Playa Escondidas

We left san lorenzo and headed down the coast to atacames, thinking that it sounded like a nice fun town. It wasn't. Or maybe it was, and we just weren't in the mood. Every restaurant and hotel owner was on the street trying to convince us to come to their establishment, music was blaring on the beach, and we were just overwhelmed. We ate lunch (overprice, not very good pizza) and decided to head out of town. We saw a place in our guidebook called playa escondida, which was supposed to be a secluded beautiful beach owned by a canadian expat named judy. We decided to head there, despite the fact that we didn't exaclty know where "there" was, and that we couldn't reach her. We did know that it was a fairly isolated area, and that if we couldn't find her we would be screwed. But we felt pretty desperate at that point.

We took a series of buses out of atacames and into the middle of nowhere, where we were dropped off, without much clue about how to get to judy. A few guys waiting at the bus stop told us it was about 15 kilometers away, and that the next bus wouldn't come for about 3 hours. I almost started crying. We couldn't wait that long, because then if it didn't work out, we'd have no way to get out. The guys told us we'd have to call a taxi, but we didn't know how to do that. Then this guy showed up with a "motorcycle taxi" of sorts--basically a cart pushed by a motorcycle, and offered to take us. We were nervous but decided to take it--luckily the weight of the two of us plus our backpacks meant the thing could barely get to 20 mph.

We finally arrived at Playa Escondida, and it was all worth it. The beach was incredible, the food amazing, and we were able to camp on the sand for cheap. The place was designed so beautifully, using wood and bambu and palm leaves and shells in the most interesting and artistic way. It was also designed to be ecological, including eco-toilets (read: nonflushing, composting toilets). All of the food was presented with flowers, and the condiments came in shells.

We stayed for three days and took long walks on the beach, swam, and read in hammocks. The beach had lots of sand and rock formations, and was just so so beautiful. We ate vegetables for teh first time in days. It was heaven. Except, of course, for the ants. and flies. and mosquitos. and crabs. and jellyfish. Still it was lovely. And judy was a very nice, if very strange, middle aged woman. She moved to ecuador 30 years ago, and bought this property 15 years ago. It used to be her favorite spot to camp, and then it was for sale and she decided to go for it. It was such a nice story!

After three relaxing days in a beautiful spot, we decided to move on. We are now in Muisne, a bit south along the coast. We weren't going to spend a night here, but we got here kind of late (we missed the 8:30 bus and the next one didn't come until noon), and then this guy who took from one end of the other on an ecotaxi (read: tricycle) convinced us to stay. Our hostel is really nice though, with lots of hammocks and palm trees and hot water. And the beach is pretty, although full of jellyfish (and we actually saw a dead dolphin )

We are now going to try to go find some dinner. Keep the comments coming!!!

-R