The first
week in December reverted back to mostly cloudy days- what gives! How can we
enjoy our gorgeous beaches without sunshine?
During this
time, George, the brother of our Canadian friend Marg from back home, came to
Salinas. Last summer, Marg had mentioned that her brother was doing a trip
around the world, first Central America, then South America and then on to
Europe and finally the Far East. He sent
us an email letting us know when he would be in town and we arranged to meet
him at Will’s.
We spent
several days in George’s company, going for beers and lunches.
He also
visited our condo for yet more beers.
And even
though the cloudy days persisted, we did spend some beach time.
He told us
of his trip so far. In South America he had been to the Galapagos in Ecuador,
plus Colombia and Peru and to a lot of the places that we ourselves want to
travel eventually. George had a lot of great pictures of all these locations
stirring my wander lust again.
We had a
last farewell dinner at our favorite barbecue place and then he was off to
Santiago, Chile.
We were
sitting on our balcony one morning, when the navy from the local base beside
our building, were conducting landing exercises on our local beach. Very
interesting from our 16th floor location though not sure what we would have
thought if we were sitting on the beach at the time!
As you can
see by the following pictures, the sun did finally come out again by mid-month
and we enjoyed many days swimming, people watching and drinking cervazas with our friends, Connie and Murray.
This month I
also decided I needed help once every 2 weeks cleaning our condo. I know, I know,
we are retired ‘what else do we have to do?’, but our condo is 2100 sq. ft. of
all tile floors plus 3 balconies and it takes me hours to sweep and wash them
all. So I decided to hire Tito, one of our doormen downstairs, to do it for me.
He did an excellent job, all floors & balconies & balcony
railings/walls, took him about 4 hours and all for $20.
Most of
South Americans are huge soccer fans. When the local Guayaquil team Barcelona,
won the title for the first time in 14 years, the celebration in Salinas was
huge. An impromptu parade consisting of every truck, car and motorcycle
proceeded down the malecon for miles. It was a very awesome sight.
On the 21st
of December, Will’s bar had an ‘End of the World’ party. Most gringos and their
Ecuadorian friends joined for a great party. A contest was held for the best
aluminum hat and here are some of the excellent entries.
We drank and
ate the free appetizers and chatted/visited with our many existing friends plus
met some new ones including a couple from Peterborough with the same last name
as mine ‘Blair’. Don is the new Canadian consul in our province here, Santa
Elena, so these were good people to know.
After a few
hours, we walked home along the malecon for the 35 minute trip home. It was a
beautiful night! Local houses here are also decorated with Christmas lights.
We sat on our back balcony for a while sipping our night cap
and thinking how very lucky we were, end of world or not- LOL
WOW...It's Amazing idea to enjoyed vacation with family. I think you should enjoyed memorable time. Anyways, Thanks for sharing this post.
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