From September 14th (I'm behind, I know):

I had an INCREDIBLE weekend.

Originally, the plan was to go to Esmeraldas for the weekend, a town on the coast. One of the guys in our group, Mike, had contacted someone through the website, couchsurfing.com. Apparently it's a pretty legit site- previous travelers can post reviews on profiles. However, some of our local friends told us that Atacames, another town about an hour away from Esmeraldas, was a bit more exciting. So- Thursday night around 11pm six of us boarded a night bus to Atacames. We ended up arriving around 6am and quickly checked into a hostel for a few hours before spending the afternoon on the beach. The beach was alright- it was cloudy, seemed a little dirty, and was crawling with walking vendors. The beach was lined with various outdoor bars and clubs playing different types of music, which was cool. After lunch we ended up spending the afternoon at a bar that conveniently had six hammocks on the sand, which was awesome.

Later that night we went dancing in some of the clubs on the beach, and actually, the couchsurfing guy plus friends ended up hanging out with us. It was fun- we danced, chilled on the beach, and headed back to our hostel pretty early.

Saturday we went out to eat breakfast ($2 meals are wonderful) and were back in time to check out of our hostel. Our new friends from Esmeraldas had planned on going surfing in Muisne, a small island fishing town that, as the guidebooks say, is a good place to visit "off the beaten tourist track." They met us in Atacames and we hopped another bus before grabbing a 30-second taxi-boat to get to Muisne. The town is pretty poor, and the streets we walked through were probably more what you all expected when I told you I was coming to Ecuador. Soon we were in sight of the beach, but we stopped off at the one of the boys' aunts' house. She, Clarice, lived with a lot of extended family members (which is much more common in Ecuador than it is in the US), and they were all so welcoming and excited to see us. Clarice actually spoke very good English- she learned/is learning because she teaches English classes in the town. She immediately invited us to spend the night and we accepted, as it was already 3 in the afternoon. After meeting everyone in the house- family members and other friends coming to surf- we headed down to the beach, only about 15 seconds away.

Let me tell you, this beach was GORGEOUS: beautiful, extremely fine sand that stretched for miles. At one point during the weekend a herd of six horses galloped down the beach, almost deserted except for a few surfing locals. A few hours and unsuccessful surfing lessons later, we headed back to the house to change and eat. After a delicious dinner of fish and shrimp (Muisne, as a fishing town, is known for having some of the best and freshest seafood in Ecuador), we hung out with the family a little bit more, taught them to play President/a****** (the card game), and then headed back to the beach for a bonfire. A few other locals and various friends joined us by the fire, and someone whipped out a guitar and a pair of bongo drums, the perfect set up for an amazing night.

We all slept on the floor of the family's balcony, on borrowed thin mattresses. It was a little squished, with the six of us and about eight of our new friends, but it was also kind of nice. We felt like such a part of this family, whom we had only known for a few hours.

We woke up before 7am the next morning, the Ecuadorians (this village was a very relaxing, Rastafarian-type town) began smoking their pot, and we were down to the beach for the rest of the day. A (bit more than) a few insect bites later, horrible sunburns, and sand-filled bags later, we were ready for school in Cumbaya.