La playa de Súa

August 14-18, 2015

Sometimes you make plans and stick to them.

Sometimes you drop everything on a whim and go to the beach.

We chose the latter.

Upon arriving in Quito at the stupid early time of 5am, we waited in the Quitumbe terminal until it got light out, then took the Trole bus north to find a hostel. We spent the day poking around, then met up for dinner with my friend Bernardo who I met at the beach two years ago. Turns out he was headed up to Súa for a visit the next evening. Since we didn't really have solid plans anyway and who says no to a beach trip, we decided to up and go with him the next day.

An 11:15pm bus from Quito got us to nearby Atacames at 5am. We taxied to his house and napped for the next couple hours.

The next 5 days saw us staying at his house and hanging out with him and his cousin Jonathan who is also my friend from before. We cooked breakfast and dinner every day with fresh food, (we introduced them to french toast) swam in the ocean at least once a day, drank fresh juice and milkshakes while lying in beachfront hammocks at his uncle's little bar, tried to learn to surf after hitchhiking to a beach with better waves, we got bug bitten and burnt our noses. It was delightful.

After attempting to learn to surf

Heading to Esterno de Platano

Cooking dinner one night.  This menu had fresh shrimp and noodles, patacones which are fried flattened bananas, and fresh juice from the citrus tree out back.

One afternoon we paddled out on Bernardo's surfboard to an island just off the Súa beach (also featured in my getting stranded on a beach adventure from last time, found here) that hosted pelicans, frigate birds and blue footed boobies. Three people sitting on a surfboard works better than you might expect.

We also went up to the mirador de Súa (lookout) one evening for sunset, which was a gorgeous affair.

Old friends reunited

Basically turning around and hopping a bus to the beach on a whim turned out to be a fantastic idea.

At his request we left our mark on his wall, next to hand prints and drawings from other friends in past years.

Work in progress: it was hot out...

Finished project!

Also his cat was blue.