Chance Chapters. Eyes closed scribbled into a Life.

On the Road Again ( March 25-April 1)

The last hurrah, as it were. Two TP-toting intrepid travelers head to yet another latin american capital, a bumpy bus ride full of high hopes and debaucherous dreams. Quito, the scene of the imagined crime. El Ryancito and El Zackcito, freshly showered, hungry for latin rhythm and non-latin cousine. Chance is the best guide to South American nightlife.

Saturday night, we arrived on separate busses from Latacunga - Ryan left earlier so as to attempt to get a plane ticket directly to New York, instead of a week layover in Guatemala - only to spend three hours at the Taca office with a cheeky yet apathetic Quitena who assured him it was utterly impossible to go directly to NY.* (This is Ecuador, after all). In the meantime, I had helped the Sacatoros make some last-minute purchases. Once in Quito, Stomachs reeling from a full day without a single boiled potato, we entered the fantasy world of Mongolian BBQ in the gringa-fied neighborhood near calle Amazonas, drawn in by the "all-you-can-eat $3.99" sign screaming (in english) in our faces. And 99 cent mixed drinks! Ryan had a pink drink to start, and i had something with whiskey and beer. His tasted better, but my chest is hairier.

Somewhere between our third and fourth plates (or halfway through our third drinks), the power went out. Somehow it didn't seem all that strange to us - after all, we were eating vegetables fer chrissake! and there was hot water in the bathroom! We ate and drank on through, finishing our self-chosen plates of mariscos and vegetables by candlelight. Following the return of the power and the cleaning of plate #4, I made a routine trip to the restroom (no, this is not going where you think it is. you may read on without fear.), where I was accosted by a busty Quiteña named Diana who attempted to tell me over the roar of the electric hand-dryer that her sister thought I was handsome and wanted to meet me.* However, Diana explained, her sister was currently sitting outside with her (the sister's) boyfriend, so naturally Diana would be the one to pursue me into the men's room. Well, that made sense, I suppose, so we made a plan for me to discuss with Ryan whether we would meet them later on, and give a covert hand signal "no" or "yes". Sounded like fun to me, especially since I've been telling girls for months that I am in South America working on covert ops for a foreign government. (Profession: Spy.) He was down for a chance meeting, so I threw a ridiculous thumbs-up across the restaurant as we headed out the door. *

Twenty minutes, two cab rides, and a quick shower and clothes change later, we were back at Mongolian and headed with three girls to some random club of their choice. We were amused to find that one of Diana's companions (not the sister) was wearing a long overcoat and tall shiny stillettos. Hours earlier at Mongolian, Ryan and I had engaged in furious debate over whether this particular girl was a stripper or not. What chance! Ultimately, I think we concluded that she was just trashy, but not a stripper. But we'll never really know now, will we.

The rest of the story is not as interesting, and has very little plot. A brief description of the players and their roles will suffice:

Me: Evidently looking handsome, stomach satisfied stuffed - but not too full for a few beers. A bit fed up with the Reggaeton at Bar "Tequila", but later on very pleased to hear some Police and R.E.M... Attempted conversation and rythmic simultaneous movement (as it were) with

Diana's litte Sister (name long since forgot): Her "boyfriend" evidently didn't mind her going out with a couple of gringos. A very sweet girl with exceptionally nice skin, which may not hold out into old age if she continues to smoke a pack of Marlbloro Reds every night. She was a bit shy and not all that great of a conversationalist. (Seriously, my apt comments on Neitzche and postmodernism were entirely lost on this one. haughty haw haw) I wouldn't say we hit it off. Maybe when she graduates from high school... On the bright side, she also despised Reggaetón, so at least theres that.

Ryan: Still sporting his Texas Tophat, promising not to buy any salchipapas at 4am. We took turns buying beers and chatting about the utter ridiculosity of the music and company. We were able to actually hear each other out on the balcony, overlooking the hot dog stand where Ryan was ripped off weeks earlier. Inside, Ryan spent most of his energies shielding the overt (this can hardly be called coquettish) advances of

Diana: The ringleader. Tall black sequined boots and cuffed up tight jeans. Throw in some ridiculous reggaetón, and thats the essense of the Latin American Nightclub.* She directed the movements of her sister and the overcoat girl (a cousin, I think) like some kind of horny latin field general. (And she seemed so sweet in the men's restroom hours earlier. I could hardly believe she was making passes at Ryan.) She probably took a few prisoners later on.

