The rest of that day fizzled out without much more to report, and then the next day Joel arrived in Cuenca. That morning, I woke up feeling a bit worse again, and on Gussy's advice, went to the Military Hospital just round the corner. It took absolutely ages getting them to see if the right doctor was there and then trying to spell my name - on different forms I was called Aligtair Theedale, Alistuar treedle, and various other takes on my name. Eventually I saw a doctor who couldn't grasp the fact that I couldn't understand him when he spoke too fast, and so I didn't understand a lot of what he said, but he said I needed to come back in a few days for an 'examination'. I told him we were leaving the next day and so was fast tracked through the 'examination' and given my results in the same day. It turned out I had another an infection of the large intestine and another parasite- nice. That meant more pills. We wondered round a bit afterwards, Gussy bought her dad a Panama hat for his birthday and wesorted out a few more things.

The next morning we left Cuenca and got a 4 hour bus to Guayaquil. Straight after that we got on another 4 hour bus to Puerto Lopez on the coast. We managed to find some nice cheap accomodation which we checked into and thenheaded out for some seafood for dinner. The next day was what was called the Fisherman's Party - Puerto Lopez being a fishing town - and so there was a bit more going on in town. There was a football pitch set up on the road near out hostel so me and Joel thought we might be able to play some Ecuadorians a bit later. Turned out it was a proper organised women's tournament , so we stood and watched that for a while, before heading off to another nearby pitch, where we joined in with some locals. We were informed that there was a 50 cent betper person on each match, and me and Joel played and won 3 each, making us a well deserved $1.50 each, which they didn't have exact change for so we told them to keep it. We sorted out whale watching for the next day and again ate more seafood which I was loving, the medicine seemingly having had an immediate effect.

The next day we were up early for breakfast at our favorite, gringo-filled cafe, and then were soon on a boat heading out to sea. The waves were huge, which my stomach didn't find too nice, but I was distracted by the amazing sight of seeing the whales. We were in the best week of the year for whale watching, and saw about 15 whales. We didn't get as clse as we were hoping - we had ben told they'd come within a few metres of us - but still, it was incredible to see them. After that, we headed towards the land, where the boat stopped for about an hour while we jumped off the boat, snorkled, and ate lunch which was all really fun, and also the sun was out where we were so we sun bathed on the top of the boat too. We got back in around 3, had a nap on the beach, me and Joel went and played football again, and then we went for yet more seafood.

The next day we left PL and got an hour long bus down to Montañita, where we are now. The weather isn't what we'd expected, but there's a fair bit to do here which is always good. We just wondered around that first day and then met up with a load of other people who we'd met on our travels who were also there in Montañita for food, and then went out for the evening. On Saturday, we woke up late, and eventually got 5 of us together to go surfing. We found the best deal we could on a lesson and went out for that. It was such hard work and the waves were massive, it completely knackered us, but was so so fun, and so hilarious watching each other fall off or just get taken out by a passing wave. But then Gussy's board broke - a fin broke off - so the mood was a bit dampened. We spent the rest of the day doing not much, before Lily (one of the various people we were with) and Gussy cooked us dinner, and we went out to a party on the beach for the evening.

Again, woke up late the next day, and had a really cheap day by not doing much at all. Me and Joel cooked dinner - homemade pesto with spaghetti which was so so good, but this was only yesterday and I can't think of anything of any interest to report, apart from discussions about what we were going to do next. Joel decided that he wants to head as far north as he can get in Ecuador, before meeting us in Quito on the 7th. Me and Gussy meanwhile aren't up for as much moving about so this morning Joel headed off and me and Gussy are still in Montañita, and are trying to decide what we want to do before the 7th August, when we need to be in Quito to meet all the others. I think we might go surfing again today, and probably leave tomorrow, but we don't know, we need to talk about this but we both kind of feel like it's nicer to stay in one place than try to squeeze in a lot and do more travelling in the process. So we'll probably just stay here! That's all