Bahia de Caraquez

Right before I headed to Quito, we had a three day weekend, not sure why. I had met a few Peace Corps volunteers in the area, at a BBQ that a few us at the Consulate (who are returned Peace Corps Volunteers) held. I had mentioned to a few that I didn’t have plans for the long weekend, and Rachel from Colorado invited me on a trip to visit her friend at the beach. So we met up at the bus station and took the 5 or so hour trip to Bahía de Caráquez. It’s a mid-sized beach town on the Manabí coast. Manabí is the major coastal province in Ecuador. 

Jackie was a super cool host. Rachel stayed at her apartment and I stayed at a hostel, because, well, hostels are well within my price range. Visiting Jackie’s apartment was like traveling in a time machine back to my days in Costa Rica, just so many different things that are part of a volunteer’s apartment, when living on a Peace Corps subsidy. I got in some good reading, lots of beach time, a good sunburn, and lots of great conversation with Rachel and Jackie. I think at that point they were both about 7 or 8 months into their service, so no longer bright eyed and bushy tailed, but still very absorbed in their communities and projects. Bahia is an interesting town, most of the development (read beach houses/condos for people from Guayaquil and Quito) have been built in the past 15 years, so there is some new wealth created by the construction jobs and land purchases, but still a lot of poor fisherman. One of the big things that Jackie talked about was teen pregnancy, which makes a lot of sense, due to the loose culture of the beach, the comings and goings of boats, and the historical prohibitions on birth control because of the Catholic Church. 

But I wasn’t too worried about that as I downed cold Pilseners and hit up the ceviche restaurants. We also went to this quirky little restaurant, which serves yogurt and burritos. Now, cold, icy, flavored yogurt is a very popular thing here. Think more frozen go-gurts, and less the little plastic cup at the supermarket. The burritos made little sense, usually yogurt here is served with yuca bread and other pastries (which they also had). But, the burritos did help explain Speedy Gonzalez as the restaurant’s logo. 

Oh, so the beach there is kind of a peninsula where the river meets the coast. The tide came in very fast, as we were sitting reading. Jackie had warned us, but was up buying a coconut, and I had recently checked, and the tide was a ways away. About a page or two later, and I head Rachel go “oh shit” and had time to turn, see the water coming right at me. So, I got up, and (now being pulled by the wave) in a bit of panic, dropped my Kindle in order to grab my phone and wallet. Sand and water washed over the Kindle, but the rest of my stuff was fine. Buying a bag of rice and putting the Kindle in it overnight did no good, but, I’d much rather replace it for $70 than a phone for $500-so, all was good. A stunning sunset from the roof of Jackie’s apartment building had me forgetting pretty quickly.