King Kreissler needs the world

Vorturnen erlaubt

Hello together.

Since I am not sure if I will have a proper access to the internet within the next few days I am going to give you a brief summary of the happenings up to now.

After my arrival in Ecuador I spent quite a lot of times in the Andes, doing some hiking. Therefore it was about time to leave the mountains and head straight to the pacific coast. My destination there was a place called Montanita. This is a tiny, little village located directly at the Pacific Ocean. The waves here are perfect to do some surfing and other water sport activities. Accordingly you will easily find young people here. As a result Montanita is a little bit more expensive than other destinations in Ecuador; more touristic, more shops, bars, restaurants and hotels/hostals. The place I stayed in offered a direct view to the Pacific Ocean. I slept in a hostal in a dormitory just under the roof. Normally there is space for like 30 people, everybody gets a mattress to sleep on. A fantastic place. Of course I was not the only person in this hostal. There were like six people from Argentina as well, another one from Swiss, one guy from Ireland (Sligo) and a whole bunch of other nationalities. The first person I met was the irish guy. After one year in Ireland I was really happy to meet those sort of people again. Irish people are always up to party, drinking, talking, having fun. When we introduced to one another I ask him "Hey, you say you are from Ireland, right? So your name must be either John, Seamus or Padraig, right?" Well, and of course his name is Seamus, typical irish.

My life there in Montanita was quite lazy; walk along the beach, sit in the bar, enjoy on the terrace of the hostal, lie in the hammock, watch the sun go down,l go to the beach parties at night, ... The wheather was around 28 degree. I got a sunburn straight away.

But because I don´t like water so much (I did not even swim in the ocean) I could not do so many things and so I left the place after 2 and a half days. Although I would have liked to stay as the people I met were very nice. But I needed to travel on, I needed to escape this really lazy and comfortable life. I needed the mountains.

I think, Montanita is the perfect place for the Vorturner (www.vorturner.de) and all the Moechtegernvorturner. I am sure you love the bitches, sorry I mean the beaches, and the parties on the beaches and the people there and the cocktail bars and all that stuff. Again to you Vorturners, you really should think about spending New Years Eve 2005/2006 at the Pacific Coast in Montanita.

Well, I left the coast and visited Cuenca for two days. Cuenca is a very colonial city, supported by the Unesco (==> more money than other places). Consequently the streets are cleaner, the houses look nicer, the service for the tourists is wider.

The next place on my journey was Vilcabamba. This is some kind of a health resort with mineral springs. The people here get a hundred years and more (sometimes), because of the comfortable climate, the healthy food and the mineral springs (good water). But probably also because of the easier life they have when we tourists come and spend our money.

We think we dont spend so much money here but compared with what the ecuadorians earn usually it is quite a lot. In Ecuador you pay for everything. And you always pay UN DOLLAR. For me it is the UN DOLLAR country. To visit the mineral spring and put a jar of that healthy water over your body the old lady next door will ask you to pay UN DOLLAR. To visit a certain mountain, the Mandango for example, you gonna pay UN DOLLAR to the family which owns the land the mountain is on. Or if you go to the shop to buy whatsoever it`ll cost you UN DOLLAR. Or the people in the streets when they don`t have anything to eat, they ask you for UN DOLLAR.

In Vilcabamba I met a guy from Italy. We decided to travel on together for a while. We left Vilcabamba and took the night bus to Peru. We got our exit stamps on the boarder and arrived safely on the next morning in Piura which is situated in the north of Peru.

Posted by Sascha at January 19, 2005 08:05 PM