Across the Curtain: Vomit and so much more

So no shit, there I was, projectile vomiting a 5 foot streamer of beer and potato au gratin, with support streams coming out of each nostral, as I ran down the bustling vender lined streets of Montanita, a small but wild little surf town on the coast of Ecuador ( where by the way, no one ever runs). I swear the carbonation in beer gave it a little extra umph as it took a solid 30 minutes to get all the potato chunks out of my sinuses and it wasn't until 4 hrs later in the middle of the night as I lay in bed with the cold sweats that the last piece of potato dislodged itself and slid down the back of my throat. I mean honestly, how the fuck did I get myself into this kinda shit (again)?

Montanita from behind

Where all the puking action happend...

Its bad enough to evacuate your guts but doing at full jog down the middle of the street with plenty of eyes to watch seems to be a some kind if new standard I unknowingly strive for. What's more is the fact that literally 30 seconds before the trigger was pulled I was sitting at the dinner table with a local family two Swiss friends and Emma. One of the Swiss was doing a homestay with the fam and decided to cook them a traditional Swiss meal. Emma was invited and I had tagged along, met the whole family, drank beers, helped prepare the meal and then in good awkward fashion excused m

Montanita´s Beach

Montanita has been an interesting bag of tricks. The 13 hour night bus to get here from Quito went surprisingly smooth, although little sleep was had because obviously a passed out gringo on a bus is a gold mine to the right thieving ecuadorian who may or may not be on the bus as well. Your only fail safe is to put your absolute essentials in your pockets and accept that anything else left in your little day bag is possibly easy pickings depending on how deep you sleep or how good the thief is. I hate giving the impression that it's unsafe here, but the truth is that in some places it is, but mostly no one wants to hurt you they are simply opportunistic and if given the window will separate you from your material goods. The good ones don't need much of a window, that's the unnerving part so keeping ur wits about you most of the time is ur best defense, and is usually a quite good one.

Dont swim on, or for that matter even touch, this river!

From my hostal

Surpringly there were iguanas swimmng along with horses and herons

I spent 6 days in Montanita, went to a international surf comp, swam the big waves while Em surfed them (shit tons of fun btw), got horribly sick for 4 days, shat, puked and slept. My board shorts no longer fit and I'm doing what I can to gain weight back but I'm keeping it safe for a while with tomato avocado sandwhiches, fresh mango and yogurt - a diet I can't complain much about, in fact it's quite amazing.

the international surf comp. Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Venezuala and more...lots of countries, lots of people, very little waves!

Althugh it wasnt epic conditions the surfers did did what they could with the small waves and i was still impressive to watch. Ecuador took the womens comp.

Puerto Lopez

The international crew on the way to the international surf comp. We had a kiwi, two swiss, an argintine, 2 locals, and me

1 dollar 22´s - hard to pass up especially for a sunset on the beach

A new version of "beach comber" not exactly surf what the point of all this was, but knowing how many people drink beer from glass bottles around here, i figure they were sieving out the nasties.

Emma pulled the surfing card and with her heart set on the waves and mine on the mtns we had one final bash that saw us dancing in town until 4 am and enjoying the bounty of cocktail alley ( a road with endless venders selling cheap fresh fruit cocktails that are ALWAYS heavy on the rum). I was up at 7 packing and was on the bus 8 hours in transit to Cuenca to meet my swiss friends from my days at the language school.

Cuenca is ecuadors 3rd largest city. And my favorite by far. Cobble streets, stone buildings, markets, friendly safe people (or so they feel), cool architecture and best of all an amazing national park (Cajas) just 30k's away.
We spent a spectactular day hiking a section if it, most of which was above 13,000ft. Hot dam did my heart and head have a time with the rarefied air! Good times all around tho. These Andes highlands are called Paramo and resemble rounded tusicky scrubland like Grose Moorne NP in New foundland or many of the higher peaks of New Hampshire.

Hitching a rid from the park entrance to the trailhead.

My new Swiss friends, Barbara and Reto, who i will be seeing again in 7 short months when i head to Europe

Cajas NP proper

Holy wild horse dong...dude

Chillaxin at the pass

Obligatory group jump shot at the end of the day

Llama

Pissed off Llama

I bought a llama finger puppet, it gets boring traveling alone sometimes. "what is your name?" in spanish is "Como se llama?" so i named this guy "Come Se"