Last Sunday night we sat under a lamp post, fighting off flies, and waiting for a bus outside the border town of Huayaquilles. There was a huddle of gringos standing next to a heap of bags, everyone ready to scatter in different directions in Ecuador, many trying to skip the country entirely by taking a bus to Quito and then flying somewhere else or heading toward grand Columbia. In all relevant conversations, I try to persuade these people to linger just a little longer. "It´s beautiful here," I tell them.
After traveling the near-entirety of the Peruvian coast and back (a mad dash of more than 3,000 kilometers in 11 days), we took two more long stretches of buses back into the central sierras of Ecuador´s Andean mountains. As the bus tilted upward, the air began to cool and the roadsides were again sprinkled with farm animals and white wooden crosses, designating the drivers and passengers that didn´t survive the mountain roads, I felt like I was returning to a familiar and welcome place, my transient latin home. I thought back to a week earlier, when I was sitting at a sports bar in Lima, watching my first basketball game in months. The guy next to me, who was coincidentally from Anandale, VA, had worked several years for the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador and Peru. He asked me how I got around, and I told him I took buses everywhere. Over 100 hours of bus rides at the time.
"Well, I´m glad you made it," he said.
"Why, do the buses have a lot of problems in Ecuador?" I asked. I mentioned the crosses I always saw.
"They turn over, all the time."
"Really?"
"All the time." He asked how I was getting back to Quito.
"By bus."
He laughed, left a tip, and wished me good luck. With him gone, I turned to my neighbor to my right, a young man with a beard of equal scruff to mine. He said he was biking from Buenos Aires to his home in Texas, the most ambitious of trips I had heard of yet, although he had met a few people biking the entirety of the Pan-American, from Alaska to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He told me when he crossed the border into Bolivia he had come upon a bus turned over on the side of the road. Its passengers stood next to it, dazed and bleeding, but no one wanted help. He biked further up the road and found some some pick-up truck drivers and tried to persuade them to help, but they didn´t want to. Apparently a lot of the passengers were smuggling things, and to get across the border they had to be smuggled by the truck drivers, who paid off the officials at the border. The drivers didn´t want to have to go back near the border, in fear of reuniting with the officials they just paid off. It would be awkward. (for a great pictoral blog read about his ride, check out http://www.swiftkidhistory.wordpress.com/)
After surviving another series of bus rides, zooming through curvy mountains, making blind passes at high speeds in both day and night, we stopped in Baños for one last day of thrills in one of my favorite cities, and we were not disappointed. In the morning Sarah and I took a ride out into the secondary forests and climbed a couple hundred meters to the top of a jungle river canyon that cut through the thick greens and rust-colored rocks in a series of cascades. Then, with our guides and the appropriate safety equipment, we rappelled down four consecutive waterfalls, the last being a hundred feet high, and then slid down the fifth. Our guide, with harnesses and ropes, preferred to run down the waterfalls face first. At the end, our guide told us, "Thank you for surviving."
After resting in the afternoon, we decided to ignore the rain and some kind of off-road vehicle to drive around the area. Sarah and I debated for a long time which vehicle would be best, the dirt bikes, the buggy, or the four-wheeler. We settled on the buggy. Less than an hour later, we drove it along a river road that went up and down like a series of waves. Going up a tall wave, a band in the motor snapped, and we stopped moving. We pushed the buggy for a kilometer, digging our heels in the road on the way up, and coasting on the way down. We made it to the small town of Lligua, a couple kilometers outside of Baños, and had to stop to let a fun-sized monkey named Paco cross the road. Soon after, a stumbling man in a suit offered to help us. His name was George. He worked in a small political office in Lligua, and he had been drinking all day. He told us we have no authority in Baños, so he would use his political influence to help us. Then he repeatedly offered us candy. I find it hard sometimes to reject someone´s help when they are so insistent on being generous. More than anything, I think he was bored, which is probably why he drinks all day long in his small dark office, a politician in a town of three hundred people who likely have no need of politicians or clerks. So we sat in his office, watched him urinate in the bathroom, ate his candy and waited until someone showed up in a four-wheeler and towed us back to town. I rode in the buggy, trying delicately to break just enough so that we didn´t crash into each other, but not too much that I didn´t lose the slack in the rope, snap it, and go flying off the side of the road. At night, we washed off our small adventures in the volcanic hot spring pools, and left the city feeling cleaner than ever.
