Last week, our time was spent preparing for our Carnaval trip to Mompiche. It is a coastal town about 8 hours away by bus. Work wise, I’m starting to compile write-ups on the time I have spent at the older adult centers, as this is what is most pertinent to my capstone project. Plus the normal time at CRECER. In terms of learning Spanish, I feel like I have been going downhill, as the past few weeks we have been speaking a lot of English with one another. At Spanish class, Hannah and I were placed in a room with a bunch of teenagers learning English, but we all practiced speaking Spanish to one another. It was a good experience to practice the speaking aspect as opposed to the listening/reading/writing aspects. Plus, one of the kids really wanted to travel to Australia, so Hannah was very pleased with that.
On Thursday evening after grabbing a donut on the way to the bus terminal, Corri, Hannah, y yo headed out on the overnight bus to Esmeraldas, which is a 6 hour bus ride away and the coastal city where we transferred buses to Mompiche. We arrived at the terminal at 3 am, and at 4 am, after me asking someone, I ran rapidly over to the girls to tell them we should be catching a bus at this time. After a lot of discussion at the ticket window regarding buses not going directly to Mompiche, Corri coaxed us on a bus even though we had no clue where it was headed (because we didn’t want to wait 3 more hours for a direct bus to Mompiche). Once on this bus as sleep deprived individuals, I jumped into the seat behind us to ask the man where we were going, and if we could get dropped off at Mompiche. He said yes, so then I went up and confirmed with the bus driver. At 6 am, we were dropped off on the side of the road, 4.5 miles away from the town. Since we had nothing better to do as the sun rose at 6am, we decided to walk.
It was a serene walk with tons of animals noises, locals riding motorbikes, and green jungle surrounding us everywhere. When we got into town, we grabbed breakfast and headed to Playa Negra, a black beach very close to town. We had checked into our Airbnb, Casa Banana, and one of the owners who was our age offered to take us there. This beach is a special place that the mining industry has been trying to ruin for many years due to the presence of gold and precious minerals in the black sand. This also happens to be the best surfing beach around town, so Ivan went surfing while Corri, Hannah, and I laid out, swam, and enjoyed the fine black sand sticking all over us. Instead of walking the 30ish minutes home home, we took a triciclo back into town- it’s essentially a dirt bike converted into a pedal wagon for passengers. That night, the rest of our group arrived via personal driver. We enjoyed a nice seafood dinner, and went out for dessert after. Corri and I were wiped and headed to bed around 11pm, but Hannah went out afterwards and ended up cutting her toe on glass- it was gushing blood but the owner of the restaurant they were at happened to have iodine for her. The kindness and hospitality here cannot be beat.
On Saturday, we decided to show the rest of our group Playa Negra. After walking there in some thick mud due to rain from the night before, we headed back to a bar next door to our house- all oceanfront- and found 2 for $6 dakiris, and they were so so delicious. This was such a lazy day, spent chatting until 2 am just to enjoy the village and the sound of the ocean waves while we slept.
On Sunday, we headed an hour by foot to Isla de Portete. The island is a short 50 cent boat ride across from the mainland, and is what I think of when I imagine tropical beaches. It’s lined with palm trees and white sand and ocean as far as you can see. Here, I had my first first whole coconut and juice for $1, and I was thoroughly impressed.
We had lunch on the beach with the ocean behind us, and met some interesting people in town who were enjoying the Carnaval weekend. Usually, Mompiche is very laid back, but because of the holiday, more people were around than normal. However, by no means was it anywhere similar to a party weekend or spring break in Florida. After a late lunch, we walked to the end of the island- every minute was stunning. The water was at such a low tide, and no one was on that end of the island, so it appeared as though we were walking on water. I can say this one of my favorite memories from the weekend.
Once we took the triciclo home, we got empanadas, churros, then headed out for a fun night at a bar next door. We met a guy who is to thank for the title of this blog post. After seeing him wearing a glitter top, unicorn rainbow leggings, and exhibiting some mad dance skills, we learned he lives half of his life in California and the other half in Maine; he splits his time between surfing and rock climbing. After being awe struck that he (and so many others) are able to live that kind of life, I learned he spent some time in Columbus at Columbus State Community College and lived near Hocking Hills. At this point he said so non-chalantly “The world….. it’s not so big.” Even though you kind of had to be there for that moment, it’s been amazing to meet people from all over the States and the world. After this night, we headed out to the ocean for a 3am swim, where we met a guy who kept stating that Iowa was the worst state in existence. As Corri is from Iowa, these two had a hilarious time in the water arguing why and why not Iowa was the worst/best. A memorable night to say the least- so glad I went back out after attempting to go to bed at 11pm.
The next morning after 3 hours of sleep, we headed to a 7am jungle tour with Ramon, who owns land right in Mompiche. He conserves this land and tries to live as natural a life as possible. He explained to us all the different medicinal plans, the animals living in the jungle (we heard but unfortunately did not see Howler monkeys), gave us some natural mud facials and coconut oil hair treatments, and had a spiritual blessing of mother earth in a waterfall on his land. Even though we were exhausted and had ten million mosquito bites, his enjoyment and excitement to give us this tour gave us an authentic experience in Mompiche. Everyone at Casa Banana are huge believers in living a simple life, treating the environment with respect, and welcoming people from all over the world. After going home, napping, watching a beautiful sunset, and eating a delicious final meal, we walked down the street to the main area for a fundraiser being held to pay the legal fees for the Playa Negra efforts. We danced all night until 2am with the locals, and “Tights” was still there too, having a fantastic time. We felt happy to contribute to helping the locals raise money for Playa Negra, and seeing the Casa Banana owners having a great time as well was wonderful! The community of Mompiche is very tight knit. They have been through a lot in terms of the government trying to exploit their natural resources and also the 2016 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit with the epicenter only 10 miles away from Mompiche. Walking in on the 4.5 mile stretch, we saw many homes and structures with United Nations Refugee Agency banners. So much was destroyed, and along all the affected regions, 700 people were killed at 17,000 injured. To see the town thriving off of tourism but still remaining a non-populated and small fishing village makes you consider how few things you need in life to be truly happy.
Tuesday morning, Hannah, Corri, and I woke up at 5am to catch the 6am bus back to Esmeraldas. Once there at 8:30 am, we waited for 2 hours to catch a 5 hour bus direct back to Ibarra. After waiting until 11:30 am and myself becoming very irritated at being so hot and sweaty while sitting patiently, the bus ended up starting on a different route through Quito and not direct to Ibarra. This woman on the bus got very angry, corralled everyone off the bus, called the police, and somehow in the end got our bus going back the right way to Ibarra. If we had gone through Quito, it would have been an extra 4 hours!!! We were eternally grateful for her advocacy in keeping us on the right route, and the people who had bought tickets for direct to Quito ended up having to go back to the terminal.
Once home, I felt so blessed to be in cooler 60-70 degree weather, enjoying a nice take-away meal and donut, and watching Netflix until I fell asleep early. For not anticipating ever going to the coast, I am so lucky to have spent it with such wonderful people, both locals in Mompiche and the friends I have made at CRECER. Next up is trying how to get back there before we go back to the States 🙂
