Day 24: 15 May – Vamos a la playa, ooh ooh

Another wakeup call at 6:15, followed by the necessary shower, because it is ‘muy caliente’ here. I had some rice leftover from the day before, so I take that as my breakfast. At a little over 7am, the guys pick us up again. We retrieve some stuff at the office and notice that the swimming pool is running over... hey, how cool that there’s a swimming pool at the office :)!
The guys fix the pool and we head on to the hotel again. We set up the stand minus the coffee machines, because it is much more tranquil today. It’s the last day of the conference and there’s less people. I nearly bored myself to death until 11.30, when a small snack was being distributed, humitas, pan de yuca, and some sweets. Luckily a few of the typical foods that I do appreciate.
An hour later we start packing everything. There’s no need to continue the rest of the day. 3 of us are going shopping at the Supermaxi, so I have something to eat the coming days. In the car I get a strange phone call (blocked number) saying s/he is Mariela, but the voice is different plus I don’t understand nothing of what the person is saying. The person hangs up and later I call Mary to ask if she called. Naturally, she hadn’t.

Back at the house, the girls ask me if I wish to join them to the beach, a 2 and a half hour drive from here. I hesitate a moment, but the alternative is to spend the weekend alone, doing nothing. So I agree and stuff the necessary equipment in my bag. Nicolas and Sebastian pick us up with the car and the six of us drive to Montañita (or little mountain). This little town has become quite famous in recent years to surfers and backpackers, so the streets are packed with tourists, surfers, hippies and other foreigners. At night there are several discos open and the streets are aligned with small stands, vending food, souvenirs or even a large range of cocktails.
When we arrive, it is already dark (it gets dark at 6.30 already, over here) and we go look for a hostel for the night. Nothing was booked beforehand, so we walk down the streets, asking if there are rooms available and we go view the rooms. But the girls are hard to satisfy, then it is not clean enough, or it smells bad, or it is too small. But eventually, after maybe 2 hours, when I’m dying of hunger and have half a mind to just eat and let thém search for a room, we find a nice place with 3 rooms for 2 persons and very close to the ocean. We leave our bags in the rooms and go for food.
Naturally I have to explain I’m a vegetarian, and more quickly than with the hostel, we encounter a pizza place. When I’m asked whether I couldn’t try some meat for a change, I must answer with a definite ‘no’: I have to draw a line somewhere. We order two family size pizzas, of which one is half vegetarian.

After satisfying my primary need of the moment, the group wants to rest a bit before going out, so we head back to the hostel. While each person goes to their own room, I have nothing much to do but rest as well, and after a while my eyes fall shut. Being one of the first to wake up, I ask Sebas what to do (wait some more or wake ‘em up) I knock on the wooden wall between us and 2 others and stick my head out the door. One of the girls is upstairs having a drink with an old friend and waves to me to come up. Her friend is apparently a writer in the country and has published some 12 books. He ‘plays’ some guitar for us and smokes a joint (marihuana is easy to get here, though still illegal), meanwhile being plenty drunk already. Sebastian comes up and after a beer, we wake the others. At around 1am we finally head out to the nightlife. The guys brought a bottle of rum and we drink some on the way to a shop to buy cola and ice. They seem impressed that I can drink the stuff without making an ugly face. But it’s good rum (Abuelo = old) and drinks like whiskey. We go sit on the beach to drink. I don’t know how we passed the time exactly, but at 4.30am we have drunk more than 1,5 bottle of rum, of which most of it by the men and I’m quite borracho. 2 of us have already gone to bed and the girls that are left still want to drink some sweet liquor. We buy some and some crisps and sit outside the hostel. At 5 however, we go to bed. I pass out almost as soon as I lie down.