Ecuador: Loud and Lush

The Beginning:

On New Year´s Eve we watch the ball drop on a television screen in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan because it's 20 degrees outside (one degree with the wind chill) in Times Square. We catch our 5:10 am flight on New Year's Day, and we're in a cab on our way to a hostel in the Mariscal neighborhood of Quito by 2 pm. After wandering around for a while, figuring out that most everything is closed for the holiday, we resort to eating Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner because it's one of the few places that's open, and then we resign to ¨relaxing¨in our hostel for the remainder of the evening; I hear a series of loud bangs outside and convince myself, and Stephen, that they're gunshots - all of this after he tells me that the Lonely Planet listed Mariscal as one of the three worst neighborhoods in South America.

The next day we go to Parque Itchibimba, where the locals bike, play soccer and walk their dogs, which is interesting since most of the myriad of dogs in this country run loose and fend for themselves. A cafe near Itchibimba serves up cervezas on a terrace that overlooks the sprawling city, so we sit and enjoy Ecuadorian pilsners, a far cry from the delicious pilsners we drank so often while studying in Prague, and the buena vista. La Mitad del Mundo, the center of the world, is our next stop that day. It's a yellow line that marks the equator, so we pose for photos with one foot in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern hemisphere. Sure it's unoriginal, but how can one resist? The attraction is also comprised of a big, ugly monument, overpriced gift shops, cheap-looking waterfalls and statues, a planetarium and museums, etc. It reminds me of cheesy amusement parks back home, especially with the dramatic music that blasts from the speakers, but the locals eat it up, with the rainy weather and all, so we do too.

Sadly, I manage to loose my point-and-shoot camera on the way to dinner that night. Thank you, The North Face, for designing a jacket with deep inner pockets that have slits, not big enough to notice off the bat but just big enough for a small camera to slip out of. Hopefully this kind of luck, on just the second day of the trip, is not indicative of what's to come over the next few months because, while I could stand to shed some of the weight I'm carrying on my back - roughly 50lbs - I'd like to do so on my own accord.


Laguna Quilatoa:

I wake up feeling groggy after having had some vivid dreams of a good friend dying in a horrific car accident and not being able to find a date to the high school dance. It's not atypical for me to have such odd dreams, but perhaps the traveling and malaria meds aren't helping. I have to snap out of the slumberish funk that I'm in and gear up for the trek to Chugchilan, a tiny, remote town - as in the nearest bank or atm is three hours away - in the Laguna Quilatoa region of Ecuador. While the trip does not seem too far or daunting, bus travel in Ecuador, essentially the only way to get around, is out of this world. ¨Wranglers,¨as we call them, hang out of the bus doors, even when the buses are moving, calling out the names of the destinations and recruiting commuters and tourists alike. The bus lines are privately owned and the competition is stiff, so I guess the wranglers figure that if they yell loudly enough the names of the destinations (¨Ambato! Ambato! Ambato!¨ or ¨Quito! Quito! Quito!¨) they'll bring in more business. In addition to the tenacity of the wranglers is: the smell on the buses (frequently of farm animals that may or may not be riding next to you); the vendors, often children less than 10 years old, who hop on the buses from one stop to the next in hopes of selling newspapers, fruit candies, coconut ice cream, etc.; the loud, percussion-intensive, festive-sounding music; and the roads that the buses take, which are usually narrow and unpaved.

The road through the lush mountainscape to Quilatoa is winding, and the bus often comes within inches of the steep drops that line the side of the road or the farm animals that graze alongside it. I catch myself gasping aloud a few times when I think with ninety percent certainty that we're going to tumble down to our deaths or clip a cow. With some relief and a little bit of apprehension, we step off the bus at a nondescript fork in the road and walk half an hour to The Black Sheep Inn, our home in Chugchilan for a couple of days. We´re greeted with, ¨Hey, you guys made it!¨ and Andreas, our ex-pat host who looks and sounds perfectly American though he´s lived in this part of Ecuador for nearly 15 years, shows us around and makes us feel at home. His eco-friendly lodge has composting toilets and a yoga studio, among its many other amenities, and he and his wife Michelle serve delicious farm-fresh breakfasts and dinners to us and the fifteen or so other guests, all Americans except for a French couple. Among the group are: Craig, a young buck who talks a lot, drives tour buses in Denali National Park and pretty well convinces me to move to Alaska for the summer; and Jeff, who´s taking a break from building Adobe houses in Arizona and perhaps the oldest and wisest of the bunch, as he´s the first to accept Andreas´ offer of post-Mexican dinner tequila shots. We sit around the cozy lodge, swapping stories and travel tips, and everyone raises their glasses to Stephen on his 23rd birthday.

