MONTAÑITA (Coastal Ecuador). Surf, Sun, and Cocktails. 43 255 Km

It's difficult to know where to start with Montañita. It's a small beach side town a couple of hours from Guayaquil, that somewhere along the way got a reputation for great surf and with that came a slow and steady influx of tourism which eventually made the weekends a somewhat party destination for locals and internationals alike.

Arriving on the bus, the main road cuts through the edge of town as it passes north and south to what I'm sure is similar towns, or at least they were 20 years ago. From the main road streets peel off towards the beach 3 blocks away. They don't seem to have signposts but we're fast introduced to them by names such as "Breakfast Alley" and "Cocktail Lane".

The reason we stopped here was the same as many others. We were keen to get in a bit of beach time and I had heard the language school here was quite good. But that's all we really knew.

We quickly found that the town itself has no more to offer than other towns along the coast, unless you're keen to drink cheap cocktails and party til dawn. In part it felt like we were in Thailand, including the weekend full moon party.

Thankfully for us, we spent the 2 weeks here catching up. Catching up on sleep, on learning Spanish, on cooking our own food, on Yoga, and relaxing. We didn't catch as much sun here as we would have liked, but that's also apparently quite normal at this time of year.

One of the surprises in town was the local Iguanas that were perched near the bridge each day. As we made our way between classes, surfing, and Yoga, we found these little guys pretty much every day.

And that's as much as I really have to say on this place. On our last day we finally got a great sunset and with that we prepare to head east on our travels to the Atlantic coast.