Finally, overcoat girl: Just about every slicked up Quiteño there made a pass at this one, but she sustained a relatively morose look most of the night, just the same, which contrasted sharply with what the rest of her body was doing. Namely, shaking at some supersonic speed that I certainly couldn't follow. After the overcoat came off, her white top made a consistent yet futile effort to contain her overflowing bosom, yet she persisted in nudging her breasts back in as the DJ switched from overplayed tune to overly-overplayed tune. Her top failed on the lower front with her midriff, as well, vying for the crown of "smallest clothing piece" with her orange skirt (is there a minimum length necessary to attain "skirt" status? If so, this hanky was surely "skirting" the line, so to speak... I couldn't help it.)

Point is, Ryan and I drank our fill, got our dances out when the good 80s music came on at the end of the night, and cabbed it back to Le'Auberge Inn satisfied with a final night out of all-you-can-eats and random acquaintances. No accidental viewings of strip shows, but an interesting night all the same. Capped off this duo's discoteca tour with proper grace and style.

Then came Sunday. Sunday in a hispanic country. Nothing happens. When in Rome... We did nothing. Well, we checked out a pretty sweet museum about the history of Quito, but the real highlight was our progressive lunch of various street foods (empanadas, salchipapas, chiflas - shishkabobs, donuts) and later on buying candied peanuts and consuming burritos. I think we might have eaten a banana or something also. For balance, you know. Our evening activity was first to search for a movie in spanish. Finding that there was not a single movie playing in spanish in the capital of a Spanish speaking nation, we headed to the Iquicentro Mall to catch an evening showing of Brokeback Mountain. It didn't occur to either of us how ironic this was until after the show, as the two of us had spent quite a while together in the quiet mountains of Ecuador, and often took turns cooking for each other on the road. I think I'm a much better harmonica player than Jake Gyllenhall's character, though, and Ryan might be hotter than Heath Ledger. (As an aside - great movie. and the spanish subtitles were absolutely inadequate, especially given that the film has minimal dialogue. Its all nuance, and I'd have given it the Oscar nod. Not that I care about these things, you know.)

Monday we decided on a leisurely trip up to a volcano crater near the equator. Pululuhua erupted quite some time ago and left a whole lot of fertile ash soil for the farmers and a very pretty vista for the tourists. Being members of the latter group, Ryan and I caught a bus out to the "Mitad del Mundo" (Middle of the World) tourist attraction, expecting to catch a connector to the crater. Well, after dawdling with some of yesterday's peanuts and some cold coca-cola (75 cents for 2.5 liters) we found that there was no bus, so we hopped a cab to the top of the crater, only to find that - as we had been told - the view is mostly obscured by midafternoon. No matter, we hiked on down into the crater, happy to be doing anything at all.

It was a gorgeous hike down, a bucolic paradise with a winding dirt road heading right on through the middle. Barbed wire fences and green everywhere. Until the fog rolled in. And this fog meant business. Couldn't see twenty feet. And then came the rain. And this rain wasn't screwing around either. The only thing to do at that point was to get wet - and we did a very admirable job at that. We turned around to hike up the steep hill, which was easy on the way down, but a bit of a chore hiking up, as the trail had essentially turned into a mudslide. As being in a rough spot is nothing new to us, we just trucked on up until we got to the top, soaked, and then squished in our boots down a couple miles to the nearest road where we might catch a bus back to Quito. 25 cent roadside stand cheese empanadas with sugar seemed outrageous after the 5 centers at the indigenous market, but we enjoyed them and sat on the plastic bus seats, moist, hungry, and well aware of the irony of an afternoon downpour on Ryan's last day in Ecuador. For good measure, the bus drove in circles for a while before heading back to the city. Finally back in the city, we splurged for a pizza and napped, gloriously. A final night out in Quito was uneventful, though we made a real effort to find trouble at El Pobre Diablo ("The Poor Devil) and later on at the Reina Victoria Pub, which was closing when we arrived. Anticlimactic, but, as always, we found something to talk about. As I remember, we discussed some quantum theory and metaphysics while we played a game of mind chess. (Ryan will tell you we talked about chicks and burped loudly. The truth is somewhere in between.)