We are now in Quito, doing whatever last things we want to do before we return to the States. I find it hard to believe I lived in this city for four weeks, and yet I remember all my adventures in the places after with more vividness and enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it is good to relax at our final stop, knowing there are no more buses or broken buggies to wear us out. I confess I am tired, fatigued by our scramble up the coast. I move slower and with less excitement than I did weeks ago. And while I am disheartened I have to leave soon, I am also happy at the idea of returing to family and friends, dark beer and other certain comforts. But the trip is not over yet.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sonrisas and Sand Dunes
More and more I am in love with Pacha Mama, Madre Tierra, Mother Earth. I have spent the last ten days moving up and down the coastal deserts of Peru, exploring sand dunes, swimming at dusk and dawn, marveling at the strange beauty bestowed so differently upon all the many places of our planet. After galloping through cities in the north, wandering Lima for a couple lazy days, Sarah and I took a bus south to a desert oasis. I have heard this term, desert oasis, but never really understood what it meant or should look like. Instead it is a term that has had the same meaning to me as any other item from a book of fantasies or faraway places I´ll never see. But amidst the hot city bustle of Ica is the small town of Huachachina (pronounced Waca-cheena, click here for photo link), a community of 95 unreasonably affable residents living around a palm-tree-lined lagoon that sits like a droplet in the bottom of a bowl of rolling dunes on every side. The dunes themselves appear improbable and majestic, an infinite set of hills extending and folding into each other, ubiquitious in their rolling golden colors. That first evening we took a dune buggy ride into the desert. Our driver´s name was Sonrisas, or Smiles, and he drove like a madman, riding us to the top of small shiftless mountains only to take us right back at full speed. It felt like a rollercoaster without tracks, and every minute I had to wipe the sand from my eyes and the drool from my cheeks. At the tops of the bigger dunes, we waxed snowboards with candles and then rode facefirst 80 meters downhill into the golden valleys.
It seems everytime there is a beautiful place, locals in South America find a way to innoculate it with an extreme sport. Ziplining over rainforests. Canyoning in waterfalls. Sandboarding down mountainous dunes. It is absurd, almost perverse in a way, but a mostly wonderful and thrilling way to enjoy the earth´s treats.
Before I left for Ecuador, I was often asked why I was going. Why Ecuador? Why South America? Why do any of the stuff that you are doing? And I was always ready with an outstanding number of reasons that at the time seemed logical and justifiable. But once I arrived, when someone asked me, "So, what are you doing here," I could not give a good reason. It seems I forgot them all. So instead I would say, "Just chilling," which was probably closer to the truth than any premise I provided before. Some friends accused me of "going on a quest," an expression I disliked and denied fervently because it seemed to imply a cheesy degree of soul-searching. But nine weeks later, I confess, I have gathered such a collection of images and feelings that I might just be guilty of having gone on a quest and fulfilled it.
If I were more inclined to organized religion, I would have been persuaded to become religious while sitting in the resplendent Catedral Nueva (New Cathedral) in Cuenca, but instead I have found my spirit invigorated by the geography and natural world of Peru and Ecuador. I usually believe that it is the people you meet on a trip that comprises its true value, but here the treasures of my journey glisten with sunsets and landscapes. And while I have made many friends and acquaintances, it is my communication and connection with Mother Earth I will remember best. Wind whistling between sunlit sand dunes. Singing rainforests. Embracing waterfalls. Swimming in pacific dawns and dusks.
