Quick Update

Yeeeah so we´re now in Ecuador, which is pretty crazy considering the fact that a week ago, it was snowing. Now it´s just really hot. Our way back up to Santiago was actually pretty eventful. We had assumed our flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago was direct, but turned out to have two stops on the way: Balmaceda (i.e. Coyhaique) and Puerto Montt. The pilot ditched our first landing in Balmaceda, which I´m pretty sure scared the crap out of some people, but I´m almost positive that it was just the ridiculous Patagon winds. Now, people are jumpy so we go quickly onto Puerto Montt without incident after some people checked out the plane to make sure everything was cool. Now in Puerto Montt, people started wondering what was happening, so making this short as possible, we jumped back on the original plane, then got off (which got a bit hairy after someone pulled out a professional video camera and started filming), and then they finally ordered a new plane to come which we took to Santiago. Basically, a trip that was supposed to take 3 hours took almost 12, as we finished at around 2 am. After failing to find open rooms in a few hostels, we slept at the airport in a nice little nook with no one around. Great travel day.

My only day in Santiago wasn´t particularly eventful. We walked around the city when it was really, really hot out to the Mercado Central and Plaza de Armas, as well as a few really pretty churches. We also walked through this huge market looking at food for hours. It was a crazy place. Also split a kilo of delicious strawberries in a park square.

Afterwards, we flew to Guayaquil to meet up with Chris, who very nicely showed up at the airport to meet us. We stayed in a hostel, walked around a bit, and had a beer apiece until the police yelled at us (even though there isn´t an open container law, dunno what exactly the problem was).

Next, we headed to this really cool town called Puerto López on the ocean. Our hostel was pretty awesome, split two cabanas and a delicious breakfast apiece for $10 a night. The beach there was beautiful, long stretch that we walked down the first afternoon we were there. Lunches and dinners we ate at the city center, traditional food for $1.50 a piece (things here are wonderfully cheap and in US dollars, both great things). The following day, we did this awesome trip on a boat for $15, starting with catching fish and then making fresh ceviche on the boat and eating it, just amazing. Then we went to a private beach and tossed the frisbee around for a bit, saw a whale, and snorkelled. What a day.

Today, we packed up our stuff and did a quick jaunt in a nearby national park, basically wandering around the beach, sitting around, throwing the frisbee, etc. Went back to town, ate another good lunch, and took a bus to Montañita, another little surf town on the coast, but it´s more like walking into a real life Hollister. Surfing, drinking, smoking (leaving that ambiguous), and just doing nothing. We arrived pretty late in the day so went for a jaunt down the beach and then rented surfboards for an hour going into sunset. I managed to get up on the first try, which was pretty sweet, and continued that success into the hour until I almost managed to get decapitated by another surfer. Toned things down a bit after that.

Chris cooked dinner tonight, $4 total for the four of us to eat rice with his version of an Ecuadorian tortilla, which is a little omelete type deal with onions, carrots, and peppers. And now I´m here. Off to go play euchre or pitch, whatever people are more interested in. And hopefully pictures tomorrow, if I can´t muster the strength to surf all day :-D