Friday, Apr 5, 2019

Trip Home

It feels good to be back in my place and to have my own “space”. My trip back here to Ecuador was uneventful overall. My connecting flight in Bogota was delayed. When we finally did board, they made us get off and change planes because of a mechanical problem. All in all, I arrived two hours late into Guayaquil.

It was just enough time (I hoped) to catch one of the last two buses back to Olon, but guess what? All the tickets were sold out! This is the risk of traveling late on Friday to the coast during high season. I had some luck though because a taxi driver was standing at the bus ticket window wanting one more person to go with the other three people he had gathered to drive to Montanita. He was charging $15 for each person, and I jumped on that deal.

Spanish Continues

One of the three was an older man who had actually been on my flight from Bogota to Guayaquil. He was from Argentina, traveling, and now on his way to visit his son in Montanita. The other two people were a young couple going to Montanita for the weekend. They were all Spanish and spoke it the whole way to Montanita. I listened intently to see what I could understand.

I spoke where I could but really not too much. At one point the older man commented that I was being very quiet. I told him (in Spanish) that you are all speaking very fast and I am not understanding it all. That comment didn’t seem to slow any of them down one bit. Lol.

Nevertheless it was a fun ride home listening to Spanish. The agreement for the taxi ride was only to Montanita. I was going to offer the driver more money to take me to my house, but I needed to use the ATM in Montanita anyway. When we arrived, I said good bye to my fellow tavelers and headed for the ATM .

My Space

I took my own cab to my house and by the time I walked in my front door, its was 10 pm. A very long day for sure. After 2 months in Colombia I was back in my place on the beach. Everything seemed the same, familiar. I slept good that Friday night. This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning. Pretty spectacular I think.

Hopefully Not Again

Sleeping Saturday night was a different story because at 2 am Sunday morning we had an earthquake. I was awakened by a very strong shaking and “the sound” of the building groaning at the mercy of the earth beneath it. As my eyes opened my body’s muscle memory immediately took me back to the 7.8M earthquake in Bahia de Caraquez three years ago.

I bolted out of my bed and ran for the front door. By the time I reached the door the shaking had stopped. I stood there and waited a bit. Nothing. I then searched for the magnitude of the quake, and finally found it reported as 6.2M. It felt every bit of that.

I did look out at the ocean after the earthquake to see if it looked different. It looked the same to me (how is that for scientific), so I decided not to worry about a tsunami. Over the next hour I lied in bed and felt the shaking of three or four aftershocks. The biggest one was 5.4M. When things seemed to have settled down I allowed myself to fall back to sleep. It seems this is just part of life in Ecuador.

Other than that the week has been very normal. I went to Salinas and stocked up with groceries, met with friends for lunch, and now just thinking about what’s next for me.

Chau.