Re-energized from the comforts of The Black Sheep, despite the rooster crows that started around 3am, we set out with our guide Alfredo to hike from Laguna Quilatoa, the bonito lake-filled volcano, back to our abode in Chugchilan. Andreas had recommended that we ride on the roof of the bus that takes us to the volcano, so Alfredo kindly asks the bus driver if it´s okay. He says no, but it´s probably for the best because we don´t need to make a reputation for ourselves as crazy gringos. Atop Quilatoa, we commence the pretty strenuous hike, and Alfredo begins to warm up to us. Possibly the sweetest fifteen year-old boy I´ve ever met, Alfredo is soft-spoken but speaks his Spanish very clearly, and he tells us about the placid scenery we´re passing through and growing up in Chugchilan. He is attentive and patient, which are good traits to have when you´re leading a couple of out-of-shape, unacclimatized gringos up and down steep grades at high altitudes. Alfredo also seems to withstand embarassment as the young Quechua girls going the opposite direction giggle at us, whether it´s because Stephen and I are huffing and puffing so much or because we look so foreign to them. After about four hours of hiking, we say bye to Alfredo, return to The Black Sheep, drink some boxed Chilean wine, and call it an early night since we´ll have a 3am wake-up call the next day.


Baños:

We board the 4am bus out of Chugchilan, the only way out of town other than a milk truck that leaves a few hours later but that only brings you 26km to the next small town, and the festive-sounding music is already going at full force even though the sun will not rise for another couple of hours. Commuters pile onto the bus, which becomes so crowded that people are forced to pack into the aisles, and the woman in the aisle next to me sort of leans on me for a couple of hours. I don´t really mind. It´s the cowbell in one of the songs that plays over and over that drives me a little nuts.

We connect in Latacunga and then in Ambato (¨Ambato! Ambato! Ambato!¨), and by noon we make it to the town of Baños, known for its thermal baths and spas, currently active volcano, and adventure sports. An elderly gentleman takes us in his bicycle rickshaw to our hostel, where we sit on the rooftop terrace and enjoy a couple of cervezas and the view of a nearby waterfall. After meandering around the touristy little town, we head back to our rooftop to play some cards (¨Spit¨to be specific) and to have more Clos, the same cheap and seemingly popular Chilean boxed wine that we had in Chugchilan.

Our second day in Baños is chalk full of some much-needed relaxation. We start the day at Las Piscinas de la Virgen, the baths that sit at the bottom of the same waterfall that can be seen from our hostel´s terrace. We alternate between the near scolding bath and the icy, smaller waterfalls, avoiding the milder bath because of the number of small children occupying it and the lack of chlorine. In the evening, I treat myself, for only $25 with tip, to an hour-long hot stone massage, which is just what my body needs after the Quilatoa hike and the uncomfortable bus rides, and further into the night, I happen upon strange little parade in the center of town. It´s comprised of: a clown who leads the way with his whistle; a souped up Volkswagon; a bunch of young-looking drag queens who are wearing black biker shorts and silver jackets and dancing to Ashlee Simpson; a couple of gorilla suits that run into the crowd to envelope vulnerable spectators and a big mossy suit that envelopes me; and a lot of masks, some decorative and some just plain creepy. It reminds me of a mix between Halloween and Pride Parade, but I never find out what the occasion is.

The following day we´re ready for more adventure, and we head to a company called Rainforestur to meet our canyoning guide, who turns out to be un chico simpatico named Henry. We put on wetsuits and canyoning shoes, which resemble Chuck Taylor´s, and then ride in the bed of a pickup truck, passing through a couple of long, pitch-black tunnels to our drop-off point. After five minutes of training and a muddy fifteen-minute hike, we´re rain-soaked and ready to go. With Henry´s guidance and encouragement, we repel down a series of five or so waterfalls ranging in height from five to forty meters. The first waterfall has me a little bit nervous, but by the third, I´m jumping down and having a ball. Henry, fearless as they come, runs face-first and without a helmet, down a couple of the waterfalls, and he has us go down the last two smaller ones as if they´re slides. Playing in las cascadas and hanging out with Henry, who tells us about his up-and-coming paragliding hobby and the girl he moved to Holland for years back, is more fun than we expected - $30 well-spent! In the nighttime, eager to spend more time with Henry, we head to the Leprechaun, the bar where he works and where he pours us flaming ¨Bob Marley¨shots. We watch some of the Mexican X-Games and chum it up with our new friend and then say farewell.


Montañita:

11 hours of buses. I sleep, practice my Spanish, and play with a spunky, four year-old Ecuadorian girl. We arrive in Montañita, the surf town that attracts hippies and party animals, and a couple of boys offer to show us to our hostel, El Centro del Mundo, for one dollar. We find the hostel on our own, just a couple of blocks down the road, and we´re a little overwhelmed by the ¨beachfront behemoth.¨ An Italian guy who doesn´t even work at the hostel shows us to our beds in the dormitory, located in an open-air loft and made up of two dozen dingy mattress pads, trunks, and holey mosquito nets. The overall look of the place is pretty drab, but for $3.50 a night, a beachfront setting, and a social atmosphere, we figure we´ll put up with the grunge and noise - creaking wooden floors and loud music from the nearby bars that plays until the wee hours of the morning - for at least a few nights.

