I’m Miles from Where You Are

Friday 12 March
Canoa

I received some bad news today about a relative that has the advanced stages of cancer. They might not last before I come home. It made me very sad. I cried. With a cloud over my head I didn’t do much today. I sat on the beach for a while. I fell asleep in the afternoon. I woke up and managed to catch the sunset which was spectacular. I took lots of photos.

In the evening there was an official event at the hostel I was staying at. Some American guy had set up a PA and was playing acoustic guitar to the few people there. So I sat and listened with the rest of them. He was playing old country and western and blues type music – stuff which I didn’t know – though he did throw in some classics as well like Here Comes the Sun. He went on for ages and I ate supper. But eventually he went for a break, so I asked him if I could play a few tunes. He said I could so he set me up and I did my thing.

I played Mr. Jones by Counting Crows, Green Eyes by Coldplay, The One I love by R.E.M., Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd and There Is a Light that Will Never Go Out by The Smiths. They all went down really well and I played pretty well given that I hadn’t picked up a guitar in a couple of months. It was pretty emotional for me, especially given the morning’s news, particularly the last two songs. Also, by playing songs that people actually knew I managed to draw in a bigger crowd to the hostel.

There was a local Ecuadorean guy called Carlos who had been teaching the Americans from Buffalo to surf. He turned up during the first song and started playing bongos along with me and all the others who played afterwards. He was a cool guy and pretty good.

The American guy played some more and then some Ecuadoreans played some Spanish music. There was a guy called Pablo who played particularly well, it was fun to watch. I was talking to his friend Diego who spoke a bit of English. I went up for a second session and played Man on the Moon and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight by R.E.M., Let It Come Down Gently by me, and Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. Eventually everything came to a finish round midnight. I was pretty drunk and a couple of locals convinced me to go on to another bar. We drank at another bar and then when that closed we moved on to a small beach that probably wasn’t meant to be open but they get away with it. Diego and Pablo were my drinking buddies even though I had stopped buying, they kept on giving me beer. Eventually I had to call it a night at around 3.