Tomorrow we leave Peru, taking a bus out of Mancora, where the sand is white, the beach filled with soccer games and kite surfers, and the sun sets like a melting teardrop against the horizon. And every hour is happy hour. We are crossing the border and returning to the Andean mountains on our way to colonial Cuenca. In another few days we will return to Quito, and after that I will fly back to the States on May 2nd. I apologize for the lack of blogs and quality recently. If there is any indication that I am having as much fun as possible in my last days of this vacation, it is that I have taken few notes recently, and so I have had little to transpose to here. But expect one or two last blogs next week, equipped with pictures. Hasta pronto, Sam
It seems everytime there is a beautiful place, locals in South America find a way to innoculate it with an extreme sport. Ziplining over rainforests. Canyoning in waterfalls. Sandboarding down mountainous dunes. It is absurd, almost perverse in a way, but a mostly wonderful and thrilling way to enjoy the earth´s treats.
Before I left for Ecuador, I was often asked why I was going. Why Ecuador? Why South America? Why do any of the stuff that you are doing? And I was always ready with an outstanding number of reasons that at the time seemed logical and justifiable. But once I arrived, when someone asked me, "So, what are you doing here," I could not give a good reason. It seems I forgot them all. So instead I would say, "Just chilling," which was probably closer to the truth than any premise I provided before. Some friends accused me of "going on a quest," an expression I disliked and denied fervently because it seemed to imply a cheesy degree of soul-searching. But nine weeks later, I confess, I have gathered such a collection of images and feelings that I might just be guilty of having gone on a quest and fulfilled it.
If I were more inclined to organized religion, I would have been persuaded to become religious while sitting in the resplendent Catedral Nueva (New Cathedral) in Cuenca, but instead I have found my spirit invigorated by the geography and natural world of Peru and Ecuador. I usually believe that it is the people you meet on a trip that comprises its true value, but here the treasures of my journey glisten with sunsets and landscapes. And while I have made many friends and acquaintances, it is my communication and connection with Mother Earth I will remember best. Wind whistling between sunlit sand dunes. Singing rainforests. Embracing waterfalls. Swimming in pacific dawns and dusks.
Tomorrow we leave Peru, taking a bus out of Mancora, where the sand is white, the beach filled with soccer games and kite surfers, and the sun sets like a melting teardrop against the horizon. And every hour is happy hour. We are crossing the border and returning to the Andean mountains on our way to colonial Cuenca. In another few days we will return to Quito, and after that I will fly back to the States on May 2nd. I apologize for the lack of blogs and quality recently. If there is any indication that I am having as much fun as possible in my last days of this vacation, it is that I have taken few notes recently, and so I have had little to transpose to here. But expect one or two last blogs next week, equipped with pictures. Hasta pronto, Sam
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Peruanas
I arrived in Lima, the capital of Peru, early this morning after a nine hour ride through the desert at night. In the past seven days I have visited 8 towns and cities (Cuenca, Zaruma, and Machala in Ecuador; Mancora, Chiclayo, Trujillo, Huanchoco, and Lima in Peru), taking more than seven different buses for a total of 34 hours (equaling 99 total for my trip) across more than 1,500 kilometers of the Panamerican American highway.
I have sloshed through old, wet gold mines in Zaruma, visited centuries-old palaces in the ancient capital city of Chan Chan, and tried to surf the formidable waves of Huanchoco, amidst a backrop of a rocky coastal desert. More and more, I feel like a pendulum, swinging between the fatigues of travel and the enchantments of a dream vacation. Crossing the border was the best thing I have done yet in South America, further proving my theory that personal ambivalence most often preempts my best experiences. Here, Peruvians are not Peruvians, but Peruanas (pronounced similar to the fish, Pirahuana), and everytime I feel tired or irritable, a local Peruana stops to talk to me while on a bus or in the park or anywhere really. Not wanting anything except an affable chance to talk to the tired kid from the States, something that more seldomly occurred in Ecuador. It invigorates me everytime.
