Monkey business

Back on the Ecuadorian mainland we enjoyed a night in Guayaquil. The Dreamkapture hostel had a couple of tiny (Tamarind?) monkeys in residence as part of a breeding program, good breakfast and a friendly vibe. I picked up Goerge Best´s autobiography, we wandered the sanitsed Malecon waterfront, and climbed the steps to enjoy the view from bar village, Las Penas. Then we hot footed it to Puerto Lopez on the coast.

On arrival we were distinctly unimpressed (and we were imagining the looks on the Mullers faces when they would have arrived a few days earlier in the hope of sand, surf and sun) as Puerto Lopez came on like Belize city. It turned out that the town was being totally redeveloped. But rather than go street by street, all the streets were up and it was a total mess. Luckily we are well balanced enough to see through such trifles (unlike one couple in Columbia who gave the place a total slagging) and we enjoyed it. We were there, like everyone else, because Puerto Lopez is the main breeding ground for Humpback Whales, where they spend 4 months courting, mating, playing and birthing before doing one back to the Antarctic. We got on a boat and within half an hour we were seeing whales´ tails smack the water. We were just too late in the season to see all the males really put on a show, but we saw some breeching (out of thev water) and followed a family with a pup- it was well worth doing.

We then pushed on to Cuenca, world heritage city, from where I write this. We ate in Turkish splendour last night and we are staying in an artsit´s remodelled home - it is cold but cool. And we just spent sunday in the local market, pettng the bunnies, feeling sorry for the guinea pigs that are due to be dinner, and stocking up on juice drinks and prawns for dinner - as all the restaurants closed. Last night we drank in the German owned, Wunderbar, and tomorrow we will stay in a German owned place in Vilcabamba which I dare not try to spell. By next week ve vill be vearing ze lederhosen and suporting Bayern... probably.

One thing frustrated me about our Galapagos cruise. Being as I was the only mug on the boat to have a guitar, I was hassled to perform, but my constant state of seasick nasuea prohibited this (sickness usually comes to me band mates of course). So I feel like I owe the Mullers a show - I was also trying to impart guitar playing advice to Matthias and Sofie, who are both learning, but I was making a terrible hash of it - so here are my top tips:

- Don´t get a good teacher - get a great teacher. Changing teachers is good.
- Watch live Jimi Hendrix videos
- Practice standing up
- Devote at least one third of practice time to posing, hyjinx and gimmicks (studying Phil Lynott, Beck, Pete Townsend, Paul Weller, Funkadelic is good for this)
- Learn to improvise
- Listen
- Find somewhere to play really loud