13 April - 20 April
Over the green Andes, we bussed from Cuenca down to the desolate Ecuadorian coast. Now classifying ourselves as experienced travellers, we easily mastered the national bus system which involved a skillful bus change at a "village" from a coach to a local bus. We were separated on the coach, due to our less than timely boarding - we'd bumped into traumatised looking Immy at the Guayagil Bus Station and Gayle wanted to know the gossip as Johnny was missing! Gayle nearly lost out on a seat, until a kind man summoned her from the back, 
while Nicky found a seat and had to endure a sleezy local man making kissing noises at her through out the journey. Once again reunited on the local bus to Montanita, we were like long lost friends with much to catch up on (all three hours of separation!!)On arrival, we stood on the dusty national road, unsure what our next moves were, we befriended .... a Montanita local in his board shorts and surfboard in hand who showed us to the town and recommended a hostel. We realised that we had arrived in bungy surfers' paradise, with only 2 sandy roads and restaurants, bars, hostels and surfing rental shops spilling onto the streets. We quickly dumped our bags in Tikilimbo hostel and headed straight for the beach. We bumped into Swedish Martin and his Danish young lover in tow (clearly The Game was working for him), where we could see his mind working frantically trying to place us. We put him out of his misery and reminded him of our time spent together a week before at Mancora.
We had an early first night after a long day of travelling, only to be rudely awoken at 3am by 2 guitarists having a jam session. Despite being pissed off, we were actually quite impressed and entertained by their singing. The next morning there was no question about whether or not to stay - we packed up our things, handed in the keys and marched over to a quieter and more spacious accomodation recommended to us by Martin. We ended up scoring a 2 storey room with a sea view, en-suite bathroom, 3 double beds and a bunk bed for a bargain of $8 each. Despite all the space, we still shared the double bed downstairs in order to reap benefits of the single fan.
We initially planned to stay only about 4 days, but the surf, sunshine, Crazy Donkey restaurant (for its melt-in-your-mouth swordfish) and good company - that present and that awaiting - kept us in Montanita for a week.
We soon developed our daily routine... breakfast on the verandah; beach and spanish conversations with our 60 year old ex-surfer now turned umbrella man; lunchtime break for banana, maracuya and raspberry smoothie from our regular smoothie vendor, and when available cut up mango from the mango man. This was then followed by an hour at the internet cafe researching jobs back in the real world...or rather possiblities to extend our stay in South
America; then back to the beach mid afternoon, with Nicky joining the surfing gang consisting of gorgeous German Laif (pronounced Life), Martin and the Dane, while Gayle overdosed herself with Vitamin D. and awaiting in anticipation for the unpredictable arrival of the Ozzie.
We managed to sub let one of our beds to Sarah (from Bariloche) who needed little persuasion to join us, the unpredictable Ozzie, however, was somewhat more of a challenge and finally arrived the day before we left.
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