March 26th 2009 - Surfin' Ecuador

After bananas on toast for breakfast (who thought it would be so good?) we were shown around town by Jim whilst the others had a surfing lesson. Town was nice – I picked up some surf shorts in anticipation for lately, went to the internet café and then watched some of the others’ lesson. After soup for lunch – yes, soup, it was bloody boiling and yet still we have soup – it was the rest of our time for surf.

I loved it. At the time I even thought surfing may be better than football. If I lived somewhere with surf then I still might. We had to learn some basics first which mainly consisted of paddling sand into each others’ faces but then we were set loose on the ocean (which is a beautiful temperature but very salty). This was when it got good. It took a little while to be able to stand without the instructors help but I soon got the hang of it, and then not even a bang to the head a knock on the member put me off. I just kept getting back on that board and eventually I found myself standing up more often than not.

So when standing on the board I found that there were two options. Fall or ride the wave. Strangely enough, either option is good fun! Standing for half a second, a second or whatever before getting wiped out is so much fun its crazy! But then when you finally catch a ride all the way, that is such an amazing feeling. Which, when I’m surfing, is usually accompanied by a big whooping sound. It was awesome and I am so happy that this week will involve many more sessions of that.

After surfing a few of us went for ice cream before chilling on the beach, which is where I stayed with Josefine and Sara until sunset. During the late afternoon we just relaxed, we were in the sea for what felt like hours, getting hit by the waves until I felt almost like a punch drunk boxer – although quite a salty one. We even had a little football game with a couple of locals. The sunset was beautiful, made even better by the surfers still gracing the waves. When we left we stopped off for a chocolate milkshake, before a shower and having some awesome fish for tea – although even better I saw a guy in a Pompey shirt!

We started our night out just Mia, Katya, Sara and me at the milkshake place – although as the others all went ‘Choco’ I started on the beer! Some of the other Danes joined us before we went to meet Hilde, Sally, Helle and Maïté at the cocktail cart which had some delicious cocktails. By the cart we played games, made paper aeroplanes, danced and used the beach as a banos before heading to another cool bar – this time with a live band! Even after the band finished we kept dancing and partying until eventually there was only me and Hilde left. We kept drinking, dancing and having a laugh until we finally staggered home and hit the hay. I collapsed in bed at around 4am after an extremely fun night out by the Pacific.