Mantanita

This past weekend, Erin, Jason and I (along with several fellow CEDEI profesores) flew the fair environs of Cuenca for a respite in the beach town of Mantanita. Mantanita is about 8 hours northwest of here, and is famous for it’s surfer culture and easy laid back vibe. It sounded like a nice destination point to spend our first real three day weekend (there were no Saturday classes this week in honor of the ‘Festivals de Cuenca’ this weekend—an annual celebration of the town’s founding). The change of scenery was a welcome refresher, as there is always something inherently rejuvenating and basic about an encounter with the sea.

When we finally arrive to Mantanita, after a night bus ride involving several transfer points at dubiously named free-range chicken adorned “bus stops,” our first impressions were somewhat less than overwhelming. It was drizzly and over cast, and the combination of the rainy weather, and the unpaved streets coupled to turn the roads into veritable mud-wresting pits. We were thus relieved to finally settle in to the glorious “Centro del Mundo” hostel. Conveniently located right on the beach, it boasted spacious hammock adorned porches perfect for book reading and ocean symphony listening.

The ocean landscape was cozily, blustery reminiscent of the Oregon coast. So although a long leisurely stroll along the beach sounded like a familiar and welcome option, swimming did not so much. So while my travel mates shed their clothes to bound eagerly into the surprisingly warm sea, I took a welcome solitary meander down the beach until I reached the northern cliff boundary.

The beach was sprinkled with treasures—sand dollars, sea shells of exotic shapes and colors, and most excitingly, a small hodgepodge of bones. My favorite finds were: a large chunk of jaw from some mysterious beast (complete with several sizeable incisors still in place), and a Y-shaped vertebrae bone. I carried these two gems back in my pocket along side other more innocuous agates and shells, and eagerly displayed them to my comrades upon my triumphant return.

“Look what I found, guys!” I said proudly, showing off my jaw chunk to the newly coupled Ben and Sarah. They interrupted their tender embrace to gaze patiently at my artifact.

“Wow, um.. I don’t know if I would have picked that up?” Ben said dubiously.

“That’s very….interesting!” Sarah said, coming to his rescue.

Undeterred by their lack of enthusiasm, I carried them back to my room, washed all my specimens carefully one by one, and set them out to dry while I napped.

The town had much to offer in terms of vibrantly vigorous night life. A holiday weekend, the normally sleepy town had more than its share of visitors, foreign tourists and vacationing Ecuadorians alike. There were only about 3 technical “streets” though, so most people congregated at a handful of outdoors music venues to enjoy live music and dancing until dawn. The house band was quite eclectic at the place we spent the majority of our evening—playing covers of everything from local Ecuadorian pop favorites, to spunky White Stripes anthems.

It was good to have another recovery day of mellow hammock reading and beach strolling before having to return to Cuenca on the 5AM Sunday morning bus. A group of us opted for this ungodly masochistic hour thinking we’d want some time to decompress at home after the long 8 hour bus journey before having to face the week ahead.

The Festivals de Cuenca celebrations were still in full swing when we arrived home in the afternoon, so Erin and I decided to walk down to Parque Paradiso to see if we could catch the tail end (no pun intended) of the infamous donkey races that are a staple of the annual festivities. Last year Erin had gone and enjoyed seeing the highly intoxicated 200 some pound man enigmatically in a Barney mask trying desperately to ride his burro to victory, so it sounded like something that’d be worth checking out. Alas, by the time we arrive, the competition had finished—the winning burro standing proudly with his beaming 10 year old owner—a victory wreath of green and silver tinsel draped around his neck. It must have been quite the competitive spectacle though, for the donkey was clothed entirely in a four-legged lycra body suit, akin to those found on some Olympic level sprinters. Next year, I suppose.

When I finally got home, I had a stack of midterm exams awaiting my grading efforts. Though generally a somewhat arduous unrewarding endeavor, grading the writing portion at least proved somewhat entertaining. I instructed my students to write two paragraphs in response to a picture of an adventure embarking Calvin and Hobbes (see picture accompanying blog entry #1): one using the past tense to talk about where they’d already been, and how their trip started etc., and one paragraph in the future tense predicting what would happen on the adventure still to come. Most of the more memorable submissions were amusing and light-hearted, centering around the possibility of Calvin and Hobbes scoring with beautiful women, or inadvertently wandering into gay bars. For example:

“Calvin and Hobbes were walking in the park and a crazy clown came. The clown scared them and they run away, but the clown followed them in a motorcycle. While the clown was going to get them, a train killed him. Calvin was happy but the clown touched Hobbes and he became a crazy clown too. But Calvin bite him and he become a normal cat. –Oscar

“Calvin and Hobbes are the best friends. Calvin tinked in a adventure, he say to Hobbes and Hobbes accepted. they are went to a Sahara Dissart in Africa. when they gets to Africa They are happened a lot of things bads, They are not speak a tradicional lenguage, and he don’t liked the food. The food are an insects.” –Santiago

“Hobbes and Calvin started the trip in Montanita. They went to the beach, they had a lot of fun on the beach. One day Calvin was swimming when he saw a shark and he was scared, he run away to protect himself. Hobbes was watching Calvin and he was laughing because Calvin was funny running and saying help help. In the night they went to the disco but no one dances because they like boys.” –Jose

One of the submissions however, had a decidedly more somber, depressing tone to its predictions as to what lay ahead for the poor duo:

“In a couple of years… Hobbes will be died because he had an accident in Chrismas. Calvin will be fat because he only see the TV and eat pizza he don’t work and he lives alone.” –Alex

I commended Alex for his creativity, but commented on his essay that I could only hope he was wrong.