Ecuador Day 14: The Galapagos

¨They¨ say that Vegas is the town that never sleeps - obviously ¨they¨have never been to Montañita...because this town certainly takes the cake.


day 13 continued...

So at 5pm I meet the band at Caña Grill for ¨band practice¨. I know, less than 36 hours after my arrival in town and Ive already adopted a local group of musicians. We decide on 4 songs I will play with them...peggy lees FEVER, india aries VIDEO, desrees YOU GOTTA BE, and PROUD MARY. By the way....I will be playing an ELECTRIC GUITAR - totally foriegn, but to my surprise, totally wonderful. As the boys said, ¨Es muy suave Cailin!!!¨ With FEVER i had congas, the piano on lead, and bass. VIDEO was the same. YOU GOTTA BE was the full band: congas, the kit, bass and lead guitar..as was PROUD MARY. and all i gotta say is WOW. WOW. AMAZING. Who would have thought that the most talented people who have ever backed me would be a random group of musicians from a little dirty surf town in Ecuador. It was an amazing experience. Wonderful and unique and very special. When I finished, the boss lady walked me over to the bar, which only a has a few RESERVED seats, sat me down and said FREE BEER. Okay with me! The boys went back on to continue with a GREAT show...tons of energy that penetrated everyone in the crowd. Once again, I didnt return home until 2am...and I was one of the FIRST people in the whole town to retire!! (day 14) At 330am our alarm went off, time for Galapagos. We waited outside for Bisetes arrival and still, at 4am, there were hordes of people in the streets, music blaring from speakers. People young and old, locals and tourists. 4 in the freaking morning!!! Bah. ANyways, it took us 2.5hours in the taxi to get to Guayaquil. The airport was a clusterfuck from the beginning - I probably lost about 3 pounds while walking laps around the small airport. Once we FINALLY got things situated and arrived at the gate we both had a cup of coffee...though what we really needed was a freaking IV of caffeine. Once aboard the plane we noticed we were sitting in fancy shmancy FIRST CLASS. Holy shit! Im probably the greaziest person to ever grace this seat! We figured that there must have been some kind of mistake...so we just kept quiet. Well, 20minutes into the flight and we are still here...lounging in our plush chairs with the leg rests. You cannot predict the flow and wow...what a fucking treat!!! Galapagos, here we come...in STYLE.


Quickie update: we arrive in to the main island and meet our traveling partners. 3 young guys: one from germany, one from ireland and one from japan. A solid crew of well traveled gentlemen. As soon as we get to the boat Im overwhelmed with love for this charming sailboat...and I wanna swim. First I jumped off the side, and then did a huge dive off of the bow!! HOly mackeral. We took a small panga back into town and visited the Charles Darwin Center and saw some huge turtles and talked about what the next few days will have in store. Pat and I hit up the supermarket to buy some cheap boxed wine to smuggle onto the boat. We are blessed with a great crew, and I have obviously already become very close friends with the chef. Today for lunch we had fresh wahoo, a great salad, and cauliflower-mashed potatoes. MmMmM. Love it. Wont be back to land for atleast another 2 days, so Ill report back then.