved their “official tour guide” signs in our faces and wanted to convince us to jump into the next boat with them for a jungle trip, at about 100$ per day, per person. We held them off for a bit to get our own interests set first and then talk to the guys.

In the end, we said that we don’t like the city and wanted to leave as soon as possible. So we grabbed one of them, told them we need to change money and a boat leaving for Yuri. Said, done. The first part was easily done, as his three cousins awaited us around the corner with Peruvian dough; the second part with the boat, not so much. We checked three harbours and everybody told us that the next boat would leave the next day. Hence, we too went to the hostel where the other guys were and settled for a night in Iquitos. That night there was a soccer match on, Peru versus Chile, and I have to say, they really are shit at it. Chile bust their nuts with an easy 3:0 and could have scored another 3 goals more, with a bit more concentration. But with this we went to bed and hoped to really get on the boat to Yuri, as this town just wasn’t the right place for us. 

The show must go on...

As I was back in the big town, and heading for the jungle, a little bit if shopping needed to be done, for which the bith of us planned about 2 days, 3 tops, and then to leave the civilization. Among the stuff we needed, were hammocks, mosquito nets, mosquito repellants, and some other things that we read about were necessary for the jungle tour.

The first day we successful as never before, everything we looked for was found in an instant, which among was our hammock, mine in bright pink, new shoes with strong profile for jungle tracks and a new hat. The second day was less successful, here we didn’t find any of the missing things and had to postpone everything for our first stop along the boarder to the jungle, Coca.

Wednesday we then went to the radio station in which Chris and Jan were broadcasting a German Online Radio show once a week, and we wanted to discuss and introduce the differences of German and Ecuadorian night life on air. It was a good show and we had heaps of fun!

Later that day we wanted to mentally farewell Quito by switching our lights out, and having a party at the Bungalow 6 for the last time. Also I found out that the second group of my Danish students were also in the big city and just about to leave for Galapagos. They too ended up in the same club that night, the Bungalow 6, which I do recall very well from the last visit to Quito, and off course the fishbowl was welcomed with screams of pure joy and the night resulted again in us being absolutely trashed. Goood Times!!!

The day after we hung about and didn’t really do much, apart from having a few beers and roughly packing what needs to come along with us to the jungle. Also we brought stuff to the laundry service only to find out later that they closed early and weren’t to open for another 4 days, as we were right in Semana Santa. SO about 6kg of cloths were lost and had to be recovered by someone else (Chris’ friend and flatmate) as we didn’t want to wait for 4 days to leave town.

That night too, we decided to go for drinks, as the first group of my Danish students had too come back and were leaving the next day for Galapagos. Again it was a massive party and the following day we took the night bus to Coca.

During the last few weeks I had a special concern, which was about my visa.*

To sum everything up, I hoped to be able to bribe one of the boarder officers with a few bucks, to convince him to give me stamp in my Passport that I needed. I still don’t know if that will work out or not, because I have heard way too many stories, which all say different things, going from being arrested and raped in an Ecuadorian jail, to him giving me the stamp if I only said “please” and “thank you”. Well, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well…

* Sorry Mum, I know I told you I had a new visa and everything went well, but I never applied for a new one. Thing is, the paperwork here would have required me to come in multiple times to in the end receive a new visa successfully, which for me didn’t work out as I was on Galapagos and after on my Ecuador Trip and didn’t have any time to do what was needed.

Hit and Run on the third one

Well, as we were coming towards the third Danish group, my batteries weren’t recharged at all!!! I was aside making plans, how and when to leave the coast to get back to Quito and continue to travel with Chris in direction south: Peru.

So luckily, the size of the third group helped me with my decision. It was a small group, way smaller than the groups before and the way it would be split for diving, I wouldn’t have to join the diving as there was not enough space in the boat. But I still decided I would help with the pool session and lead the surfing class the next day before I then get on the bus to the capital.

So, Saturday morning, again at horrible 7am the bus was ready for the pool and Victor, Eugenio and I would instruct the 9 individuals, who decided thay wanted to learn how to dive. When I got my share of peeps for the course (3) I figured instantly that they were on top of the game and everyone would perform all the skills required just as described in the PADI book. And again after about 3hrs of pool, I ran out of tasks for the guys, even though they all did everything more often than necessary.

