Puerto Lopez

i dont know where this week has gone but it has. I was only planning to stay here for 2/3 days but things never go to plan do they. Ive met so many local people here and now when i walk down the street im always stopping to chat to them. When i first got here there were only a handful of gringos (and they were mostly german) so i had no option but to chat to the locals. Now my hostel has filled up and ive been bringing business to Winston and his boys. The other day i was like ´Winston, im gonna come on your tour but im not paying´ and he was like ´listo´. My birthday was pretty cool. I went on the only major fishing boat in this town with all the pescadores, fishermen. We were searching for about three hours before we caught anything. Diego - el capitan - has this radar in his boat which tells you if theres fish or not and when you find them it takes over an hour to reel them in. We only caught two loads in over 12 hours! Xmas eve i was invited for dinner with a family that owns a little stall here. They sell the usual handcrafts, bracelets, hats and other touristy stuff. We ate some really good chicken and had this egg/cheese/caramel-like dish for dessert. The woman of the house (ive forgotten her name, phool!!) is a really lovely lady and her husband, Pepe, is known to everyone here as tio (uncle). Everyone calls him ´mi tio´, my uncle. Christmas day was random. I was just walking about as you do and went over to mi tio´s stall to thank them for dinner. Ended up going for a few beers with him and Louis (dude from Columbia who has a table set up next to mi tio selling similar things). After we got bored of his local, we went down the ´main strip´ and bumped into Winston, Robben and others. We all went to a bar and had a good old session. Yesterday, i spent the day helping out Winston on his boat and doing some minor translations for the gringos on his tour. Went over to mi tio´s and his wife gave me a little telling off (in a friendly way) cause mi tio was useless the whole day! I bumped into two girls that i met over 5 weeks ago and we are going to Montañita later today. I could easily stay here for another week because im pretty settled in but i have to cover some ground. This is only my first stop and theres many more to come!!

mi tio and his family. xmas eve dinner

couldnt take any shots at night but this is when we got back to Puerto Lopez

sorting out the fish at 7am

my birthday ride

 

mi amigo de colubia, Louis

big-bellied bar owner, random old lady, mi tio, me, louis

mi tio´s wife told me off the day after this cause he was so lash

winston, me, capitan and robben: having a jar

 

Winston, top guy. He runs one of the local tour operators


my camera is rubbish at night but this is some of the locals that ive got to know

mi tio

 

Puerto Lopez


Colon, one of many capitans here

one to remind you that there is a horizon but we cant see it so clearly in England

 

Not in Montañita

In Puerto Lopez at the moment. Didnt leave La Hesperia until Wednesday cause by the time I packed and got ready it was too late to leave on Tuesday. Was planning to head straight to Montañita but it was too far down the coast. Faffed about all day yesterday and was well annoyed that I couldnt get any money from the bank here - they dont have an ATM and you cant get cash advances on credit cards so I was truly shafted. After liabilites, I had $5 to my name which had to cover food and travel to the next town (Montañita, over an hour and a half away)! Went to the next ´with-it´ town this afternoon and got some dinero now so all is good. This morning was good fun - was on a boat for 5 hours: snorkling, fishing, secluded island lounging, eating ceviche made from the fish we caught earlier and then more snorkling. Fish were wicked but i had no means of photographing them so you´ll just have to imagine. Tomorrow is my bday. Only been here for one day and its not touristy at all. Basically I got no mates at the moment so im going on an overnight fishing haul with some local fishermen. Got no idea what its gonna be like but we leave at 6pm tomorrow and return 6am Sunday morning.

 

Robben cutting up the bait

 

friends of our capitan. He caught an octopus and a lobster. Nicely done

attempting to get the meat off the fish

our catch

catch of the day, Jan

 

as promised

pics from La Hesperia. Njoy

musical chairs

 

Jingle Bells

William, the eldest in the school

clown caused mayhem by throwing loads of sweets into the air

 

Bernaido (or something like that). Swiss dude that was with us for a few days

 

playing cuarenta - Ecuadorian card game. Need to teach you when I get back


my favourite thing they grew - Aji - shit hot chilli