a little behind

No, I have not been strangle-mugged or left to dry out at the bottom of a ditch... it´s been a busy week or so.

Last Thursday evening my boss threw a barbeque at his house for everyone in the company with birthdays in October. Boy, the man can cook! It was plate after of plate of chicken, beef, sausage, sides, salad, glasses of wine, three kinds of cake. At around 10:00 or 11:00 pm, full-bellied, we dispersed to our respective homes to pack for a long weekend at the beach! At midnight, nine of us, bags packed, flip flops on, waited outside for our short bus to pick us up. (Yes, we took an overnight ride on a yellow short bus to get to the beach.)

Piled into the short bus, rum was passed around, people made makeshift pillows out of towels and sweatshirts, most of us eventually got to the business of sleep. I lingered awake for a while, eyes passing lazily over towns and cities whose names I might never find out. 2:00 am, pitch black outside, cold, a strange yellow short bus transports sleepy gringoes through a town shrouded in mist, streets deserted save for here and there a man waiting to sell popcorn or sausage to no one in particular. My eyes close.

At 5:00 am I awake as my head is banged violently against the glass windowpane. We are driving down gravel roads now, I look out the back window behind me, and replacing cities and towns are flourescent-green trees, cows grazing, open space. It has gotten hot in our bus. Sweaters and socks have been removed, dampness fills the air. We are getting close.

At 9:00 we arrive to the tiny beach town of Canoa, greeted by a light, cold rain and thick fog. Breakfast is had at our hostel made of bamboo. Everyone orders coffee and crepes. It is a holiday weekend, and from our breakfast table we see hoards of locals arriving into town, standing on the backs of huge pick-ups. Hammocks are found and claimed, we read for 10 minutes and fall asleep, awake, take a dip in the ocean, the rain has stopped now, the air is clearing.

For lack of better things to do, we have dinner at 5, drinks, more drinks. We play drinking games for hours (2 truths and a lie, never haver I ever) but it is still early, only 9, and a couple of us decide to go dancing.

Saturday is much the same. Limbs akimbo, we swing in hammocks, talking and reading. A swim in the ocean, laying out in the sun, which is mostly covered in clouds but is still strong, as this is the closest beach to the Equator. Breathing easy, ocean rythms having become incorporated into us already. Sunday comes too quickly, and before we know it we are settling the bill ($20 for two nights inthe hostel including breakfast and copious amounts of drinks) and Moises, our driver, is waiting for us in his short bus.

Monday evening my housemates and I decided to cook a big meal together, using everybody´s leftover ingredients, so it was a big salad made of my leftover lettuce and one tomato, somebody´s can of corn and somebody else´s stray carrots and cucumbers. Frozen beef leftover from a barbeque 2 weeks ago was cooked, along with a mushroom cream sauce. A carrot cake was made using more stray carrots, and for frosting, some spoonfulls of someone´s cream cheese. It was by all accounts a feast, and we had over a few guests and the 8 of us sat down (on stools) to a candlelit dinner (partially for atmosphere and partially to save on electricity.)

Tuesday morning I became violently ill. No one else got sick, so despite what you are thinking, I don´t think it has to do with our feast. I dragged myself to work, only to end up laying on the couch at work for an hour, and going home. It was gatorade, crackers, Lolita, and sleep for the rest of the day. Today I feel a thousand times better, it is possible I was made sick from the changes in altitude between Quito and the beach, and back. In any case, ti was only a matter of time before I had stomach problems, I´m actually suprised it didn´t happen sooner.

Finally, in my last piece of news for this entry, I am becoming the one-woman publicity department for my company. I will still have plenty of time to do all kinds of writing, but my boss would also like me to focus approximatrly two days of my week on publicity, which I have been doing some of until now and which I have been enjoying. I´ve been given a book called "the new rules of marketing and pr" which is all about marketing in the digital age, and it is now my new project to read this book and implement its strategies for our company. I´ve been told that when the new intern comes, she can be my publicity assistant, so as to ensure that i would still have time to do other kinds of writing.

I´m also fairly certain that after a year of working here in Quito, I will be able to take my show on the road and move to Chile, Bolivia, Honduras, or whatever other guidebook we are working on will be, and essentially travel around and write the guidebook for that country, solo. So that´s really exciting! It would be amazing to have that kind of experience under my belt.

OK, that´s all folks! Would love to hear from you.