Montañita ay yai yai

Crossing the border was much more eventful than I could have expected. It turned out that the border between Colombia and Ecuador was closed for the weekend due to the Colombian elections. Only in South America would they close a major border for more than 24 hours without it being widespread knowledge! Fortunately we had left Medellin a day later than planned and therefore arrived at the border on Sunday morning (the border reopened at 4pm) so only had an 8 hour wait at the not-so-luxurious bus station in Ipiales. Crossing the border was an experience in itself, as we sat waiting with hundreds of Colombian/Ecuadoreans. When eventually given the go ahead by the police everyone half-ran/half-walked across the border lugging our bags/children/lives with us. I can't quite paint the picture with words but it was definitely up there in my top 10 surreal moments.

Anyway, 72 hours after leaving Medellin we eventually reached our destination for the week - Montañita, Ecuador. Keeping in mind that we had planned this to be a detox week (consisting of exercise and healthy eating), I am now sat in a dorm whilst sipping on lemsip in an attempt to quell the symptoms of a self/alcohol-induced cold. Both myself and Aya have 'burnt the candle at both ends' and are paying the price now. But it was worth it. Montañita is a cool, hippy beach town, full of surfers and very lively night life. The hostel we stayed at for the first 4 nights was known to many as 'the party hostel' which we were unaware of until the drinking games began the day we arrived. Other than consuming our body weight in alcohol we did actually go to one of the local surf school's for a lesson. Annoyingly I got stung by a jellyfish about 15 minutes in and spent the rest of the lesson watching Aya surfing and trying to decide how to broach the awkward 'will you piss on my leg' subject. Luckily the sting only lasted a few hours so our friendship was not put to the urine test.

Now we are back in Guayaquil for a night before our flights to the Galápagos Islands tomorrow morning. To say I am excited would be an understatement. Not many 22-year olds get this opportunity so I am going to throw myself in (quite literally), despite having been told by a dive master today that there are hundreds of sharks everywhere. I will post again in a weeks time, hopefully with my limbs intact.