The last two weeks last December, Gisella and I were spent on a visit to Ecuador, to coincide with my mother in Guayaquil and celebrate Christmas Eve with my sister and my little niece ... Tremendous heat three years, forty degrees !. Removing four days in the hugely popular city, the rest of our holiday were spent in the coastal province of Manabi, along the Pacific. Small towns with huge beaches in its most natural state, a paradise for sun, tranquility and solitude of their places ... its delicious gastronomy, the break in their magnificent seaside inns, individual cottages with their original cane bamboo (giant bamboo), at any time set with the sound of breaking waves.
Among my luggage, my two simple fishing rods. A body double, and another telescope twelve feet of the two. Reels simple line of 0.35 and 0.45, medium size hooks used for bass fishing in Galicia, and leads type "pear" of 30 grams. A simple computer to pass the time by the water entertaining, sunbathing and taking the opportunity to bring order and reflect on different aspects outstanding professional and personal life is going to pose.
Comment that my knowledge of the Ecuadorian coast is wide. I had the opportunity to live in this country for nearly five years, studying Archaeology and Anthropology, which led me to spend long periods and prospecting field by their people, in direct contact with its people, field and swimming.
At other times years ago, had talked with the local fishermen, men without boats, coastal populations, as the sun begins to decline in mid-afternoon, approach the beach with fishing line and hooks rolled to a kind of squash to catch some copy for the evening meal. My intention was to learn that technique used for fishing, how to assemble the hooks and especially what kind of bait used. They showed me their gear, usually a single line rather thick (like the one used for octopus fishing with frog), whose end tied a necklace with a stub that maintains a series of rings of lead, with a considerable weight to throw some distance above the surf, like someone used a sling or bolas, approximately 120 grams, at the same time, prevents swell and turbulence of the surf, drag, and then derive all the fishing gear . Above the plumb line, a foot high and five feet for climbing up the line, some hooks tied one after the other as a longline, four to six units.
To employ the bait like tiny crustacean crayfish or crabs that are buried up to two feet in the sand, and are in constant motion always on the edge of the sea thanks to the thin film of water after the surf up and down the slope of wet sand from the beach, in a permanent and very fast movement with the rise and fall of tides, wave after wave. The fishermen call it "mule", colloquially "mule" (Emerita analoga), and for me, very difficult to observe, under the foam in such a short space of time and stretch of water. They dig up the wet sand with the water that covers them, they are driven along the pebbles going down this foaming, turbid water, and re-buried immediately without leaving hardly a sign of their activity. The expert eye of the people and used them to detect fast-moving and running to dig with his foot building on the wet sand to get them even with the instep as a palette, and capture them by hand immediately before it takes the next wave or bury them again. I have spent days on the beach trying, no prize to my activity, with the only comfort to glimpse a pair of mules through the foam to disappear immediately. My grief came when the son of a fisherman friend, a boy of about ten years, to my disbelief application in ten minutes was able to pick up two mules and entregármelas, laughing at the inability of the "gringo" ("monkey" or " colorao "terms for the fair and clear skin like me) to detect and get them, though tell me where he saw them ... Anyway, I always had to rely on my local friends to take bait although at the end of the day they win out, because my catches offered.
How to mount the hooks, it's simple, it consists in pulling out of his meaty crab legs and hook them firmly. And finished to lose them is broken in small portions to the body or head and employing the same way. I also tried to engage in a mule on a hook larger whole, yes, dead, because if not immediately be buried in the sand, and succeeded in capturing.
At this point the story you may wonder what is caught. Well, basically, and in many occasions, "catfish". Also "croaker" is much like the bass but with spiny teeth, "pampanitos" very remarkable for their very silver body and long fins vivid yellow, and even some strange and clueless fish kind "flute" and fish " Hedgehog "and" hood "with their mouths parrot, the latter two not appreciated and systematically discarded. For fishing the "grouper" (grouper), and other species of higher value, we must make use of boats, and go to rocky areas. Another type of fishing, and therefore other types of behavior, not related at all, to enjoy the tranquility and relaxation of the beaches .... No clocks, no rush or compromise. Although it is true that at some point and I figured I would have liked to have a Dorna on the beach to go to full sail and navigate the vast sea in front of his craggy coastlines.
Really how hard is then when the holidays are over, and you have to pick up, leave paradise and literally, "land" in the harsh reality. The work, the city, meetings, traffic jams, the mortgage, the cold ...
There is always the feeling of having enjoyed a wonderful dream, so much is the contrast that seems impossible in such a short space of time, at a time you dressed in a vehicle at a traffic light at the Plaza of Spain in Vigo, a cold, rainy and dark afternoon in January, after a tiresome working day, and did relatively nothing, was in a swimsuit, with the Pacific Ocean water breaking over my knees, seeing red hide the sun on the horizon, and behind me tropical forest hills full of bustling life.