Tuesday morning, I goodbye to my traveling companion and now lifelong friend. It was actually pretty sad, a couple of dudes only-sort-of gruffly hugging (ok. twice.) on the top floor of Le' Auberge Inn at the corner of Yaguachi and Gran Columbia. He left, soon to be making his lovely girlfriend dinner in Brooklyn, and I sat there, pretty alone. Felt weird, I didn't really have anywhere to go for the first time in a while. And no immediate direction is a bit sobering when you are by yourself. Its no trouble at all to have no place to go if you can share that bit of stagnation with somebody. And so...

A la Selva

What to do? A few days before I was to take off to Meet the Folks in Costa Rica, I couldn't just hang around Quito. I packed up, ready to make my way to Otavalo to buy some artesanal knicknacks for friends and family. Curious, because I don't like shopping, and shopping all alone would have been just about no fun at all. As fate would have it, on the way to the bus station I got a text from Tamara, a girl I'd met in Quito a month before and hung out with subsequently (we did see "Crash" together, on oscar night actually, and it certainly wasn't as good as Brokeback Mountain.) She would be hanging around Tena, her hometown in the rainforest eastern region of Ecuador, and I should come visit. She would even "receive me" in her house. What the heck? This is what travelling is all about. Spontinaeity. Spontinaeity and sheer luck. "To Tena!", I thought, (I'm an intrepid traveler, remember. )

I hurriedly bought the bus ticket. 16 bucks the man charged me, and told me to hustle to the bus. I figured the price was a little steep ("the discount was rare", so to speak), but I checked my bag and hopped up onto an empty bus. waited... We didn't leave. curious. I asked the people slowly shuffling in how much they'd paid. 6 bucks. Mildly enraged, I hassled the rascal ticket-salesman, did my best to bully him with my decent but not perfect-in-ire spanish, but to no avail. I had certainly paid him only 6 dollars, he said. Bastard. I was irked. Ok, I was pissed. And I stayed pretty angry for most of the 5 hour trip eastward into the rainforest*, my state exacerbated by the man taking tickets on the bus who refused to talk with me or let me off in Tena where I asked him. When I got off the bus in Tena, with no idea where I was, I gave him a piece of my mind, told him he really ought to respond when spoken to, and that he was worse than the bastard who robbed me at the ticket counter. At least the ticket counter thief smiled and spoke to me.

So, about to hail a cab and find a place to stay in Tena, I crossed the street and noticed a very attractive local passing on by my left shoulder. I tried not to stare. Soon after, I hear my name. The friend I was there to visit, Tamara, had just passed me with this beauty - who turned out to be her younger sister, Andrea. What luck! I get off the bus in some random part of town, and 10 seconds later I meet my friend on the street in the company of Miss Amazon. (well, she could be.) They led me to a "cheap" hotel, the Hostal Villa Belén, which was the nicest place I'd stayed in months, but not at all my idea of cheap at 8 bucks a night. I did get the "volunteers" discount, however, and the balcony sitting in the rainforest, hot shower, and TV was certainly welcome.

I powdered my nose and ironed my clothes (read: washed myself), ready to meet Andrea and Tamara for a bite and a drink. When the arrived, Tamara said she had a friend with her, a fellow named Jairo ("Hi-row") who was introduced as her "noviocito" (little boyfriend). This was a complete surprise to me (and, as I later learned, a complete surprise to her, too). But no matter, we had a nice evening, though mildly awkward because I had no idea who this boyfriend was. I later learned that the noviocito was Tamaras "first love" who had broken her heart 5 years earlier at age 17 and subsequently moved to Spain. He happened to be visiting home for the first time since he left the very week I was there, and evidently expected that the two of them would still be novios. Curious, I thought, and the false affection Tamara showed this fellow was a bit sickening. She wanted to "see how far it went".

