Me llaman el desaparecido........: 27th Birthday Celebrations

Celebrating my 27th birthday was quite an event, actually several events drawn out over the week. This year my birthday was on a Thursday and my good friend Andrea’s birthday was on Monday the 10th. We had the good fortune of 3 friends coming down to Tabuga to spend some time with us for our birthdays. On Wednesday we celebrated Andrea’s b-day by making lots of good food and hanging out in her house as people stopped by to wish her happy b-day. The next day was my birthday and I worked in the morning then headed back to Andrea’s house to celebrate with Peace Corps friends and some people from Tabuga. We had black bean hummus, veggie burritos and carrot cake. After dinner we heading down to the basketball court and played some hoops in the rain. Friday morning came and we all packed up a headed to Mompiche, which is a small mellow beach town on the northern coast of Ecuador. When we got there the electricity was out, which happens quite often here, but we settled in to our rooms non-the-less. The northern coast is populated with many Afro-Ecuadorians and a ton of good food and music. For lunch the first day I had encocado with is a shrimp stew made with coconut and served over rice, it is amazing!! Other great dishes were encebollado, which is a fish soup with a spicy onion laced broth served at breakfast and is said to have medicinal effects to get rid of a hangover. Some of the fruits I ate were noni, naranjilla, papaya and maracuya. We found a very cool man named Tio Italo who would mix all these fruits together and make batidos either with or without rum, I opted for the non-alcoholic ones the majority of the time. During the two days we were there we hiked around the beach, went surfing, played beach soccer and went to a local dance at some random club in the middle of nowhere. It was a very relaxing weekend and we all parted ways on Sunday with everyone heading back to his or her houses all over Ecuador.