The Beach

Another great weekend. We went to the beach in a little town called Same (pr. Sah-may). We took a bus there that left at 10:30 on thursday night. The trip was supposed to be about six hours, but there was an accident on the road, so from about 1am to 6am, we moved only a few miles. But we finally got there at about midday on Friday, and we discovered that we basically had the beach to ourselves. The beach was beautiful! We had two cabanas that the nine of us shared. We went swimming, and then found a beachside restaurant with the absolutely best seafood I have ever eaten. We had decided that for this trip, we would try to cook some of our meals. So, before we left, I bought a box of pancake mix. The kitchen is one of the cabanas basically didn't work. The other one had a gas stove, a pan, a pot, enough plates, silverware, and glasses for the nine of us, and a big flat wooden thing that we used as sort of a spatula, although that's definitely not what it was. At first the pancakes were deformed and a little burned, although everyone insisted that they still tasted really good, so we decided the best thing to do would simply be to scramble them. So we did, and for breakfast we had a big pile of scrambled pancakes, with bread and jam, and mimosas. It was a fantastic breakfast.

We spent the rest of the day beachside, and people snacked and made pb&j at their leisure for lunch. Some people took naps. Some people sunbathed. At one point I played chess (a special chess set that was Spanish conquistadors v. Indigenous tribe). For dinner, my friend Erick cooked spaghetti and a special spaghetti sauce that he had a special recipe for. We dragged the tables outside so that we had a view of the ocean, set the table, cut up pieces of bread, and put out three bottles of red wine. We were so proud of ourselves, and the sauce was definitely the best I have ever had, no exaggeration. That night, we took a bus to the nearby town of Atacames for some drinks (though I only got a milkshake). We would have danced as well, but we were all too sunburned.

Here's the thing about getting a sunburn here. You know how people say that you can get a sunburn if there is cloud cover, but it's never really true? Okay, at the equator, it's true. And when there's not cloud cover, you can literally feel the sun burning you. It's not a pleasant feeling.

The next day we got up early and got a bus back to Quito. Thankfully we ran into no accidents, and I made it back in time for evening mass. All in all, it was a good weekend. I tried some of the best food I've ever had. I got to see the famous beaches of Ecuador, and I visited a very culturally different part of Ecuador.