Too much too soon.
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2012
1
3
4
Trip End
Apr 11, 2012
What I did
Sand, beach and rain.
Canoa, Ecuador
Saturday, February 4, 2012
'The Bridge' a long and rather impressive construction, joining San Vicente (which is the 'via' for Canoa) was opened wth great gusto, by the Ecuadorian president, last November and we all agree this is an amazing achievement and when the road to (and maybe bi-passing Canoa) is built the traffic will flow more easily thus enabling Canoa to absorb even more visitors. As there are masses of restaurants & hostels springing up (almost literally) over night you wonder where they will put all the extra ... not a nice thought, but I'm talking about all the waste human beings produce. (Sorry this photo doesn't quite fit, but perhaps that's just as well.)
When you consider the apparently haphazard way this is dealt with; no weekly or monthly collections by the coporation honey cart, but a payment, a request and a wait while those who have some influence (goodness knows how you influence the honey cart man) get their's emptied others who have also paid, wait. Complain and you could wait a little longer. Bizarre but true, Lorena and Diego waited over a week for their full cesspit to be emptied. Somehow this was kept under wraps so to speak(!) and nothing offensive was obvious.
As I said new restaurants spring up over night. One day there's a wide road, the next some bamboo posts have been driven in, say ten to twelve feet into the road and within a short time there's an awning making a roof; tables and chairs appear and the new eating place is born. No worries about building regs, health and safety, it's all tranquilo. I use the word 'road' loosely as these are mostly tracks of hardened sand which means it is relativey easy to drive in the bamboo posts.
There's one such restaurant across the square from our hostel and we've watched it, at first few or no customers, but recently hoards of people from the day tripper buses go in there for breakfast at the weekends and they have masses of mouths to feed. One day last week a big digger came in and made a massive trench on the far side of the restaurant, this has been lined with concrete and covered with bricks. As it has rained incessantly (well almost) over the past week, the area was very wet and the trench (or call it a pit) was filled with water. Above this they appear to be building little cubicles using the typical red breeze block type bricks. Question is are they building toilets and a cesspit right there by the restaurant? There seems to be no control whatsoever on what people are allowed to build or where they put it. Strange but true and yet the people seem to thrive; they are happy, mostly healthy and rarely underweight
Even for the rainy season we've had more than our fair share of it over the past couple of weeks, but the amazing thing is that in the morning you will be slithering along over muddy sand, finding the odd dry patch and the occasional paved area and later in the day it will be pretty dry. In the UK a day on the beach would be very unlikely in such weather, but here a cloudy, cool day on the beach is the best kind. Today was typical as we took our seat under the awning and paid our $5 for the day. Pablo turned up for another English lesson and does well. I've discovered he's twenty-five and married with one son. Today he proudly told us that soon his house would soon have a second floor. Not unusual here with the bamboo construction.
Actually, it's not been the best two weeks! I managed to get a very frightening ear infection which has more or less cleared up but at the moment left me with tinnitus. Question is will it go or will I have to learn to live with it like so many others. I've also had a mild tummy upset, the plus side of which means I've lost a few pounds; the down side is that at this moment Peter is suffering the same problem but not coping so well and feeling quite bad. It's just after 11pm and as things are always worse at night I'm hoping he'll feel better when daylight comes.
As we've booked a few nights in a hostel in another town (Cuenca) from Monday and it's rather a long bus ride I do hope he recovers ... we had planned to use this as a base and travel out, but with me being ill that hasn't happened and there's just so much time one can spend in Canoa.
For once I'm inclined to side with those peope who think we're crazy going travelling to strange and distant lands, although they're not so distant any more.
Stay safe and warm! I hear there's a cold snap so please take care.
xx