Bus travel itself has become a sort of magical thing. It is not like a greyhound trip, rounding the mixing bowl of concrete criss cross highways and sitting at ugly, unclean stations. Instead, riding a bus through South America is what I imagine it would be like to ride the Magic School Bus. Everytime I fall asleep and then open my eyes, I am somewhere new and unlikely. Even 1,400 kilometers of Peruvian desert proved to be geographically transformative and dynamic, as flat sand turned to dunes and dunes turned to mountains, and in the distance strange things , mirages maybe, appeared and flummoxed my eyes, so much that when cities like Trujillo appeared, I wondered if they were real at first. Or the man who boarded the bus in the middle of nowhere, selling chicken sandwiches. And why did his sandwiches taste so fresh?
Tonight I meet my friend, Sarah, at the airport in Lima, ending my adventures as a lone traveler. I have enjoyed my moving solitude, especially as it is one of the few things that seperates me from other travelers on similar or more ambitious journeys. Traveling alone has afforded me many chances for reflection, meditation, and less squabbling about where to go and what to eat, which I see so often among European groups moving together, like a fickled herd. It has helped me gain independent confidence in many senses of direction, and I have enjoyed it greatly. But once, while playing in a waterfall in Mindo, I lamented that playing in cascades alone is simply less fun without a friend. If not for the company of Paccha Mama (mother nature), I would be downright lonely often here. But now I have a friend to play with in waterfalls, and I think it is just what I need to recharge my energy for the final leg of my vacation.
I do not know where we will go next. With only two weeks left time is limited. Machu Picchu is 20 hours away, but going there means at least 55 hours of returning buses to Quito. But Peru is large, much larger than Ecuador, with as many, if not more possibilities for touring geography and ancient histories. Do you think we should sacrifice the time and go to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, or should we venture elsewhere, desert oasises, glacial mountains, beaches, other less glorified ruins? What would you do?
I have sloshed through old, wet gold mines in Zaruma, visited centuries-old palaces in the ancient capital city of Chan Chan, and tried to surf the formidable waves of Huanchoco, amidst a backrop of a rocky coastal desert. More and more, I feel like a pendulum, swinging between the fatigues of travel and the enchantments of a dream vacation. Crossing the border was the best thing I have done yet in South America, further proving my theory that personal ambivalence most often preempts my best experiences. Here, Peruvians are not Peruvians, but Peruanas (pronounced similar to the fish, Pirahuana), and everytime I feel tired or irritable, a local Peruana stops to talk to me while on a bus or in the park or anywhere really. Not wanting anything except an affable chance to talk to the tired kid from the States, something that more seldomly occurred in Ecuador. It invigorates me everytime.
Bus travel itself has become a sort of magical thing. It is not like a greyhound trip, rounding the mixing bowl of concrete criss cross highways and sitting at ugly, unclean stations. Instead, riding a bus through South America is what I imagine it would be like to ride the Magic School Bus. Everytime I fall asleep and then open my eyes, I am somewhere new and unlikely. Even 1,400 kilometers of Peruvian desert proved to be geographically transformative and dynamic, as flat sand turned to dunes and dunes turned to mountains, and in the distance strange things , mirages maybe, appeared and flummoxed my eyes, so much that when cities like Trujillo appeared, I wondered if they were real at first. Or the man who boarded the bus in the middle of nowhere, selling chicken sandwiches. And why did his sandwiches taste so fresh?
