Craziness!!!!

Alright the past week has been crazy!!!! woohoo
I don{t remember what i wrote about last, but i guess i{ll try and continue from there.
Our friend Ruben from Esmeraldas who we stayed with had invited us to his birthday party back up in Mompiche (the aesome little fishing village we stayed at) and this party just coincidentally happens to be the Fiesta de la luna llena (festival of the full moon) as well. So after some consideration, Julie and I decided why not take the 10 hour bus ride from Guayaquil to Mompiche to enjoy a weekend vacation from our vacation. So luckily we didn{t have to travel with our big bags, we left most of our stuff in Guay. and headed out with enough for a couple of days. After the 10 hr bus ride we arrived to Atacames (the beach north of mompiche) on a friday night a 10 pm- the streets we full of people and music and sand!!! it was crazy. We went dancing a little, drank a batido (fruit shakes mmhhmm) and walked around in search of a cheap hostal. Stayed in Atacames a night and left that morning to Mompiche...
Luckily a truck stopped beacuse we were hitchhiking to save money (don{t worry it{s mostly safe) and this truck just happened to be going to Mompiche to drop off sand for construction...what luck!!
So we reached Mompiche and said Hi to all of our friends!!! We also looked for Cloro to stay in his awesome house again, but unfortunately he already had other visitors. So we we lucky enough to stay with our friend Morongo who owns a bar at the end of the beach. We spent the day in usual Mompiche lifestyle, walking the beach, eating, sitting in hammocks, talking to our friends, swimmin....it{s beautiful!!
We went to Cloro{s for dinner and had a bonfire and roasted up some fish- it was delicioso!!!! woowee. After munching down the fish, we headed over to the full moon festival. There was a bunch of people there, dancing, bonfire, just having a good time. We met up with some of our friends and made some new ones. It was a BLAST!!!! Luckily there is another one every month, awesome!

(writing a couple days later... )
The next day we went to a little pueblo with our Esmeraldas friends and went to Portete beach. You have to swim across the river to get there, but it is worth it. It was definitely a blast, but not a good idea ot go without sunscreen!! eekkk We had a lot of fun. We spent the next couple of days continuing the Mompiche lifestyle and helped out in our friend Morongo´s bar. We are planning to return to Mompiche in a month and a half or so to open up our friend Cloro´s bar!!!! Julie and I will be running it and it will also include a place for us to stay. So after we head inland in a couple of days to Riobamba to do our volunteer work for a month, we´ll head back to Mompiche for a 1-2 mos. to run our bar.
We finally, after much confusion and frustration with the bus terminal, made it back to Guayaquil at 6 am. We spent that day preparing for our weekend bike trip with the same group we met through the repelling trip, ciclistas sin fronteras...bicyclistas without borders. We headed out friday morning to Cuenca, which is elevation 12,000 ft. and it gorgeous!!!! Friday day, we got our first taste of mountain biking. Nothing kicks your butt harder that biking uphill for 10 km at that elevation...extreme!!! But the view was gorgeous, and however difficult- it was worth it!. We then rode downt the mountain into Cuenca, about 17 km away- acceleration!! adrenaline! woohoo freezing!!! (by the way 1.6 km=1mile) We made our way to the hotel that night and ate and rested because we were going to need our energy for our 25km trip manana.
We got up the next day and headed out to the trail head for Incapirca, Incan ruins. This trip was amazing!!! We rode through hills, valleys, rural villages, beautiful ecuadorian countryside, and tons and tons of mud!!! It was amazing. It was intense, probably one of the most extreme things I´ve done (since I haven´t been skydiving- MOM! :D ) but it was definitely worth it once we reached the top of the mountain right before sunset and got to check out the amazingness!!! It was absolutely gorgeous (facebook pics are coming!) We enjoyed to beauty, but eventually had to head back (it was freezing!)
The next day we went to the International MTB mountain biking competition for all of south america. I thought what we did was intense, these people take it to the next level!!! Columbia won for the girls and guys competition...figures- Columbia!! Eventually we headed back to Guayaquil, and hear we are...
until next time! Ciao