The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

I had every good intention of posting regularly in this blog over the summer; I really did.  But time slipped away, as it does, and now September finds me writing from a new home.  More on that later.  First, I would like to describe the very nonlinear (and honestly rather nonsensical) path I have traveled since my last post to get me here.  From Ecuador, to Bolivia, to Chile, to Maryland, to Iceland, and to Spain.  It was as epic and exhausting as it sounds, and the most exciting part was the first night I slept in my new bed in Barcelona.  There is a lot to catch up on, so let's get on with the first installment:

LAST HURRAH IN ECUADOR

Montañita

Cocktail Alley

One of the things I will miss most about living in Ecuador is its beaches.  They are accessible and clean.  The ocean is warm, as far as oceans go, and the weather is typically suitable year-round.  You can be completely isolated or in the midst of a raucous party, depending on your mood and your willingness to walk for about 10 or 15 minutes.  The equatorial sun is a monster, but there are bamboo huts and hammocks in abundance.  For me, the beach that most exemplifies all of these things is Montañita .  It is known as a party beach around Ecuador, and it certainly is.  Its main strip, after all, is called Cocktail Alley.  Dozens of wooden kiosks populate either side of the brick and sand street, each one with a thick lining of cheap liquor and fresh fruit covering their walls and counters.  To get started here, one must simply walk down the street, find the least offensive volume of reggae-ton for conversation, and have a seat at the plastic lawn furniture that can be found in front of each kiosk.  You will place your order, and after a frenzied clatter of blending and banging that seems to accomplish nothing for about 10 minutes, you will have a full-pint Mojito.  Or Caiparñia.  Or Maragarita.  For $2.50.  Is the liquor watered down on Cocktail Alley?  Probably.  Does it attract some oddball lifers and creepy drunks?  Yes.  But it also happens to be amazing.

The main stretch of beach by Cocktail Alley

All of that said, that's not why I kept returning to Montañita , and why for my last trip while living in the country I decided to go there for close to a week.  Just down the beach from the town proper, a 15 minute walk to the north, is an area called La Punta.  The Point.  This is where the cliffs momentarily win the battle against the shore, and the beach reaches a rocky end.  Up above these cliffs is the structure that gives Montañita  its name: Little Mountain.  It is a very distinguishable spire of rock that climbs towards the sky on the top of an otherwise flat cliff.  The surfers and hippies who used to be the only visitors to this beach started calling it this, and it stuck.  For surfers, Montañita is still one of the top destinations in South America.  For us non-surfers, it is still a beautiful, wide, sandy beach.  The waves can get massive further out, and the rip tide is dangerous if you aren't expecting it, or if aren't used to being in the ocean.  Closer in, though, is a wave-catchers dream.  Having grown up on the east coast of the US and being accustomed to summer trips to the mid-Atlantic beaches, the ocean for me is all about riding waves.  No board, no formalities...just finding the point at which the wave will break and assuming the Superman position as it would take me in towards the shore.  You get slammed, you get flipped, and you get a ton of water up your nose.  And you feel like you are a 12-year old kid again, grinning like an invincible moron every time you stand back up.  When you decide to leave the ocean, your age will return to you in the form of soreness and a weird popping sound that you don't remember having in your foot...but it will seem to matter much less than what just happened.

View of the "montañita" from the patio of Hostal SoleMare.
No crowds, and just a short walk from town.

There are a few really cool hostels at this end of the beach, especially Casa del Sol.  Depending on the season, rooms are $15-$20 per person, even for a single.  Breakfast is included.  They also offer yoga classes, Spanish lessons, and a beach bar at which I traditionally rack up a nice little tab.  On this most recent trip, my friends and I stayed across the street at the also-lovely SoleMare, due to a yoga retreat filling up Casa del Sol.  There are a few restaurants nearby (at which I encourage you to order anything that has "enconcado" written next to it), as well as a micro-brewery that is really, really good.  The trip passed as most trips to the beach do: friends, nights out, sunny days, and the kind of general enjoyment that honestly makes for pretty lousy stories.  I was there for a glorious 4 days, and I left on a Saturday so that I could get back to Quito and pack for my flight to La Paz on Sunday night.

Competition is getting ugly...

The title of this post is a quote from Primo Levi that I have always loved.  I think about it pretty much every time I'm in the ocean getting smacked around, throwing myself into, over, and under the relentless surf.  The quote continues, "I also know in life how important it is not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong."  Traveling and pushing my comfort zone are things that make me feel strong.  Let me rephrase.  Traveling and pushing my comfort zone make me feel like a bumbling idiot.  But after awhile, once I get through the awkward stage, I feel changed, like I'm a better version of myself.  Who knows if I really am, or what that means.  But to quote another really smart guy, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  So perhaps I'm chipping away a little at the reasons why I feel the need to live abroad and attempt to turn every distant, proverbial stone.  Like the ocean, the world will often hint that it could swallow me whole if I were to turn my back on it for just a second.  But like battling those waves, living like this has allowed me to interact with something much bigger than myself on a scale I can handle.  And that makes me feel good, and it helps me to learn a lot about myself and about the world without being consumed by it.  As it turns out, then, this is quite simply my own slightly foolish, periodically beautiful, and outrageously expensive self-help book.  It's way longer than it needs to be, and none of this would have happened if Borders hadn't closed.

That will about wrap it up for Montañita and my ramblings thereof...to be continued with:

La Paz and the League of Sinister Shoe Shinists (Working Title)

Photo Credit