Surfin' & Dancin' in Ecuador

My flight from Sao Paulo to Quito was quite a desaster...After more than 16 hours at the Sao Paolo airport (and no departure because of fog - according to wikipedia: "this airport was put in the world's third place in number of delayed flights") and another 9 hours at the Lima airport (because I missed one of the two available flights to Ecuador), I ended up having a 13h delay and arrived in Quito in the middle of the night. I hopped into a taxi and drove to the highly recommended Hostal Centro del Mundo. I was so tired that I barely noticed the vomit on the floor, the noise from the party in the hostel or the very bad smell in my room (most probably from the cacaroches and the other insects swirling around).
I slept fantastic (and changed the place the next day)...

Since this first somewhat unfortunate first impression of Ecuador, many things changed. The next day Franziska arrived from Switzerland (with a short between stop in Miami) and we had 5 weeks ahead of us in Ecuador with no plans at all...The first couple of days we stayed in Quito - also to get accustomed to the thin air on 2800 meters above sea level - seems to be a very multifaceted city.
We decided to head towards the beaches first and drove to Atacames, a party destination for all Ecuatorians with amazingly cheap (1.5$) and tasteful Caipirinhas (and Caipirons and Caipivodkas and so on...). The little wooden beach houses invited to dance and Franziska even convinced me (after a few of the drinks mentioned above) to hit the dancefloor as well and copy some of the steps here - was great fun!

Afterwards we headed to a small surfer paradise called Mompiche, hung around on the fantastic beach which stretches for miles and miles with barely any people on it and tried some of the waves with our rented surfboards. I even stood on two of the waves (Franziska on a couple more :) ). We also got accustomed that there was no ATM, only one computer with internet (with a mobile, very slow and very expensive) and no electricity every evening for at least one hour.
There was also a jaw-dropping black beach nearby and we built our own little wooden house there and used the black sand to paint our faces. You'll see on the pictures :)

We stayed 6 days there and then headed back to Quito - now we enjoy being back in the civilization (for a beginning it was just fantastic to find some other food than fish here).
We decided not to spend another CHF 500 on a flight to the Galapagos Islands (even though they sound amazing) but to head towards the region around the Cotopaxi volcano, then come back to Quito for their Independence Day and afterwards for 10 days to the Amazon rainforest in the region of Tena.


PS: My efforts just before my departure were a success...I just found out that I passed the Proficiency examination... :)))) I think the 1st of August just got a whole new meaning for me :) - Enjoy the fireworks back home!