Canoa Beach Weekend

Monday, March 9th, 2015 Canoa
As we may have mentioned before, everyone in Ecuador goes to the beach for the weekend. Every beach town is full of families enjoying the summer.

On Sunday morning, in the 'soccer field' in front of the Amalur hostal and restaurante, we counted 24 big buses plus some smaller ones.

On Monday morning there were none. They did leave quite a bit of litter, however. Ecuadorians litter like Canadians used to about 50 years ago. There is garbage pickup so the litter isn't nearly as bad as Vietnam or Cambodia but there's room for improvement.

On Thursday afternoon, the malecon was not too busy.

On Saturday night, the party was in full swing, although it can't compare to the 24/7 party in Montanita.

On Sunday morning, the beach is busy for a stretch of about a kilometre right in front of town. Anywhere else, of course, it's almost deserted. We've seen this in many other beach towns in our travels. Almost everyone clusters together. On almost any beach anywhere, if you walk a kilometre, you're by yourself. There is over 100 metres difference between high tide and low tide. People just lay in the tidal flat to stay cool, letting the water wash over them. Many of the older Ecuadorians swim in shirts and shorts, not swimsuits. Across the malecon, there are buildings with showers available for rent to wash off the salt before the bus ride home.

On Monday morning, a rider can allow a colt to follow freely down the malecon.

On Monday morning, the beach is very quiet.