Luckily, as the economy and health permits, I will have chance to go back and enjoy this and many more experiences that Ecuador offers, and you could tell.
Among my luggage, my two simple fishing rods. A body double, and another telescope twelve feet of the two. Reels simple line of 0.35 and 0.45, medium size hooks used for bass fishing in Galicia, and leads type "pear" of 30 grams. A simple computer to pass the time by the water entertaining, sunbathing and taking the opportunity to bring order and reflect on different aspects outstanding professional and personal life is going to pose.
Comment that my knowledge of the Ecuadorian coast is wide. I had the opportunity to live in this country for nearly five years, studying Archaeology and Anthropology, which led me to spend long periods and prospecting field by their people, in direct contact with its people, field and swimming.
At other times years ago, had talked with the local fishermen, men without boats, coastal populations, as the sun begins to decline in mid-afternoon, approach the beach with fishing line and hooks rolled to a kind of squash to catch some copy for the evening meal. My intention was to learn that technique used for fishing, how to assemble the hooks and especially what kind of bait used. They showed me their gear, usually a single line rather thick (like the one used for octopus fishing with frog), whose end tied a necklace with a stub that maintains a series of rings of lead, with a considerable weight to throw some distance above the surf, like someone used a sling or bolas, approximately 120 grams, at the same time, prevents swell and turbulence of the surf, drag, and then derive all the fishing gear . Above the plumb line, a foot high and five feet for climbing up the line, some hooks tied one after the other as a longline, four to six units.
To employ the bait like tiny crustacean crayfish or crabs that are buried up to two feet in the sand, and are in constant motion always on the edge of the sea thanks to the thin film of water after the surf up and down the slope of wet sand from the beach, in a permanent and very fast movement with the rise and fall of tides, wave after wave. The fishermen call it "mule", colloquially "mule" (Emerita analoga), and for me, very difficult to observe, under the foam in such a short space of time and stretch of water. They dig up the wet sand with the water that covers them, they are driven along the pebbles going down this foaming, turbid water, and re-buried immediately without leaving hardly a sign of their activity. The expert eye of the people and used them to detect fast-moving and running to dig with his foot building on the wet sand to get them even with the instep as a palette, and capture them by hand immediately before it takes the next wave or bury them again. I have spent days on the beach trying, no prize to my activity, with the only comfort to glimpse a pair of mules through the foam to disappear immediately. My grief came when the son of a fisherman friend, a boy of about ten years, to my disbelief application in ten minutes was able to pick up two mules and entregármelas, laughing at the inability of the "gringo" ("monkey" or " colorao "terms for the fair and clear skin like me) to detect and get them, though tell me where he saw them ... Anyway, I always had to rely on my local friends to take bait although at the end of the day they win out, because my catches offered.
How to mount the hooks, it's simple, it consists in pulling out of his meaty crab legs and hook them firmly. And finished to lose them is broken in small portions to the body or head and employing the same way. I also tried to engage in a mule on a hook larger whole, yes, dead, because if not immediately be buried in the sand, and succeeded in capturing.
At this point the story you may wonder what is caught. Well, basically, and in many occasions, "catfish". Also "croaker" is much like the bass but with spiny teeth, "pampanitos" very remarkable for their very silver body and long fins vivid yellow, and even some strange and clueless fish kind "flute" and fish " Hedgehog "and" hood "with their mouths parrot, the latter two not appreciated and systematically discarded. For fishing the "grouper" (grouper), and other species of higher value, we must make use of boats, and go to rocky areas. Another type of fishing, and therefore other types of behavior, not related at all, to enjoy the tranquility and relaxation of the beaches .... No clocks, no rush or compromise. Although it is true that at some point and I figured I would have liked to have a Dorna on the beach to go to full sail and navigate the vast sea in front of his craggy coastlines.
Really how hard is then when the holidays are over, and you have to pick up, leave paradise and literally, "land" in the harsh reality. The work, the city, meetings, traffic jams, the mortgage, the cold ...
There is always the feeling of having enjoyed a wonderful dream, so much is the contrast that seems impossible in such a short space of time, at a time you dressed in a vehicle at a traffic light at the Plaza of Spain in Vigo, a cold, rainy and dark afternoon in January, after a tiresome working day, and did relatively nothing, was in a swimsuit, with the Pacific Ocean water breaking over my knees, seeing red hide the sun on the horizon, and behind me tropical forest hills full of bustling life.
Luckily, as the economy and health permits, I will have chance to go back and enjoy this and many more experiences that Ecuador offers, and you could tell.
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