What happened was this: I stuck all five of my pilot precise rolling ball fine ink V5 precision series pens pointing upwards in the basket attached to the seat in front of me (you know, the one that holds the barf bags and SkyMall magazines?). I do this every time I board a plane because they tend to explode with the altitude change. This has never been an issue. They’re nice pens but they’re not really all that valuable to anyone but a semi-compulsive writer. I went to the restroom located directly behind my seat, and was struck when I returned by the fact that I now only had three pens. I also came back just in time to see the guy in the seat across the aisle, handing one to his friend halfway down the plane. Somewhat exasperated but kind of amused, I put on my best smile.
“Excuse me. That’s my pen.”
“Oh. I thought it was free.”
This doesn’t seem to remotely faze him. He hands it back to me and sits back down. I am now sitting adjacent to him and I still only have four, not five pens. Finally I look at him and with further bemusement state “Can I have my other pen back?”
Unapologetically, he reaches into his pocket and hands it back to me.
The guy sitting to the left of me— atrombone player from New York City who is venturing to Guayaquil for just the night to play a show with his band, found it kind of hysterical.
We landed with a hard thud in Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador) at around 3:30 pm and
by 4:15, I had cleared customs. The customs guy asked me a bunch of question in Spanish and I smiled as sweetly as I could with a look that says “I don’t understand a word you’re saying” and he let me through. Ryan had bussed in from Loja on about a 9.5 hour ride and was waiting for me at the airport. It’s a good thing we managed to find one another because I apparently had the cell number to his iphone and not the nokia that he had on him. If something went wrong, I’d have been totally screwed.I had been carrying a package in a Trader Joes bag that had been shipped to Osageland and had arrived on Wednesday: a projection unit that the head of the school had shipped to me to hand carry to Ecuador because apparently the mailing system for ordering things abroad is entirely unreliable. We taxied through Guayaquil to a shipping service, Tame. I watched the locals speed by: entire families of four riding a motorcycle with the mother carrying the baby. Most of the children here ride in the back of small pick-up trucks. They can cram an incredible amount of people in them, covered and uncovered. Other than of a system of shanties on sticks that dapples the hillsides between Guayaquil and Montanita, most of the
people in Ecuador seem to have a decent quality of life. I have so far seen no starving children begging on the streets. Their infrastructure is also apparently continuously improving and after their last president ran off with all their money they just voted in a new constitution with overwhelming popularity. Everywhere we’ve passed so far still holds the signs of the countries enthusiasm for it, billboards to hand painted signs to bumper stickers in bold lettering, “Votas Si!”Shipping the package was a lot easier than we imagined and only cost $1.50. Not bad considering they paid $26.50 to ship it across America. Next we taxied to the bus station.
We were damn lucky we got a good cab. We later in Motanita heard some taxi horror stories about Guayaquil—a city that is apparently not remotely friendly to tourist. One of the girls that we met had gotten into a yellow cab that had all the appearances of being safe, except two men with guns jumped in with her and the driver took off. She was robbed at gunpoint, lost $20 and her passport and they had frisked every part of her searching for money to the point that she was most definitely molested. This is apparently not uncommon and note to anybody who ever goes to Ecuador: the only trustworthy cabs have orange license plates, white numbers on the front, and a cab company’s name somewhere on it. Of course, we didn’t know this at the time—we just knew not to get into one of the many gypsy cabs that pulled up offering us a ride.
