Well, today it has been exactly one month and one day that I have been travelling. I have been moving south on the coast now, from town to town. I started with San Lorenzo, way up north, close to the Columbian border. And what I found there was a culture I had not expected to see in Ecuadar, which is that of the African Ecuadorians. It was by far the most intimidating city I´ve been in, probably because of the seemingly unwanted glares, but also the coolest. crumbling. the best way to describe it would be that. The people are very dark, and very beautiful. The city also struck me as one of the poorest places I´ve been in, but I could be wrong. Dusty, humid, sea smell. Fishermen in rubber boots, frayed, worn out buttoned shirts, lean in crumbling doorways near the pier, or are sitting around an old wooden table on the sidewalk. I see one, two, three people! sharing a bicycle. Young boys peddle tricycle rickshaws hauling fruit and fish, brown skin gleaming with sweat. Woman turns over plantains on a sidewalk grill, steam blurs out her face. And I, standing on the balcony of the Gran Hotel, observing it all, letting the gentle wind warm me after a cold shower...I took a boat from San Lorenzo to La Tola, a tiny fishing village quite similar, where I spent a night. The only reason I stopped in La Tola was to experience the boat ride. There are no beaches on the northern coast, it´s all mangroves, so no swimming, but it feels like the jungle. The first half of the boat ride, nothing spectacular. It was raining, and it was this tiny little boat with wooden seats, totally packed with people, and for most of the trip I was holding up my part of the tarp we´d been given to unfold and use as a roof. But the second half of the boat trip, after I changed boats in another village, was fantastic. A great rickety boat, that I only had to share with a couple other people, with a little roof and a real old cranky driver guy, who I was nonetheless quite enchanted by. Slowly we move through the river passageways through these mangroves, and I see little old houses and huts built on big sticks, rising off the ground, what are those called? In La Tola I got a ride in an ambulance, Ecuador is full of surprises!. to the one hostel in town, with an english speaking man, who owned it and also gave me a little tour of the town which went kind of like this..Here is the gas station, walking, here is a restaurant, walking, here is the other gas station, walking, here is the other pier. The hostel was filthy, and I think the bedding was infested with ferocious invisible biting insects. I am still scratching. But it was a nice place to be for a day. And I walked to an even smaller fishing village down the road and...well I can´t describe it! But it was really cool! But as I worked my way down, that all kind of faded pretty fast as I reached the thumping tacky bamboo style thatched bars that line the beach strip in many of the coastal towns farther south. It sounds like a real party from my hostal room, but it really doesn´t feel like one..I escaped for a couple days, and kind of spoiled myself a little, at this really beautiful place called Playa Escondida which means hidden beach, owned by a Canadian woman, and I had a lovely room and what felt like the whole place and the whole beach to myself. I took long walks while the tide was low, climing rocks, spying on crabs, staring at snails )I have a curious fascination with creatures with mucousy bodies that can attach themselves to surfaces) collecting broken rejected sea treasures the waves have spit up and abandoned in the sand, staring out into the waves, feeling wind on my face, in my body...At times it has felt I am the only human in the universe. Lately the only people I´ve spoken to are the people who work in the hostels I stay at, or work at the restaurants I eat at, but I can´t say I feel lonely. Today I am in Canoa. This is a very popular surfing town, so there´s loads of white people.It also means higher prices in restaurants. There´s a good vibe here though. Sandy streets, bleached hair, and plenty of stray dogs, in fact there seems to be a pack of dogs that run around the beach, one always trying to hump the female. It´s interesting to see dogs sticking together like that in a group, I stare at them. I find myself wanting to be closer to animals, but I am not supposed to pet the dogs on the street! I held a skinny kitten the other day that was begging for a piece of my fish in the restaurant I was having dinner in. Then I let her lick my plate. Then I washed my hands very thoroughly. Hanging around on ocean provides endless entertainment in a way, but the thing is, as I determined today, I don´t really like swimming in the ocean very much. The waves feel violent to me. Like I´m being knocked in the back of the head every couple moments. You can´t actually swim! But I´m going to continue on this path for the next couple towns and then headback into the highlands, but looks like it´s going to be christmas on the beach for me this year...alone..ahhh well what can I say.