With Victors and Eugenios share it was similar, about 30minutes later everyone was out of the water and all the equipment set for the ride home. Exellent work guys!!!

On the way back it came to me that this would be my freaking last night in Montaloca, the place that I lived in and fell in love with instantly. Luckyly it was a Saturday night and there would be enough peeps out which who I could share some farewell drinks. And there were!!!
It too was one of those Saturdays that the Lost Beach Club hosted a massive electro Party, which was my first choice to get plastered at. I left the joint in the early morning hours around 7am in order to get an hour of sleep, before I had to give my last surfing class at 9am to the danes. I arrived three minutes late and suffered like I have never suffered before in Montanita. It too did not help, that most of the danes were hungover, tired or just extremely unmotivated to surf either. They barely paddled, and took ages to lift themselves off the board, if they did it at all, so I was actually really happy when the class was over and I could return to my place and start packing everything up.

The only awesome moment during this surf class was one guy, who never surfed before but ripped the shit out of the waves after just a few tries. He paddled like he never did anything else in his life, even surfed green waves and not only the whitewater stuff, and in the end we could barely get him out of the water after the 2hrs were over. THIS is the kind of student that just brightens up your day, no matter how hungover you are…:D

 So after everything was packed and I farewelled everyone around, I jumped the bus up north, to Puerto Lopez to grab a nightbus to Quito and arrive there in the early morning hours. I had about 90minutes of sparetime before my bus would leave, so I went to the beautiful beach to spend the last minutes at the water. I finished off the good 4 months of coastal life with a burger in my left hand, a beer in my right and a tear in each eye.

Arrival in Quito was in the middle of the night, around 3:30am and it was a very cold welcome, literally. It was freezing and although I packed my jumped and long pants, u can imagine that the temperature at night on about 2800m altitude is a strong contrast to sundown temperatures at the coast. :D

Despite the cold welcome I still made my way into town and finally arrived at Chris’ door at 5 something in the morning, in order to head towards new adventures and more traveling!

Batteries running low

The next day, Friday, meant that the next group would be popping in and receive their books in the early afternoon, and then watch the DVD a bit and receive their gear. This time we had the great idea that we could use the same equipment for each group, which we didn’t have before. This resulted in some guys having too small or too large wetsuits, which can be really annoying if the water is cold and the suit doesn’t seal. So, this time, group one went to check suits and boots first, and the second group straight after. Every piece of equipment was written down for each person, which was a bigger hassle than before, but in the long run, it made it easier for us to deal with the suits and boots concerning the preparation before each dive.

All was set and Saturday we went to the pool around 7, again at such unholy hour, to make sure, that even with same delays we would still get at least a little break to grab some food.

This time though, we didn’t have as many complications as the week before and the two guys that I instructed and introduced to the gear to, were done after about 3 hours. A miracle!!!
Eugenio was similarly fast and finished about 20minutes after me, and Victor with his 4 people finished about another 30 minutes after Eugenio and we were looking at two spare hours to fill until the next group would arrive.

Eventually they arrived and we ploughed through the material as fast as we did with the first part of the group. It was insane how smoothly things could go, and around 5pm we were already back in town, unpacking everything and getting ready for the next day at sea.

Here we encountered some slight problems too, and although the water was calmer than the week before, visibility was still absolute shit, and only under the thermocline (the line between warm, unclear water and cold, clear water) you could actually see some underwater life. After a while everyone was down and still it wasn’t fun, as the water was that cold, that even 7mm wetsuits made half of us shiver and wish it was warmer. We still managed our 2 dives and everyone did all the tasks required by PADI during the second dive.

This time too, all my students were completely out after diving, and I too felt like I earned a little nap before meeting group 2 for the surf classes. This time it was a bigger group, and we lost Michelle, who injured herself when she slipped of some rocks and cut herself strongly on them. So this day, Bea and I had to supervise 8 students between the two of us, instead of 7 students among the three of us, like the week before. Again we memorized the fatal first day during which two of the guys had been pulled into a rip and despite waling out of it safely, we didn’t want to happen in a group with more people, and less people to supervise.

