Monday, November 06, 2006
Da beach is dat way---->
Atacames is where the Ecuadorian working class goes for long beach weekends. This weekend (2 days holiday for all saints day/day of the dead) was no exception, and the town was packed with national tourists hanging out, drinking, dancing, fighting, swiming, tanning etc. The beach was pretty, a slow bay with hills and cliffs to either side, and crowded. From 7am (i arrived at 6 on a nightbus from quito) on it was filled with football games, people laying around, and vendors. The vendors walked up and down the beach selling all sorts of stuff: coconut juice, horrible art, pants, fruit salads, towels, mats, coconut oil for tanning (the inevitably afroecuadorian salesmen invetiably made the joke that it would turn my skin as dark as theirs - somehow the spanish word for unlikely failed me all weekend). The water was a good temperature and the waves were ok for bodysurfing. As well as the vendors, the beach was full of mobile seafood restaurants (cevicherias) built on converted bike. Basically, a bikes front wheel was removed, preplaced with 2 set about a yard apart, with a table, shelf, counter, and overhang built onto it that served as the kitchen and table for the resaurant (see picture below). The food all over town was mostly seafood and damn good. Shrimps with rice, in cebivice (a kind of lime soup in which the acidity of lime 'cooks' the shrimp), and in a delicous coconut sauce that was like a mild creamy thai curry, aparently a dish thats part of the afroecuadorian tradition. The coast is where most of Ecuador's african population lives, and its a culture that gets little attention in the national scheme of things but seems pretty interesting (i picked up a book in one of quito's nerdy bookshops to see what its all about). The nightlife was coctails and salsa, but it was a scene that martin parr would have relished; tacky and overthe top were the adjectives that came to mind. So, while i normally prefer quiter beaches (or mountains) this was an interesting weekend from a least a sociological perspective; if goethe's notion that people at leisure are at their most authentic holds water, then the Quiteno and Guayaquileno vaccacioners in Atacames need a good deal of analysis.
there was a big canopy in which about 20 small ceviceria's were located, these are 2 of them.
one of the mobile beach cevicheria's: cevicheria jose
ice cream man/boogie board rentals
beach football
this man walked around town singing songs (a lot like trindidadian calypso) that were really good, he had a voice like leadbelly and walter ferguson combined
5pm
there was a big canopy in which about 20 small ceviceria's were located, these are 2 of them.
one of the mobile beach cevicheria's: cevicheria jose
ice cream man/boogie board rentals
beach football
this man walked around town singing songs (a lot like trindidadian calypso) that were really good, he had a voice like leadbelly and walter ferguson combined
5pm
# posted by jacob @ 4:42 PM 
