Canoa

Yes, just like Camilo said we would, we’ve become very fond of the town of Canoa.  In some ways it is what keeps us motivated all week on the farm.  The kids love to play at the beach and eat ice cream; we love to get a cold beer and sleep in a bed with a real mattress. 

One of our favorite things to do in Canoa is to visit the panedaria to buy muffins, bread, donuts and cookies.  After 2 weeks on the farm we have a new appreciation for baked goods because the farm doesn’t have flour and hence, no bread!  (besides a kind you make with yucca flour, which doesn’t compare.)  The bakeries in Canoa make the basics- no Artesian Bread in Five Minutes a Day, but it does hit the spot.  We’ve made the rule that the kids can eat as much bread as they want on the weekends.  We’ll see if that fattens them up a bit. 

In Canoa we’ve been staying each weekend at a hostel a bit off the main street that is quiet and has amazing food.  Diego and Lorena, a really helpful and friendly couple from Spain, run the place and we have enjoyed talking with them and getting ideas about other areas to see in Ecuador.  Danny and I joke that one day we’ll come down here and help run the place, but we haven’t seen the rainy season so no commitments yet.  For now I’m just trying to consume as much Spanish tortilla as possible.

And last but not least, the beach here is great.  Here is what Cal and Harper have to add:

Cal- Lake Michigan has little tiny, tiny waves and Canoa has some tiny waves and some big waves and some really, really big waves that go, “whoa, whoa (Cal motions that they knock him down and tumble him around in the surf.)  I just go falling and keep moving in the ocean and I go to the end all the way. I go all the way to the dry, dry sand.  I go pretty far. 

Harper- We haven’t seen any fish swimming in the ocean but we have seen snails, sea centipedes, sand dollars, and dead jellyfish washed up on the beach.  We make a lot of sand castles and decorate them with shells that we find- big ones and little ones, striped ones, and shiny ones.  I like the good scooping ones. 

But according to them both the best thing about Canoa is the ice cream.