Further complicating things, I couldn't stay in Tamara's house because her father was a bit upset. He was in a sour mood in general because his wife is the breadwinner in the family - a problem in the macho Latin American culture. He'd been working odd jobs since he lost his job in politics in the last election. He also despises this fellow Jairo and didn't want his daughter running around with him - or, by extrapolation, some random American. I was instructed to lie to Señor Andy when I met him so as to not make him angry, testifying that Tamara and I met in a language exchange program, instead of at a reggaeton pumping dance club ... It occurs to me that this is entirely uninteresting. Lets just say it made for a relatively awkward week with Tamara and her noviocito, though I did manage to have a pretty good time.

For instance, Wednesday morning Tamara and I took the bus to a nearby town, Misahualli, and hung out on the beach next to the river - a dark massive moving river, thick trees hanging over the banks (and monkeys hanging in them). A sandy beach, some fresh fruit, and a warm sunny day - the first one I'd experienced in months. That afternoon, Andrea, Tamara, and I went to a different beach on a different Amazon tributary near Tena with Pino, an employee of her mom's engineering firm, in the firm's Land Cruiser. Hurling myself from a rope swing into a swift, cool river on a hot and humid day to sit on the banks with two beautiful Ecuatorianas, I again found myself asking (pleasantly) "how did I get here?" It didn't even matter that there wasn't any ice cream in the riverside shack store. That night, we headed to the same bar we patronized every night in Tena, a nice palm-leaf roofed hut next to the river that played much better music than I was used to (I remember some Four Non Blondes and a little Nirvana), and I spent most of the night in unbroken conversation with Andrea while Tamara played nice with Jairo.

The following day, the four of us and Andrea and Tamara's younger, live-in cousin rode with Pino out to an amusement park/natural cave formation, las Cuevas de Jumandy, an attraction which happened to be closed that random Thursday. Luckily, this meant we got in free. The water park was dry, but the river running through the long, dark cave was running fast and cool. It probably wasn't all that safe, but a swim in the complete darkness of the cave was exciting. Later on we asked one of the men who was scrubbing the bottom of the dry pool to guide us through the cave, and he did so with amazing speed, despite his only having one leg. Thats right, this man creeped and leaped up and down through a wet, uneven, tight little cave with one sturdy crutch and a dim headlamp. It was incredible. He was the Long John Silver of spelunking. Andrea, the cousin, and I squeezed through the tight claustrophobic crevasses in various parts of the cave. I felt like I was in some action / love story movie, a hardened shipwrecked leading man playing opposite a much more attractive (yet equally adventurous, we learn) latina heartbreaker - I with my flashlight and Andrea in her muddy wifebeater, slipping on the wet rocks. I was enamored, sort of.

A post-cave rinse was needed before we sat down to a picnic lunch: Yucca root (any tuber is fine. boiled potatoes simply will not do.), veggies, roasted chicken, plantains. Delicious. I sat on a rock and rocked out with my D harmonica while waiting for Pino to come pick us up. He never did. Apparently he actually had to work, or something. But I passed the time sitting with my legs hanging over a crumbling bridge, listening to the sounds of a silver spring and the sweet spanish of an innocent girl with an easy smile; a floral print dress and a flower in her hair, like something out of a fairy tale or a movie with Mandy Moore. (Weeks later, I would make it sound absolutely disgusting by injecting nauseating alliterative description, thoroughly embarrassing myself in front of friends and family.)

Back in Tena, Tamara, her noviocito, and I shared an awesome dinner, an Argentinian Parrillada, which is an enormous plate of various grilled meats (steak, chicken, ribs, chorizo (blood sausage), lamb. Whatever happens to be on hand), served at that time with a salad and some Yucca and Potatos. Tamara had brought a nice bottle of wine (taken from her mother, I think) which the owner of the restaurant graciously (and probably begrudgingly) allowed us to consume. Every time Jairo wasn't around, Tamara persisted in apologizing for his presence, making me feel awkward every time he returned with a goofy grin and some kind of disgusting "mi amor". We had a post-dinner beer, which was rushed because I needed to catch a bus, and I left sadly lacking a proper goodbye from Andrea, the fairy tail physics major from the far east (of Ecuador). But goodbyes are no fun anyway; we worked it out over the phone.

Quito, Corazon.

