This may sound strange, but the thought of vacations initially scared me more than going to school. I’ll explain. With school, there’s a schedule. There’s a routine and things to do that are guaranteed to take up time. So I was a little hesitant, thinking of the break the University gives us for Carnaval. They gave us Monday and Tuesday off, but plenty of people take Friday, too (myself included). I learned it’s called “haciendo un puente,” or making a bridge. For example, if you get Tuesday off, you may as well take Monday off, too!
I decided to go the beach with my friend Kera. She’s been here for a semester already, so she’s much better-traveled. She had heard of a beach that is less popular (some places are chock-full of foreigners) but still fun. So we headed to Tonsupa! Luckily, Kera made last-minute reservations in a hostel. We traveled in bus (Kera, her friend Christine, and I) for 6 hours to Tonsupa. It cost us $10 for the ticket, and the trip passed in a dreamy haze. Suddenly, the bus attendant was announcing we had reached Tonsupa, so we blearily gathered our things and went down the stairs…to a dirt road. The bus roared off, and we were left rubbing the sleep out of our eyes in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. It was 5 am.
As I’m struggling to put in my contacts, a woman asks us if we need a taxi ride. We discovered one of the quirks of the beaches in Ecuador
Tonsupa was a calm, sunny beach. Even though everyone in the sierra exclaimed over the heat of the coast, I reveled in the balmy, 80-90 degree weather. As I told Kera and Christine, in Georgia (and Florida), the heat sits on you like a wet blanket. The air doesn´t move and is just saturated with water. There, I enjoyed the constant breeze and the clouds.
Like I told you, Tonsupa is calm. Most people go to other, more tourist-y, populated beaches. We enjoyed the change of pace, the one main street, the small shops, and the abundance of comida del mar. But for a change, one night we three Amazonas (Kera, Christine, and I are at least all 5´10´´, and I LOVED walking down the street with them at my side) got dolled up for a night on the town. We paid a quarter each to take a bus to Atacames, the lively beach 20 minutes down the road. What a difference! All the streets were lit up; music thumped from the numerous discotecas, and the streets were choked with people. Two way streets became one way streets with stop and go traffic, just from the sheer amount of people strolling there instead of the sidewalk.
Another difference: in Atacames, people were playing Carnaval. We quickly figured out what that meant. We were waiting in line to buy a hamburger from a street vendor. Ahead of us was a small family: mom, dad, and small boy (maybe 7 or 8 years old). I notice the mother nudging the child and pointing to the three of us. Before we can react, he is spraying us with foam. Espuma de Carnaval: all the pharmacies were selling it. It seemed to be like shaving cream, but perhaps more water-based. I know, because that night we wiped plenty of it off of us.
We dissolve into hapless laughter, looking at each other with stripes of foam in our hair and on our dresses. So much for looking cute! We cleaned each other up and kept waiting on those hamburgers. That´s the thing about people playing Carnaval: they spray you, and they´re content. There´s mercy.
As we continued walking on the main street, Calle del Sol, we became aware that we were good targets. Christine very seriously told us, ¨We need protection,¨ so we went to a pharmacy and bought a big canister for 3 dollars. ¨We´ll just spray people that spray us first—that´s only fair,¨ we decided.
As we´re walking, I look up and notice ahead a group of people sitting in the second floor of a restaurant. They were all armed and waiting. My eyes meet those of one of the guys, and he smiles and beckons me forward, as if he was saying, ¨You know you have to walk underneath us!¨ Unfortunately, it was true. We walk; they attack, and we retreat. I dart under the awning of a pharmacy (there are so many pharmacies here!), and Kera comes too. As she´s gently scooping foam off of my face and away from my eyes, a jet of foam descends from above, all onto her hair. One of the group had run along the second floor to get us again!
Well, the situation necessitated revenge. We crossed the street to plot. Armed with a canister of foam each, we snuck up the stairs to the restaurant, pausing on the landing. ¨Ok, so we go in, attack, and get out. Got it?¨And with that, we were running into the restaurant to surprise attack. I caught a glimpse of other diners, not part of the foam group, who smiled to see us. I´m sure we made quite a sight—three wrathful gringas, foam in our hair and clothes, making for the backs of our attackers. We were successful, though you can imagine the amount of foam we soon had on our bodies (7 versus 3). We rushed back onto the street, but to our surprise, one guy followed us! He and Christine had a battle before their foam ran out. He yelled, in English, ¨Truce! Truce! Man, you girls are gutsy! Why don´t you come on up and have a beer with us?¨
They were a group of Americans. ¨Of course!¨ exclaimed Kera. ¨Only Americans would go big like this.¨ It was impressive. They had commandeered the top floor of this restaurant, ordered pizza and beer, and stockpiled at least 15 containters of Carnaval foam. We sat with them for a while and visited as they continued their game of spraying passersby (the most gleeful participant was a little old man with white hair). They were middle-aged oil company associates, there on business. It was comical to contrast the Americans with the Ecuadorians they were spraying. Everyone was so nonchalant! I´ve been told that this is what Carnaval´s about—if you´re on the street, you know you´re liable to attack. But it was still surprising to see the calm of the women who´ve just gotten foam in their hair, or drivers whose car windows are plastered with foam as they inch by in the traffic.
We made our way back on the street, thinking of finding a discoteca, but it wasn´t long before we were embroiled in another foam war. This time, it was 3 Ecuadorian guys. Christine was our champion, and she´s quite vengeful, so it was one of them who cried, ¨Paz, paz, paz! We´re gonna go drink on the beach….You wanna come?¨ And that´s how we met Pablo, Mauricio, and Diego. We hung out on the beach, watching people play with fire while music spilled out from the discotecas. They were nice guys from Quito there for vacation. We spent the rest of the night with them, walking around, buying another hamburger, dancing…. Kera and Pablo decided to get married, so Diego and I were godparents and Mauricio officiated the ceremony on the beach J From there on on out, they referred to each other as ¨mi esposo/a¨. After midnight, Diego and Mauricio decide they want to swim. The ocean is already full of other people with similar ideas, and they begin stripping down. I decide to wade out (the water is like bathwater), but a wave made dry clothes a thing of the past. So I swam! In the Pacific Ocean, off an Ecuadorian beach, under the light of the moon, we swam.
It was a great trip.
