Recent Adventures

I came to town hoping to do a book exchange but of course the place is closed so I decided to stop and give you guys another update since a lot has happened since my post on Friday.

First, Susan, the new german roomie, apparently went to the house for about 10 minutes (while I was posting the note about her coming) and came to Puerto Lopez where I met briefly and in that time decided she did not want to live in the house and was going to live in a hostal in the larger town. I think it was a mixture of the non-private bathroom and small pueblo that drove her away. Last I heard she was heading back to Quito, the capital. Oh well - apparently she is the first volunteer in 8 years to split like that. Rumor has it she has/had a boytoy in a neighboring town. Who knows, maybe it didn´t work out. Anyway, that´s it for Susan.

Second, I went to Montanita for the weekend. Montanita is the backpacker party beachtown basically. And it definitely lived up to that reputation. Friday night I went with Anna-Lee and the 2 german guys and we hung out on the beach most of the night, partying and hanging out with other people. Unfortunately it was pretty overcast and not very warm so Saturday after sleeping in :) Anna-Lee and I read on the beach under blankets and the german boys headed back to our pueblo. Saturday night Anna-Lee and I lucked out. The table we ate dinner at turned into the backstage of a street show put on by ´locals´. They played african music on drums and had jugglers with fire etc. It was quite the show and we chatted and hung out with them and their friends who were all sitting around us. After the show we all headed to the discotech, where they took us to the front of the line and got us in for free :) - we felt very VIP. The discotech is an open space with a stage where the band played (some of the same guys from the drum show) and a fugata, or fire. It was really an awesome scene, as everyone was dancing around to spanish, reggae and even american music. The band was really good, and it was what I imagined of the south american nightlife. Although, actually turns out it´s mostly like that in tourist towns and probably the larger cities that I´m visiting in the next couple of weeks, not in my tiny pueblo. At least we have singalongs in the house while the oldest son plays guitar - aahhh small town fun :)

Lastly, there has been a rather large iguana living on the roof above my bedroom who at one point left me some caca in my room when I was gone to Manta. The window of my room is not fully enclosed so there is no way to keep mr. iguana out really. He never came in while I was there and they don´t bite so I was not too concerned. Today, he got a bit more bold. I look up from a short siesta after work and before lunch to see him halfway in the window. He´s about 3 feet long and I freaked and he ran away. But my room must be very enticing because later in the afternoon one of the german guys informed me that the iguana was under my bed. We all crowded around and there was no way I was going in. So Miguel (host-brother) went in with a stick to try to chase the iguana out. We were all kind of listening to the beast scurrying around from outside the bedroom on the balcony. After some thrashing, the iguana took what we all thought to be a running suicidal leap off the balcony. But he ended up jumping like 8 feet to a tree in front of the house and climbing into the tree! We were all freaking out that it could jump that far. I am hoping the iguana isn´t back in my room when I go back or I might have to relocate my bedroom. Not exactly what I want to wake up to in the middle of the night.