Yet another overnight bus to Quito left me exhausted. Thankfully, I'd been in contact with a friend-of-a-friend from UofM who graciously offered me a comfy couch in her plush central Quito apartment building ($250/month gets you absolute luxury in a cosmopolitan Latin American capital.). She sleepily let me in when I arrived around 6am, and I slept the morning away. A mistake, as I had a multitude of errands to run and I was to leave Quito the following afternoon. I was planning on walking in to the United Nations in Quito and asking them for an internship, but I had to edit my resume first, complain to Porta about my cell phone service, pick up a topo map of Malingua Pamba from the Military and Geographic Institute, and buy a guitar, among other things. After furiously editing the resume and complaining about my cell(with tangible results, I later learned), I found that I could not complete anything else. The map office - a government entity - closed at 12:30pm. I should have known! And everyone left the UN around before i got there at 3:30, rendering my resume-editing entirely moot. Its probably better, as I hadn't shaved (but I was wearing a clean shirt with buttons). Its not like the UN was just going to give me an internship.. (and weeks later...)

My last night in Ecuador with Jenna (the friend-of-a-friend) was a fitting adieu to the country, leading me through a new neighborhood of Quito and a familiar state of mild intoxication. With some American and Ecuadorian friends, we shared a couple of large Canelazos (essentially a hot tea with a lot of booze) served in plastic pitchers like moms serve Kool-Aid in.* This place was hip, lit up by candles and sitting on the side of a steep hill overlooking the lights of the city (when the fog wasn't in the way.) Old wooden tables and benches, walls adorned with 8x10 color and black and white photos of various latin american urban and rural scenes. The crowd was equally as artsy, a few dudes wearing what my mom calls "hipster glasses" and a lot of girls with apropos dangly earrings and earth colors. Not one reggaeton song in a few hours, as I recall, but some very tolerable electronic music chosen by a surly bearded Ecuadorian in a ratty red T-shirt behind a turntable set up on one of the tables. A lot of talk about books and art in this place. Makes me want to return to Quito, just to make that bar a habit.

Not too late, we hopped out of the car of one of Jenna's Ecuadorian friends, to crash and finish my errands the next morning. I found myself alone in a luxurious apartment Saturday morning, as Jenna and her roomy had left for the beach early, but I was on a mission. After testing (and tuning. why dont they ever tune those guitars!) a ton of cheap guitars, I picked one up at a large warehouse store, dropped my cellphone with a woman who could get it up to Malingua Pamba (as it would serve them better than me), ran across town for a guitar case, and cabbed back to the apartment. Another taxi to the airport, and an adios to Ecuador - and, sadly, to my swiss army knife/money clip, which had been a good friend for months. (I'll never forget you. I'm sorry, they wouldn't let me bring you on the plane.) Whew. A whirlwind end to a long trip though South America. Being on a plane always makes me feel free, like a new chapter is coming. And maybe a chapter is closing. Country #4, Costa Rica, awaiting...

*FYI: it was not, in fact, impossible. And more, not only was it possible, but he actually did go directly to New York, as an actually helpful Ecuadorian airline agent changed his flights with a couple quick button clicks the day he left.

*Handsome! I thought to myself. I think it must have been the tar stains on my UGR sweatshirt that really attracted some attention. The mud on my pants really brought out my eyes.

*well, not right out the door. First we had to complain about a surcharge for shrimp that was physically hidden from view by the wooden stand that marked the shrimp on the food bar. And - incredibly - the manager immediately told us (in english with a french accent) how right we were and offered us a free drink. I love Mongolia! The customer service is nothing like in Ecuador.

*And you thought LAN stood for Local Area Network. Or maybe you didnt.

*The trip to the East and South from Quito to Tena is incredible. Ecuador is such a small country, but the geographical diversity is astounding. The beaches of the Pacifica are a few short hours to the West of Quito, and traveling in the other direction, I saw the landscape changing by the minute. Heading down from the highlands, the plants changed, the animal population, the climate. Even the accents and the people change, though the difference here is not as noticeable as between the highlands and the cost (these two populations have a very old rivalry, based on their different industries and politics...)

*Note second reference to Kool-Aid in this blog. I never really drank Kool-Aid, but other people did.