Stephen wakes up on day two in Montañita with about twenty mosquito bites on his left hand. Not realizing that the mosquito net was not a force field, he rested his hand against it while he slept. We go to town, get some mentol chino for Stephen´s hand and a couple of desayunas, and then we hit the beach. We play in the waves of the warm Pacific, continually say ¨No gracias¨to the guys who keep coming by in hopes of selling sunglasses and hammocks, watch scantily-clad beach-goers, and get way too much sun (note: playing on a beach near the equator while on malaria pills that make your skin more sensitive to the sun leads to bright red skin). Back at the hostel, we sit in hammocks and share joints and beers with a couple of Colombians, Alexander and Juan. Alexander is the kind of disarming guy you take to immediately, and Juan, short-limbed and hilarious, gets so excited when, somehow, we get on the topic of condors and the way that they ingest their prey from the inside out.

On day three we stay out of the sun until about 3:00, when we go with Theresa, a hostel mate from Michigan, to rent surfboards. For two hours we thrash about in the waves that are probably not meant for beginners, making a poor attempt at ¨gleaming the cube¨. Afterwards, we get meriendas, set-menu dinners that usually cost about two U.S. dollars, at an English-run vegetarian restaurant and go to bed early, exhausted from the sun and surf.


Puerto Lopez:

Ready for a change of scenery, we decide to head to Puerto Lopez, a small fishing village, and while waiting for the bus that will take us there, we meet a couple of Frenchies, Roland and Gemma, who are instantly our friends. Roland, tall and lanky and with a single dreadlock and Rastafarian-striped pants, speaks French and some Spanish, and Gemma, a fair-skinned belle who rolls about twenty cigarettes a day, speaks French and some English. Between the four of us we communicate in all three languages, frequently alternating from one to another in the same sentence. We arrive at Sol Inn, a mellow hostel that´s home for the next few days, and we get a room with four bunks, two for us and two for the Frenchies. We also befriend Phillipa, a Scot with heavy eyelids who helps us with our Spanish; Jacob, an Aussie with blond ringlets; and a laid-back Quebecoise named ¨Mich¨.

The next day, our hodgepodge crew makes a trip to Los Frailes, the beach that´s part of the nearby national park. We arrive at la playa and find only two other people and hundreds of beautifully colored crabs. Everyone takes turns snorkeling with the fins and masks that we rented, and then Stephen and I use the fins to do some body surfing. Riding the waves and getting thrown onto shore is maybe the most fun I´ve had in a year, and I feel giddy like a schoolchild. Pretty soon our hunger sets in so the group hitchhikes back to Puerto Lopez in the bed of a pickup truck, makes a cheap but substantial pasta dinner, and shares stories and shoots pool with other hostel guests, including a couple of bubbly, Argentinian girls. Roland, the free spirit that he is, shares a special moment in the hammock with a black puppy that has a red bow tie and fleas galore.

Day three in Puerto Lopez is rainy and the unpaved streets are full of mud and puddles, so I spend most of the day at the internet cafe, ¨Skyping¨my parents and getting in touch with the Real World. We awake on day four to another big bowl of Roland´s delicious fruit salad, and then the group heads to the office of the tour agency that will take us to Isla de la Plata, ¨The Poor Man´s Galapagos¨. We then head to the port, full of fratas, pelicans and fishermen, and take a boat about 40km offshore to the island. Upon our arrival, a sea turtle swims beside our boat, and Stephen claims that there were tears in my eyes, though I might have to disagree. On the island, our guide, serious and somewhat awkward, takes us on a hike and shows us around the blue-footed boobie colony, and he seems thoroughly disappointed when, after two and a half hours of walking in the hot, hot heat, the groups opts to go back to snorkel instead of moving on to see two more bird colonies. The water is warm and very clear, and we swim with huge schools of fish, trumpet fish, eels, and some of the most beautiful, colorful fish I´ve ever seen. We jump off the top of the boat a couple of times before leaving the serenity of the island, and back on the mainland, Stephen and I pack up our things, say goodbye, and then commence the long trip to Lima, Peru.


On Leaving Ecuador:

Two weeks into the trip and one country down, I´m becoming accustomed to the backpacker´s life of: budgeting, long bus trips, questionable food and drink (and lots of bottled water), lack of sleep, and makeshift bathrooms that rarely have both toilet paper and soap. Despite the many rigors involved in backpacking, I´m excited about the possibilities of each day, the people and the places I´ve been lucky enough to encounter, and the feeling that the world truly is my oyster. I am learning more and more Spanish every day and becoming more street-savvy by the minute. I am sad to leave Ecuador behind, but I am anxious to see the rest of what Sud America has to offer - the good, the bad and everything inbetween.