Then there was the mad rush to the bus—following this random guy who is now pulling my bag through the largest bus station I have ever seen in my life (somewhere between a mall and an airport huge). The man is speaking quickly with Ryan in Spanish. I at this point have let things go and am totally going with what happens and hoping I still have my luggage at the end of it all. He shows us where to get the ticket, and three bucks a person gets us from Guayaquil to Salinas, a three hour drive starting at 5:30 pm right as the sun was setting. There are some amazing trees and scenery here. Mountains. I spent most of the ride mesmerized by the headlight lit landscapes. I am sure I can expound on that later with photos. Apparently the country is on holiday this weekend and there were several boys, maybe ages 19- 20 who we watched down two bottles of liquor, growing increasingly loud. The bus incessantly blasts music of all varieties from some unseen speaker and they’re singing / screaming along to each one and so drunk that by the time we reach Salinas—one has thrown up in the aisle. They claim it was from a bad empanada which might have been half the truth. These are the local busses, not the fancy greyhound types. They’re not extremely uncomfortable but every 20 minutes or so they stop and some people and a random vendor or two gets on hawking all kinds of potentially toxic empanadas and bologna slices on a stick. It’s a mystery to Ryan and I how it all works but they ride the bus down the road about 15-20 miles until it stops again and then get off there. We have no idea how they get back to their pick-up point or if they ever do.
People pile on and eventually the bus gets so crowded that they stand in the aisles. A woman holding a Chihuahua or small dog of sorts wrapped in a yellow blanket stands next to me with her small daughter. I am told that pregnant women have lost their babies from standing in the aisles on long bus rides. But it’s not too long—most of the people have gone by the time we reach Salinas where we transfer to another bus that takes us to Montanita.
I have no idea what to expect from Montanita, but when we get there, it is immediately apparent what this town is about. The streets are populated with young people of all varieties and nationalities. A man hands us a card with information about a party that we ignore (at first). We talk briefly with a French guy who also arrived on the bus and who is searching for a hostal—but we’ve booked a really nice one in the center of town in advance for fifteen a person per night complete with mosquito nets. It wasn’t the one with huts on the beach, instead it’s a multi-level structure made of bamboo and branches. We have our own bathroom, bunk-bed and balcony with a hammock on it that overlooks the center of town and has a nice view of the beach which is only one street away. Hostal Papaya.
Montanita is intoxicating. Music blasts even louder here than on the bus and there are carts everywhere selling at least fifty varieties of mixed drinks. There are some guys juggling, and hippy vendors smoking up and selling jewelry. All the restaurants and drinking establishments have “2X1 Happy Hour” and apparently Happy Hour is 24-7.
The strip is about the size of three small streets with two of them leading to the beach. Not large at all, but packed with a non-stop party. It’s like Pleasure Island from Pinocchio for travelers in their 20s. Not just foreign tourists travel here either, many seem to be from Ecuador. You can tell because the youth have a particular look to them here: they wear colorful bracelets on both of their wrists. There also appears to be a punk scene here where many have Incan or indigenous symbols shaved on the sides of their heads—often very labyrinthine and intricate. By now it’s 10 pm and we’ve tossed our stuff down and headed out for dinner. There are many many places to eat and all very inexpensive. We eat at the Bucaro accompanied by an orange mermaid.
I had an amazing platter for $4—calarmari with mushroom sauce, rice and plantain chips. Ryan had ceviche, a brine-like soupy substance filled with spices and seafood. $1.25 buys a huge bottle of Pilsener, the most popular and so far other than some beer called Brahmas, the only beer we’ve seen in Ecuador.
We stop by the Funky Money or the Tsunami or one of the many interchangeable places and get a 2X1 at $3 mojitos and wander about the beach with it. There are more bars on the beach in huts and extraneous bonfires, but it’s chilly so we don’t stay out long. By this time it is pretty late and we’re not sure what to do so we buy a bottle of wine, freshen up after a long day of traveling and try to knock ourselves out so we can sleep through the chaos. We assume it will stop by 3 AM. It doesn’t. Imagine five discos surrounding you, a nonstop party until 7 AM and your bed is right in the middle of it. As the night wears on, the music seems to get louder until it’s just a flurry of noises: steel drums reverberating with techno mix and blending together with whatever popular song is playing: Bob Marley to the Beatles to Brittany Spears that somehow creates one rhythmic rumble of sound that at that point was my entire impression of this country. Light-weight that I am, I passed out much earlier than Ryan did.
This was my first night in Ecuador.
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