dos mangas version 2.0

after shouting at the house for a minute or two it occurs to me that just maybe meagan and paul are not at home... this is confirmed by the children who emerge from the house to see why the gringo is yelling. after a long pause we invite ourselves into their house, promising that we're friends, and begin to make ourselves comfy.

they occupy the second story of a relatively long house on the main strip in dos mangas... as noted it's blue from the waist down but white on top. downstairs is a workshop where a local group makes bags and bracelets and hats from taquilla (a fibrous plant). meagan and paul's pad is nice, very airy (is missing an entire wall in their kitchen), and pleasantly cool after baking in guayaquil for the past month. i settle down to read "the forth hand" by john irving while jane makes use of the hammock (i've read three books in the amount of time it's taken her to get through half the da vinci code) to read her book. we eventually switched positions as some point, probably a couple hours after we got there, and definitely after we had returned from a visit to the local watering hole (someone's front porch) for a cold drink of pilsener. i was sound asleep when the kids showed up sometime around 10.

on saturday we headed out to mantañita, a weird tourist mecca on the coast, 2 kilometres up the beach from manglaralto. lots of bikinis and tanned bodies frolicking about and surfboards tucked under many an arm as people make their way (strut) across the expanse of sand. we set up shop under an umbrella on the beach and almost stumbled across julia (the german) who was vacationing there as well. she came over to join us and, in turn, we all went swimming.

i'm not a salt water fan so swimming in the ocean is not really my cup of tea but the waves are glorious. i managed to catch a few (no board - just my rock hard abs) waves that flung me ever closer to shore.

we stopped for lunch at this mexican restaurant off the main drag which was better than expected and only a few doors down from a place with a huge sign out front promising a huge canadian breakfast (closer inspection revealed mostly french toast, eggs, pancakes, bacon, stuff like that...). mantañita is a fav of the cool kids working in the office - and the tourists flock there, but mostly they're tourists from this side of the equator. i did see a place or two selling veggie burgers which is always a sign of a foreign invasion. it reminded me of panajachel in guatemala - a little too done up, with smart restaurants and kids wearing baggy pants in vogue.

sunday we woke early and went of a hike through the forests near town. (part iii...)