The waves weren’t that strong that day, so the fear of losing someone in the surf was really unlikely, but still these things work on you, so we were double as carefully this time and spend more time in advance explaining safety rules and rescue procedures.
After a while, Bea and I found out that what this group was ahead of the group from the previous week in diving, they were behind in surfing. It was less people getting up during their classes and less people smiling and having a great time. It was more that they seemed tired of something and didn’t have the energy, neither to paddle sufficiently, nor to get up on the boards when in the wave. Of course there were a few of them who still did this, but the overall impression was that the other group had a bigger personal interest in surfing and was more willing to push themselves for it.

Anywho, again, time simply fleeeeeew by and suddenly it was Wednesday one more time. I do have to say though, that after Sunday and Monday I was really tired and had to push me hard in the morning to get up at that godforsaken unholy hour, and go get the equipment ready for the day. So when Wednesday finally struck, I was unbelievably tired and almost didn’t want to go out for a drink or two with the guys.

After the surf lesson, I even suggested to organize some place where we could eat together, and due to the sheer amount of people, might be able to tickle out a discount for us. I just didn’t want that idiot Colorado from their hostel to try to organize anything, as I was sure he’d fuck that up too. So I walked around town and tried to pull some strings in order to get us a nice place to eat. All the places I went to, didn’t offer me any price reductions, and so I reserved a massive table at the Hola Ola restaurant just across the Surf & Dive Club for 8:30pm and was glad they offered me at least a 5% discount, even on the special offers they had that day. Again you see, that these people do not have the slightest idea of how to run a gastronomy business. And it became even clearer after the night. But I’m getting ahead of myself:

So we arrived there, all nicely dressed and ready to get some meals in before we start painting the town. We sit down, everyone orders something and only one waitress takes the order… I had a bad feeling when I saw this and hoped it would still all go well, somehow. To cut a long story short, that chick forgot about three dishes, of which two could somehow be pumped out within minutes after she discovered she fucked up (the chef must have really been behind it), and about three drinks never made it to the table, despite a permanent reminder by me and Eugenio in Spanish. Because, Of Course that girl didn’t know any English at all, and my little danes were shit at Spanish, but that was why they were here, to improve their Spanish, right, so no blame on them.

My absolute kicker for the night was that when everyone got up individually, to pay individually at the bar, just like all Scandinavian people like to do, the head waitress told me, this would be impossible, on the ground that they had a new computer system, and this one was made for this. If the System had been in English or German, it would have possibly take me 5minutes to figure out how to do it within a few minutes for all 19 danes, but since it was in Spanish I didn’t bother and told her, to collect the money individually from each person. That she couldn’t do either, as she didn’t have any change to work with (central billing by that cunt behint the bar, who doesn’t know her own computer system), and our actuall waitress couldn’t do it either, as she had other tables and was additionally too incompetent to pull such a job. So it was left with me to collect the $187,50 from my peeps and after a tiring 15 minutes of saying “and, what did you have?” I had all the dough in my hat and was ready to pay the bill. There were like 7 bucks in drinks missing, who some kids didn’t name, or forgot about, or weren’t willing to pay for, but the 5% discount on all of it, screwed the total amount due down to $178,blaaaa and thus it worked out evenly.

After I really felt like a cocktail and within an instant Eugenio and I stood amidst the Danish party peeps and rocked the house until 5 in the morning. I still do remember Eugenio being on fire and bouncing through the club like flubber on extacy whereas I had been way too tired to go into full throttle party dancing. Again it was a strong night, and all of the danes rocked on to the early morning until our ways parted and this time I didn’t manage to get up in time to wave them good bye… I simply couldn’t do it and kept lying in bed until 4pm that Thursday afternoon.

That night, again Eugenio and I didin’t care for Montanitas Party night, but hung about at our usual corner, with a few other guys and had a relaxed beer instead of another hard night on the booze. And by around 12:30 at night, our ways parted and everyone slowly moved towards their homes and their delightfully cosy beds...