Girls Beach Weekend

Last weekend I was invited by some of friends to join them for a long beach weekend in Same, Ecuador. "Beach Weekend?! - Hells yeah!" I said. We headed out of the city on Wednesday afternoon, trying to get ahead of the Easter weekend beach traffic. Our plan was to spend the night in Mindo, 2 hours outside the city and then leave early on Thursday morning for the next four hour leg to the beach. We were planning a nice dinner and evening in this cute town surrounded by the cloud forest.


Well, as often happens here, the best laid plans are foiled by the power of Ecuador's natural environment. About 15 minutes from Mindo we were stopped by a landslide! Unfortunately, with no alternate roads in the Andes, we had to just sit and wait patiently for the road crews to clear the massive mound of mud from our path. We made the most of our 3 hours of waiting and the time just flew by (not really, but we tried).

       

Laura, Mireille, and Donna waiting patiently.   

Another beautiful morning in Mindo. 

Fortunately, the rest of the ride to Same was wonderfully uneventful and we arrived smoothly by lunchtime in our beach paradise. 

  

 

 

 

Same is a tiny little beach community with a few restaurants and bars. Just enough to keep us fed and entertained, but not so many places that it has become too large. It was perfect!

Dinner on our final night with Laura, Mireille, Alissa, Amy, Laura and me.

 

Laura loved the local babies.

I loved the 15 day old puppies in residence at our rental house.

Massive amazing fruit market we discovered on the way back to Quito.

And the best part about this 5 day excursion with the ladies: the total cost for the entire trip including lodging and food was around $170.00!