Monteñita is a tiny town on the Ecuadorian coast with a hippy vibe and Ecuador´s premier surf break, which Mike says isn´t saying much. Its one main street is packed with hostels, bars, restaurants, hemp jewelry and dreamcatchers for sale, dreadlocks and stray dogs. The aforementioned hippy vibe is more like a wanna-be hippy vibe, like nouveau hippies who read the manual on how to be a hippy:
1)First and most importantly, dread your hair, even if you are white or balding or out of shape or all of the above. If you don´t have enough hair, get extensions.
2)Learn to juggle. Practice it whenever you can. Then juggle for tips.
3)Learn to fire dance. Do it for tips.
4)You don't need shoes.
5)Learn to make hemp jewelry. Make jewelry all day long and sell it to tourists.
We rolled into town without accomodations two days before Christmas. It made us a little nervous but we were very lucky to find a room at Charo´s Hostel which was where we wanted to stay in the first place. We were looking forward to tucking into one place and staying through the holidays. It was super clean and safe and off the overly crowded and noisy main street. Best part of all was the immediate and abundant hot water - a luxury we´d been deprived of for quite a while. Charo and her husband were great. Mr. Charo (we never knew his name but Mr. Charo seemed appropriate) was a one man hospitality squad, great to talk to especially during his afternoon beer and cigarette break on his favorite hammock.
The crowd continued to grow exponentially as we neared New Year´s Eve. Little Monteñita was bursting at the seams with every daily batch of backpackers and city folk from the nearby town of Guayaquil. Within a day, we started recognizing and renaming all the people in the neighborhood: Chicken Man - from whom we bought countless $2.50 chicken dinners to the point of embarrasment, Poeta - the late night drink cart bartender, Ronaldo - our favorite beach bartender, Town Drunk #1 - who spent all of Christmas Eve and Christmas day dancing with a bottle of whisky or passed out in a heap of roadside rubble, Town Drunk #2 - a sketchy American who tried to scam every newcomer by telling them his wallet got stolen and can they spare some change, Angry Italian - the personality deficient owner and chef of the Italian restaurant we frequented called El Zociedad. The best steaks but the slowest dinner you will ever have.
Mike surfed every day and we spent a lot of time on the beach. With the absence of Christmas decorations, carols, friends and family, a heaping dinner and cold weather, Christmas didn´t feel much like Christmas. It sort of came and went feeling like any other day. The day after Christmas, Mike had his T-shirt, flip flops and cap stolen from the beach while he was in the water. That really put a damper on the day. :(
Our first night at El Zociedad, we ordered a bottle of wine and played cards to while away the evening. We met a lovely group of people at the next table and ended up dining with them the next night (at the same place) and having a great time. Joss and Peter who live in Boulder, Joss´ brother Damon who lives and works in Ecuador and their lovely mom Suzanne, a professor at MIT. It was so great to have people other than ourselves to talk to. We really enjoyed their company and were sad when they left town. Los Dos Chamorros were alone again with their lazy daily routine of sleeping a lot, Chicken Man, beach, Chicken Man, internet, surf, Chicken Man.
In the days leading up to 2007, the locals start to celebrate the new year by celebrating the end of the old year. Home made paper mache mannequins begin to make an appearance outside every establishment in town. This is aan annual tradition where bubblegum-pink-skinned mannequins are made to resemble people they don't like, usually politicians or famous people (there were a lot of Bart Simpsons, we didn´t quite understand the significance of that). They are kicked around and burned at midnight leaving their charred remains all over town.
The kids in town dress up like banditos, wearing homemade cardboard masks held in place and framed by the neck of a T-shirt tied tightly around their heads. They walk around town for a whole week before new years, asking for money. They too represent the old year and by giving them money, you bid farewell to the old year and everything bad that was in it, making way for the new year.
At around eleven on New Years' Eve, we made our rounds to Poeta's drink cart, then to Ronaldo's beach bar, then at the stroke of midnight, about 50 people with surfboards started running into the pitch black ocean to a screaming crowd. Fireworks were going off everywhere in town and on the beach to the battling sounds of reggae, techno and reggaeton. The clubs were full of people partying til dawn. Los Dos Chamorros rocked it til 3, wooh, crazy.
To see photos of Montañita, go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31967627@N00/sets/72157594475793598/
