The rush to Mantañita from Quito was the stuff off dreams. We landed in the noisy dirty city on Wednesday night and had been ushered to a bus station early Thursday to buy tickets for the Trans Esmeraldas bus to Salinas without haste. The busses stopped running for the weekend from the mountains and our local friends informed us that being 5´10 and blonde in the city during carnival, with a super poor indian population and high rises, wasn´t a good idea. Nico recounted throwing motor oil as a child and even wetting a woman in her wedding dress!

The bus cost $11 and took nearly 12 hours in the pre-holiday traffic. We rode it as far as Salinas and took another $3 bus to Mantañita. Though our friend told us it had been rapidly developing over the past couple of years, it was nothing near the 5-star resorts I had imagined, the same ones that scar the landscape of Maui, Hawaii. We ended up staying in the over-priced hostel Intiñan ($18 pp!) but with a super protective hostess who gave us stink-eye when we allowed Nico to stay the night (just like hotels every where). Day one on the beach was wonderful. Beautiful sand and excellent waves. Most of the locals surfed far on the North side but we stayed with the other tourists who were mostly from Chile, and swam in the middle where the riptide was weakest.

Day two, Saturday, the rest of Ecuador showed up and things got crazy. Craftsmen were every where and beach chairs cost $2 each. You couldn´t sit for 3 minutes without someone trying to sell you something. I was also repeatedly harrassed by the neighbors who seemed to have professional skill in hurling water balloons twenty yards and always hitting me and not my boy. Street vendors swept water off the avenues to push their carts and bars tried desperately (and invain) to lure people through their cover charges for DJs you could here on the beach outside for free. Like always, the music lasted long into the night and too early into the mornings, like 7am and not stopping. The once sanding beach soon resembled a garbage dump with bodies strewn about when the visiting population quickly out-numbered the hospitality industry; my guess is about thirty percent of the people slept without tents on the beach, which is fine with enough alcohol and sun. Though I did feel lucky for a roof when it poured rain each night at about 3am.

We finally blew town on Monday for Puerto Lopez. I knew we were in trouble when I overheard some girls talking in spanish about how loco Lopez is during carnival. We arrived and quickly located the Sol Inn recommended by many guide books and rented two private rooms for me and my fiance and the two girls we have acquired as traveling buddies ($8 pp but $6 for the dorms). We were strolling around when the first kids tossed buckets of water at us, and seconds later my 5´2 companion had an egg cracked on her head, all in good nature. Shopping for vegetables was hard as the only market in town sits right next to the main street and all the passing busses cover the food with dirt. Beside that there are stores for snacks and water every where in this shit-poor falling apart town of half-finished/toppled buildings. *Note: my view has been obscured by the excessive filth of carnival weekend.

Today we bought our $20 passes to Machalilla National Park and where we walked the clean secluded beaches for hours and tomorrow we go on our $30 tour of La Isle de la Plata, the poor travelers´ Galapagos. Check back and I´ll let you know if the smell of bird shit and sea breeze is any thing like that of warm ceviche on carnival weekend.