Manta

My trip so far is about to drastically change....

Arriving in Manta, Ecuador (more to come)
March 16th

I arrived in Manta on Saturday....finally!!! The city was not quite as I expected...a bunch of buildings (not very pretty), not much in terms of sight seeing or entertainment...but here I am, one month after I arrived. If it weren´t for all of the great people I have met I would not have stayed here nearly as long. I am living in an apartment for students at my language school. I love my apartment. It is in the same building as the school, just one floor above it. The first week I was here, I had the four bedroom apartment all to myself because all of the other students at the time were living with host families. Although a little boring at first, it still felt like a luxury living in such a nice place...especially after spending the first month of the trip constantly in and out of hostels (some had no hot water, no showers, or shared dorm rooms with five other people). My apartment is well furnished, nice big bedrooms, big living room, big kitchen, and the best part about it is the large terrace right on the top floor of the building. The only other rooms in the apartment are the school, and a doctors office on the bottom floor, so past business hours, I had the whole building to myself!
I was a little concerned about meeting people when I first got here, but after starting classes on Monday, it was easy to meet some nice travelors. I met my friend Alec at the school, who also started classes the week that I did. I have been hanging out with him the most since I arrived in Manta. I am really fortunate to have met him because he introduced me to his host family who have been really great. His host sister is about my age, while the group of us (including more locals) have been hanging out..By the second week, it was hard finding any free time between going to class, studying, and hanging out with friends whether it was going out for some beers, cooking, going out to eat, going to the beach, or going to the cinema. The second weekend a group of us went to Montanita (I will be posting an entry about that).
The first week I was signed up for surfing classes..but unfortunately there were not many waves while I have been here, so I was only able to go out once....so then I tried to take kitesurfing and realized that it wasn´t really worth paying for two weeks of lessons when I wouldn´t really learn much, so I quit (sorry Brandy!).
Manta is located in a central area on the Ecuadorian coast, so it is really easy to get to many other beach towns along the coast on a super cheap bus ride (it costs about 2 or 3 dollars to get a bus from Manta to a town about 2 or 3 hours away). The local Ecuadorians that we made friends with have cars, so we were lucky enough to get to drive down the Ruta del Sol, which is the highway that runs right along the coastline, a road that buses do not take. There are lots of beautiful beaches within a half hour drive from Manta, so we took advantage of seeing other beaches instead of going to the beach in Manta the whole time.

I have been in Manta for a month so far, and tomorrow I´m getting ready to go to Quito for two more weeks of language classes. I am going to miss Manta, but I am excited to see more of Ecuador, especially the high lands!