Tonight I meet my friend, Sarah, at the airport in Lima, ending my adventures as a lone traveler. I have enjoyed my moving solitude, especially as it is one of the few things that seperates me from other travelers on similar or more ambitious journeys. Traveling alone has afforded me many chances for reflection, meditation, and less squabbling about where to go and what to eat, which I see so often among European groups moving together, like a fickled herd. It has helped me gain independent confidence in many senses of direction, and I have enjoyed it greatly. But once, while playing in a waterfall in Mindo, I lamented that playing in cascades alone is simply less fun without a friend. If not for the company of Paccha Mama (mother nature), I would be downright lonely often here. But now I have a friend to play with in waterfalls, and I think it is just what I need to recharge my energy for the final leg of my vacation.
I do not know where we will go next. With only two weeks left time is limited. Machu Picchu is 20 hours away, but going there means at least 55 hours of returning buses to Quito. But Peru is large, much larger than Ecuador, with as many, if not more possibilities for touring geography and ancient histories. Do you think we should sacrifice the time and go to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, or should we venture elsewhere, desert oasises, glacial mountains, beaches, other less glorified ruins? What would you do?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Border Thoughts
Last Saturday night I sat in my hotel bed trying to digest my new guide book. I felt suddenly ambivalent. The guide book was about Peru, and I felt all the confidence I had gained traveling solo through Ecuador slipping as I tried to swallow a new map. Weeks ago a wonderfully impulsive friend bought a ticket to arrive in Lima this Sunday, now pleasantly obligating me to go south. But suddenly I didn´t feel so sure I wanted to leave the comfort I had acheived in Ecuador.
That night I went out and followed the smoke of fireworks and the strange rising stars in the sky to a nearby plaza where the people of Cuenca were celebrating the city´s foundation with an annual weekend party. I ate grilled chicken feet--the talons are a little softer than bones, but crunchier than french fries--and watched an Ecuadorian scene that I felt properly exhibited its cultural festival attitudes. Children lit bottle rockets at the edges of the plaza, peering over the explosives, while families watched and laughed. Women roasted all sorts of different unintelligble meats, teenagers exhibited half-practiced indigenous dances in the center, crowds strode by a makeshift body of a saint in a glass case to say their prayers and cross their catholic hearts. Somewhere a family was lighting small hot air balloons, balls of flame that lifted up into the sky like rising stars (this is what I had seen earlier) and disappeared somewhere over the rooves of old colonial churches and apartments. A man stood under the costume of a paper-mache goat, kind of like the Chinese dragon in parades, dancing wildly, adorned with twirling firecrackers that sometimes went astray and fired into the shrieking crowd.
I woke up the next morning, still unsure about where I wanted to go. Should I linger in Cuenca, or another place in Ecuador? Or should I head straight for the border to cross? Usually I let impulse or augury guide me, but both were absent. When choosing between staying or going, I usually give weight to the latter, so I packed my bags, headed in the direction of the border, but first taking a detour to Zaruma. Before leaving for Ecuador, my friend and spanish tutor, who studied the mining culture in Ecuador ten years ago, gave me three letters to deliver to families he lived with. It has offered me an occassional purpose, a sort of mysterious mission, and I find that I very much enjoy trying to track down a family without any information except their name and that of the town they live. It is even more exciting to magically show up at someone´s house who doesn´t know you, bearing a mysterious letter and an old welcomed connection. Zaruma was the last of my letters, and I delivered it with some difficulty and great reward to a wonderfully pleasant and modest family. (click here for a borrowed picture of the city)
In most cities, there is a feeling of always being grounded. If not skyscrapers, the sky itself seems like a distant thing, but in Zaruma, I was inclined to reach up and touch it. It is not as high as Quito, but it feels like its sits on a throne above a kingdom of ranges, being isolated and improbably perched near the summit of a mountain in the midst of infinite alpines on every side. It likely would have never existed if the Spaniards had not been so intent on finding El Dorado, South America´s elusively fabled city of gold. When Felipe II was presented with a 3.5 pound ball of pure gold from the mines of Zaruma, the prosperous future of the town was guaranteed, and for almost 500 years it has seen prospectors and rugged, and sometimes abused, workers fill the streets and hillsides. Walking through the thin, stone-cobbled streets of Zaruma, the city in the sky (la ciudad en el cielo), between old wooden apartments, has been the most relaxing of all my activities. The air is like a bath and to breath and walk through it is be constantly cleansed in its tranquility. In the afternoon I sat on a rail, drinking a Budweiser, my first American beer in eight weeks, and looked at across the mountain range, which rised and fell like the folds of a long green dress, and I no longer felt worry. Not about Peru or returning to the States or anything. After Zaruma, I felt like I could cross Siberia if I had to. But I don´t. I only have to go to another new place, just across the border, with new beaches and mountains, stories and people, meandering south for three more weeks of joy-wandering.
