9 hours, 2 buses, 1 beach

Last weekend I hung out in Quito—saw an Ecuadorian film (interesting…), had an “American” night (Domino’s and Ratatouille), found a great English church (yay!) and got some work done. This past weekend, therefore, called for a getaway. What better place to get away than the beach? It’s pretty sweet that in one weekend it’s possible to go from living in the mountains to swimming in the ocean, which is just what we did.

On Friday we disembarked for Canoa—a quieter beach on the central coast, about 8-9 hours from Quito (depending on the condition of the roads-which were pretty bad this weekend). Two of my friends had class on Friday, so they met my other friend and I at the bus station. And by “met” I mean literally caught the bus as it was pulling out the station… my friend and I had already bought their tickets and somehow managed to stall the bus for half an hour so they could make it. Talk about close calls.

The bus ride there was actually very comfortable. There weren’t many people were on the bus, it had air conditioning, was clean and comfortable. The views on the way down were absolutely gorgeous as well. Since we had to come out of the Andes, we passed through what is known as a cloud forest. It’s pretty much what it sounds like—the clouds are literally at the same level as the trees and create a mystical world of extremely green vegetation.

Our bus did not take us directly to Canoa, but rather to Bahía, a small town about 10 km south. To get to Canoa, you have to cross a river and take a short bus. We didn’t get into Bahía until late on Friday, so we set up shop in a little hostel (and had a room with 7 beds all to ourselves!) with plans of leaving early on Saturday, which we did. We got to Canoa about 8, and after breakfast and a little hotel shopping found a cute reasonably priced hotel called “La Vista”. La vista means the view, and ours had a beautiful one of the ocean.

Life is rough on the beach... :)

After settling in, the heat led us to the beachfront and Canoa’s amazing waves. It is one of the best beaches in Ecuador for surfing, and it’s not hard to see why. The weather was fairly calm, but the waves were ginormous. Like little kids eager to play we grabbed some boogey boards and dove right in. The water was perfect—warm, but cool enough to still be refreshing. After battling the waves for a couple hours, and ensuring our swimsuits had returned to their appropriate positions, we returned our boards and fed our rumbling stomachs at a cute little café a few blocks off the beach. The hamburgers were like heaven on a plate, and were just what we needed after a tiring battle with Canoa’s olas.

Boogey boarding on some of Ecuador's best waves

With full stomachs and a second wind of energy, we hit up the beach once more to see where it would take us. To the north of Canoa sit absolutely breathtaking cliffs, which we walked along a nearly deserted beach to reach. It was tranquil, beautiful and a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Quito. It seemed surreal at the time that we could visit such a place in just one weekend.


After a nice seafood dinner and some tropical cocktails on Saturday night (pretty much obligatory when you are at the beach), we headed back to the hotel. Much to our amazement, however, the gates had been locked already. A quick glance at the watch confirmed it was only 10:15—surely too early to be locking the gates, right? Apparently not. The fence around the hotel was a bit of a joke, however, so one of my friends and I scaled it with no problem. One of our friends, however, was wearing a skirt and found it a bit difficult to maneuver herself over the bamboo. It didn’t take long, however, for a guard to be summoned, the gates to be opened, and all of us to be sleeping soundly under our mosquito nets.

Yes, mosquito nets. The bugs on the coast are quite the little pests, and there has been a lot of flooding lately creating even more areas for them to breed incessantly. For some reason they took a particular interest in my blood, and left me with more than a dozen bites while my friends escaped with just a few. Two of the mysterious bites have proceeded to swell up and are extremely red, leading me to believe I tangoed with more than just mosquitoes this weekend…wonderful. Despite the bugs, however, it truly was a great weekend.

Mama Louie comes to visit on Wednesday, so I’m sure I will have many tales to tell of the coming weekend as well. Until then, I leave you with just a sample of the beauty of Ecuador.