Playa La Tortiguita near Puerto Lopez 

Playa Los Frailas near Puerto Lopez 

Offical beach football game in Puerto Lopez 

Puerto Lopez

Yesterday I tried to surf again, and I plan to keep trying more this week, the first thing I need to master is how to catch a wave, which I still can´t do yet, it usually takes people weeks to be able to do that. I am continuing with my Spanish lessons as well.

Internet is quite slow here and relatively expensive, or maybe it is expensive because it is slow, since I need a lot of time to read my mail, update my web log, check the news, etc. So I am going to wait on uploading pictures until I am in Cuzcu in Peru, my next destination. I don´t know when I am going to Cuzcu, I am kind of starting to feel bored here, so it might be beginning of next week.

I volunteered to do some cooking tonight for some of my friends here, I planned to cook kafta (ground beef in the oven), but could not manage to find any ground beef in this town, in the end I put a chunk of meat, and I going to try to cut it finely with a knife, I am not sure how my kafta will turn out, I never made this way before .

To other unpleasant matters, my ipod is toast, I plugged it in to charge it like I do everyday, when returned two our later , I noticed that it´s black and white screen was suddenly showing colors, I knew something was wrong, when I touched it was extremely hot and I could smell something burning inside, any way it was dead. It might be related to the fact it got wet earlier in the day, when I was lying in the beach chatting with a friend, and we were not paying attention to the fast rising see, and were hit by a sudden wave, but it worked fine after the incident and I even charged it once, unlike my mobile which also got wet and did not work after that (not that I cared much). So I don´t know if it was a delayed reaction to the water , salt and sand, or just a problem with electricity in the hotel. Anyway I found this US company in the internet that specializes in fixing ipod, I shipped it to them to see if they can fix it, and I am going to make a claim to my insurance.

Puerto Lopez

I managed to hurt my foot while beach football, my toes got stuck in the sand, it hurt quite a lot when it happened, but in the beginning I did not pày much attention to it , but then it started inflaming, and the next day my foot was twice it´s original size, and I could hardly walk on it. Anyway there is a physiotherapist in town, but he´s clinic here is open only after six in the afternoon, so I spend the day lying on the beach. The therapist was quite professional to my surprise, and I got a combined treatment of electro stimulation , ultra sound, message, an injection and some pills. And in the beginning he did some pulling on my toes, which you can imagine was quite painful, but the good news was that there was no fracture. I had to come back the next day for another treatment session.

After that I met a group of Dutch chicas and we went to the beach bar with some of the local chikos, where they all danced and had fun , I had to sit on the side and watch because of my foot, not that I know how to dance Salsa anyway, which is the main music that is played at that bar.

My foot is getting better now, I can walk ok, but it still needs a couple of more days to completely heal I think, so I did not do much yesterday and today I am not going to do much either.

I started taking some Spanish lessons, today will be my third lesson. And once my foot heals, I might take another shot at surfing.

Yesterday night was quite interesting, for all the wrong reasons first we had a power outage in the whole town, and then to top it of it started to really rain, the first time since I was here, there was really nothing to do there, but go to bed.

Puerto Lopez

I did not do much the last couple of days, just relax and clear out my mind before starting my trip. Even so I still got invited to a wedding party, a football game on the beach and managed to meet many people, some I knew from my last trip and some are friends of people I know from my last trip.

It is very hot in here during the day, the only places to be are either the beach or the swimming pool at the hotel. In the night it is much nicer weather.

So for I have stuck to eating fish and shrimps, this is a fisherman´s town after all, and all fish is fresh from the say, corvina fish and shrimps are especially recommended . The street along the beach is full of terraces selling fresh juice of all tropical fruit.

In the morning the fisherman return with the fish, today I went to watch this morning. One boat brought back three big sword fish , probably 100 - 150 kg each.

Today I took a surf lesson, but I must have eaten something bad this morning, because I felt sick and had to cut the lesson short.

Finally arrived

After a 13 hour flight, followed by 4 hours on buses, I am finally at Puerto Lopez. Every thing went well, almost, the bus driver missed my stop and dropped in the middle of no where, and I had to walk back about a kilometer in the hot sun to take my next bus. It is quite hot here , I think it is around 30. Anyway I found a hotel and I am all set , lets see if I can meet some people .

Puerto Lopez in Ecuador my first distination 

My nephew 

Welcome

Welcome to my travel blog. Is you already know I going for one year to south America, many of you have asked me to keep you informed about what is happens during my travels. So I decided to create this blog just to do that, this will be a convenient way for me to keep you up to date. I don't know if I will write here regularly, but I will do it every once in a while, when I feel like it.

I am leaving on Thursday about midnight, and I hope to arrive in Puerto Lopez by Friday evening, from there I will probably make my first blog update in SA.