So, first things first:
Happy 2011!
I've been avoiding posting mostly because it feels weird to publicly acknowledge the fact that it is no longer 2010 for some oddball reason. Don't ask why.
Anyhoo, today's post was written in my trusty reporter-style Moleskine notebook (love them!) back on Monday on the airplane that was taking me back from Guayaquil to Quito after spending about 6 days in the Ecuadorian coast doing basically nothing.
So here goes:
It is under bizarre circumstances that I found myself spending New Year's Eve amongst a bunch of hippie surfers (most of which were, bizarrely enough, Argentinian) and my good friend from college MJ in Montañita, Ecuador (aka Hippiville, Ecuador or Party Central, Ecuador). It started out as a double-intentioned trip. My now legal but still sort-of-an-idiot teenaged brother L and 3 of his friends al decided that they wanted to go spend my brother's birthday and New Year's Eve in Montañita. He sort of conned me into it because, you see, everyone's parents all agreed that they felt better about this hairbrained scheme if I, the responsible college-grad sister, tagged along as a chaperone/insurance policy or as they liked to call me: "contact person". I agreed to it partially because I have a heart and my brother would be insufferable if he wasn't allowed to go and also because it would give me a chance to show MJ some of the nice Ecuadorian beaches. Also, all of this could be sort of digested with a side of an endless supply of cebiche and $3 mojitos. I wanted those mojitos. I wanted to erase the memories of what has, without a doubt, been one of the most challenging and tumultuous years I've lived through. Here's a small crossection of what I've gone through in the past 9 months alone:
(1) The breaking up of a 3 year, 8 month relationship that tore my heart to shreds,
(2) Graduating college in the middle of a recession,
(3) Saying goodbye to my best friends not knowing when the hell I would see them again,
(4) Trying and failing to put together about 3 film projects,
(5) Asking a studio exec a really dumb dumb question.
I mean, it hasn't really been a bad year per se, just a challenging an unnecessarily hard one. I've grown up about 10 years in the last 9 months. Crazy, no?
Yeah.
Wouldn't have believed it myself. Nuts.
Anyhoo, back to my story.
Of course, my idiot brother realizes a day before departure (meaning, on my birthday) that his applications for college are nowhere near done and that leaving for Montañita the next day would be an ill-advised move.
I decided to go anyways. I had the tickets and the hotel reservations and why the hell not? I choose $3 mojitos and Argentinian surfer hippies. Not to mention that I expected a bunch of Australians and Americans to also be overrunning the place. I do not object to tan, muscular surfers.
Needless to say, the view in Montañita is great in every possible sense of the word. I didn't have a bad time. I sat around on a beach chair during the day with my kindle in hand, reading to my heart's content. At night, we drank mojitos and danced on the streets with the rest of the crazy surfer hippie crowd.
New Year's Eve was a bit anticlimactic. We were on the beach when a group of surfers run past us and dive into the water at midnight. Meanwhile, they danced around with their surfboards, bobbing them up and down like some ritual. There were also a lot of effigies made to look like characters from Toy Story and Shrek that were being held up in the air before midnight. Presenting the sacrifice to the crowd.
Oh yeah. Better explain that.
You see, Ecuadorian tradition dictates that at midnight on New Year's Eve, we burn an effigy of something or someone to start the new year. It symbolizes the death of the old year, and the purification of all our mistakes or whatever. In Quito, you'll see a lot of the effigies resembling politicians or important public figures. Presidents get burned a lot. So do Ministers of Economy. Sometimes, though, effigies are made to resemble other things - like the three-eyed aliens from Toy Story 3 or Puss in Boots from Shrek. Why anyone would want to burn that alien (it is SO cute) is beyond me, but whatever.
Anyways, that's why we saw all those effigies being paraded around. They were, of course, burned at midnight.
The other anticlimactic bit was that the stupid surfers were so drunk and high off their asses that did the countdown 5 minutes too early. That was pretty bizarre. I did call my fam at the stroke of midnight though. And I also called M and N a few minutes after (I forgot to bring S and J's numbers...stupid me! SORRY).
After that, MJ and I drank another mojito and a piña colada, ate a grilled corn with mayo and cheese off a street vendor (MUCH MUCH better than it sounds...aww those things were so so good) and then sort of went to sleep. Then woke up the next morning and did some more sitting on the beach and reading.
On Jan. 2 we headed out to Guayaquil.
Not a big fan of that city. It is really nice, don't get me wrong (they have a lovely airport, bus terminal, roads, beachfront, etc) but I think it lacks a little character and personality that Quito has. Quito is a bit like NYC that way. NYC has character, which is what makes it a great city.
Anyhoo, we stayed at a really nice hostel (Manso) that is really more of a boutique hotel. Great location, great rooms, great rates, great service. The bad thing about it was that it cost almost the same as our hotel in Montañita.
Wait, no. That's not a bad thing. It is a bad thing for the hotel in Montañita. Don't get me wrong Hotel Bar Pizzeria Tsunami (yes, that's what it is called) is not bad. It is the 2nd or 3rd best-rated hostel in Montañita on TripAdvisor. It had a clean room, a bed, a fan, and a private bathroom.
It just wasn't exactly worth $25/night per person.
Let me rephrase that.
It WASN'T worth $25/night per person.
But it was ok for a beach trip like ours. All you really need is a bed and a shower and you're good. I just wish I could have opted for another hostel. Oh well. Live and learn.
But now I'm back home in the capital. Slightly darker (for like the first time ever, mind you, because I never tan. I just burn. And come back looking like a goddamn shrimp) and slightly more relaxed, ready to get a fresh start on a new year that promises financial and business success (according to my horoscope everywhere. And the Tarot cards).
Hope good things come out of 2011. May it be better than 2010 was.
Friday, January 7, 2011
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