Date: 04.02 - 07.02

Temperature: 27*C avg

Since the tickets to Galapagos were quite expensive and our time to stay there would have been short (due to the upcoming Carnival event in Brazil) we decided to postpone Galapagos for now and find us a nice place to rest for a couple of days. Ayampe, a small village 30 minutes North of Montanita, satisfied these demands and became our choice.

In Ayampe we found a nice and quiet hostel, named ´Jaguar - con los pies en la arena´ (with its feets in the sand). The name lived up to its expectation and the room we got literally also were located on the beach. Our closest neighbors were a bunch of beach-crabs which every now and then were peeking out from their thousand caves when they thought nobody was looking. The beach side resort in Ayampe did, as we had hoped, in fact offer no other possibilities other than resting in the hammock, reading books or surfing (or looking at cautious crabs peaking out of their holes…). After one month of rehearsing Spanish glossaries and grammar this was nice and we joked about Ayampe being some kind of vacation from the vacation.

The mood in Ayampe was a big contrast to Montanita. It was as the Ecuadorians would say more Tranquilo (Chill). For example two hours after we had checked-in the owners of Jaguar had to leave for a wedding in Guayaqil (3-4 hours away) and without any other special fuzz we were handed the keys given some pointers and left completely alone with nothing but silence. It was so quiet indeed the first night that we could hear no other sound than what came from the waves and the wind. Long gone was the tunes from Pitbul in Montantia postulating: ´yo no quiero agua, yo quiero bebida´ (I do not want water, I want drinks), which had been echoing the streets and trough our earplugs for one month.

After a couple of days in Ayampe we also found out that we had another neighbor (besides the crabs). We had understood from the owners before they left that there was a guy from California who also were living at the hostel. But we had not seen anyone since we arrived, so we were not completely sure what to make of it. Maybe this guy was just as shy as the crabs? On the last day of our stay he proved our anticipations wrong and peeked out of his cabana, and we had the pleasure of meeting him. This was definitely an interesting encounter.

The guy from California was John; a 42 year old author, travel writer and golf caddie. As a side note the fact that John was a writer and author was welcomed with great satisfaction by Elise who on our earlier trips has argued, when we have observed beautiful remote nature areas and discussed the possibilities of moving there, that the only kinds of people with the time and money to live in such places could be authors. This time she was definitely right, and I guess she took it as a sign that she always has been?

Anyway, John had been in Ayampe for roughly 6 weeks editing his book ´Loopers´, which were soon to be published by the publishing-company Random House with which he had a contract. I first thought of the recently released film with Bruce Willis when I hear this title ´Loopers´, but according to John the term ´loopers´ was older than the film and was manifested through the legendary golf comedy ´Caddyshack´. In the film Bill Murray had used the term ´loopers´ to tell a story of how he was caddying for the Dalai Lama. John found this specific scene to be hilarious and he had to show us the scene two times to make sure that we got the same laugh of it as he did and I guess we would still be looking at the clip today if I did not affirm his good humor with a sympathetic laugh on our second You-Tube screening.

After talking with John I got the picture that Loopers was a travel book about John´s caddying experiences around the world stretching from the famous St. Andrews course in Scotland to the Torrey Pines in La Jolla. But Loopers, was however more than just a simple golf handbook about these places. In fact from listening to his stories I could briefly understand that the book was more about sex, drugs and rock & roll than golf. With Tiger Woods rock and roll lifestyle now out in the open this probably comes as no surprise to golfers, but the rock and roll lifestyle of a caddy really surprised me. John told me that he always tried to write himself as the neutral normal person in his books, whereas all the other characters were portrayed as the crazy ones, even if the real story might have played out opposite. Logically from listening to his stories it shortly became clear to me that John was anything but normal. Apparently the places John had been caddying had given him a tremendous repertoire of drinking stories on par with some of the more radical scenes in the movie Hangover and if he manages to pull of portraying himself as a normal person in his books this should indeed be considered a great writing accomplishment.

John was also working, for the fun of it, with a script for a surf movie. This was not a contracted piece of work like his book, but he nevertheless gave us a sneak peak to some of the scenes in the film after dinner. Without revealing too much, I guess I can share that John was portraying to us a movie in where Will Ferrell had the role as one of the main characters, Chico - the ´Surf God´. Chico was always waxing his long-board and assessing the waves. With lines such as: ´Do not worship me, worship the waves´ suggests that Chico, the surf god, really has the potential to walk in the footsteps of ´Frank the tank´ and the legendary Roy Burgundy. At least I really hope I get to see Will Ferrell in this movie some day.

The last day in Ayampe was a early riser as we had to catch the flight to Brazil, and to our satisfaction the owner of Jaguar, Faviola had returned back from Guayaqil and served us with a big traditional Ecuadorian breakfast consisting of eggs, and boletos (green bananas, cheese and vegetables) free of charge. Apparently she had felt guilty for nothing being around during our stay to make our bed and serve us dinner. I was surprised by this hospitality and really want it to be known that she was a great hostess and for those seeking a place with little distractions, great surf and a hostel were the owner cook you breakfast, dinner and wash your clothes (or at least that´s what they did for John), Jaguar in Ayampe is the place to go.