I have lots more to say and tell you, but I am going to exercise restraint. I´ll see you in Peru next, paz y abrazos.
Traveler´s Metaphorical Proverb
6. If you can, walk it.
That night I went out and followed the smoke of fireworks and the strange rising stars in the sky to a nearby plaza where the people of Cuenca were celebrating the city´s foundation with an annual weekend party. I ate grilled chicken feet--the talons are a little softer than bones, but crunchier than french fries--and watched an Ecuadorian scene that I felt properly exhibited its cultural festival attitudes. Children lit bottle rockets at the edges of the plaza, peering over the explosives, while families watched and laughed. Women roasted all sorts of different unintelligble meats, teenagers exhibited half-practiced indigenous dances in the center, crowds strode by a makeshift body of a saint in a glass case to say their prayers and cross their catholic hearts. Somewhere a family was lighting small hot air balloons, balls of flame that lifted up into the sky like rising stars (this is what I had seen earlier) and disappeared somewhere over the rooves of old colonial churches and apartments. A man stood under the costume of a paper-mache goat, kind of like the Chinese dragon in parades, dancing wildly, adorned with twirling firecrackers that sometimes went astray and fired into the shrieking crowd.
I woke up the next morning, still unsure about where I wanted to go. Should I linger in Cuenca, or another place in Ecuador? Or should I head straight for the border to cross? Usually I let impulse or augury guide me, but both were absent. When choosing between staying or going, I usually give weight to the latter, so I packed my bags, headed in the direction of the border, but first taking a detour to Zaruma. Before leaving for Ecuador, my friend and spanish tutor, who studied the mining culture in Ecuador ten years ago, gave me three letters to deliver to families he lived with. It has offered me an occassional purpose, a sort of mysterious mission, and I find that I very much enjoy trying to track down a family without any information except their name and that of the town they live. It is even more exciting to magically show up at someone´s house who doesn´t know you, bearing a mysterious letter and an old welcomed connection. Zaruma was the last of my letters, and I delivered it with some difficulty and great reward to a wonderfully pleasant and modest family. (click here for a borrowed picture of the city)
In most cities, there is a feeling of always being grounded. If not skyscrapers, the sky itself seems like a distant thing, but in Zaruma, I was inclined to reach up and touch it. It is not as high as Quito, but it feels like its sits on a throne above a kingdom of ranges, being isolated and improbably perched near the summit of a mountain in the midst of infinite alpines on every side. It likely would have never existed if the Spaniards had not been so intent on finding El Dorado, South America´s elusively fabled city of gold. When Felipe II was presented with a 3.5 pound ball of pure gold from the mines of Zaruma, the prosperous future of the town was guaranteed, and for almost 500 years it has seen prospectors and rugged, and sometimes abused, workers fill the streets and hillsides. Walking through the thin, stone-cobbled streets of Zaruma, the city in the sky (la ciudad en el cielo), between old wooden apartments, has been the most relaxing of all my activities. The air is like a bath and to breath and walk through it is be constantly cleansed in its tranquility. In the afternoon I sat on a rail, drinking a Budweiser, my first American beer in eight weeks, and looked at across the mountain range, which rised and fell like the folds of a long green dress, and I no longer felt worry. Not about Peru or returning to the States or anything. After Zaruma, I felt like I could cross Siberia if I had to. But I don´t. I only have to go to another new place, just across the border, with new beaches and mountains, stories and people, meandering south for three more weeks of joy-wandering.
I have lots more to say and tell you, but I am going to exercise restraint. I´ll see you in Peru next, paz y abrazos.
Traveler´s Metaphorical Proverb
6. If you can, walk it.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Coastal Meditations
I apologize for the length of this, but I guess I just have too much to tell you, details of my best days yet. Thank my aquatic disposable camera for the pictures, but realize they only capture a fraction of the color and shape present.
Beauty is a thing, perhaps a quality that best describes our personal attractions, however mysterious they may be, but beauty is also a feeling, and on the coast I was inclined to feel it everyday.
Last Thursday I entered Canoa as if walking into a sandy dream, but I left it in a sweaty daze. During the days I surfed, swam, and when possible, I napped in a hammock under a hut made of bamboo and dried palm leaves. At night I partied with a group of international neo-hippie intellectual adventurists, much like myself. We drank and danced on the beach until sunrise, greeting daylight by diving naked into the morning´s first set of waves.
I lied in a hammock Monday morning, dirty, burnt, bitten and tired. The beauty I first encountered in Canoa´s wide beach and horizons had quickly dissipated in a fog of beer and sweat, and I knew it was time to leave. I had only a faint idea of where I should go, but when you travel alone, faint ideas gain brighter traction quickly, and by that evening I was sitting on yet another beach, drinking a beer and watching the orange sun set between pink clouds and blue sea, having returned to Puerto Lopez, the wild fishing town tucked like sandy pages between rocky bookend bluffs.
Beauty struck me then, prompting me to stay there longer, but it also made me lament the need to have a plan, the need to think of schedules and returning dates, to be anywhere at all at certain necessary times, and as the sun lowered itself into the Pacific, dousing its color in the now darker blues, my thoughts drifted to Bolivia.
When walking more than two years ago through Switzerland, my friends and I dreamed of a place called Cinque Terre, a small collection of coastal villages in Italy, and everyday we fantasized about ending our trip there, knowing nothing about it, but letting our imaginations run wilder every day we neared it. In the end, we never got there, but it served as inspiration, the approach and process of being high by traveling, not knowing where we were going, but always drifting towards a dreamland. In South America, Bolivia is my Cinque Terre. I know nothing about it except what trusted friends have told me, and I know only that I want to go there. I don´t know if I´ll make it--in all likelihood I won´t--but for me Bolivia is less of a destination or a country than it is an idea. That I do not have to end my vacation. That I don´t have to be anywhere at anytime because I am controlling my own journey, and I can end it where I want-- in Cinque Terre, in Richmond, Virginia, or in sweet unknown Bolivia. Every time I have one of these moments, I am afforded with a new and invigorated attitude, and I go on to have wide-open adventurous days.
The next two days were the best yet of my trip. I woke early in the morning and walked along the beach with a group of tourists. The fishermen were bringing in their morning catches and their families backed trucks onto the beach to get ready for the load. Above, frigate birds swarmed the air like eager puppies while pelicans floated in the waves like cool cats, waiting for the market leftovers. Men sliced through the heads of fifty pound albacore with rusty machetes, and bloated blowfish the size of overgrown babies sat discarded next to six feet swordfish (below), its colored fan splayed out in dazzling display that made me wonder how much more marvelous it might appear when alive and cutting through the water.
Our guides pushed a boat out into the water and we all waded through the waves and hopped in, starting straightaway for an island, a faded blip on the horizon, about forty kilometers away. As we left the coast I could see another nearby island, guarding a secluded beach between yet another set of rock bluffs set like points of a coastal semicircle. The further we went, the more the faded coastline looked like a smaller set of Blue Ridge Mountanis, perched on a wide bed of blue water, and I thought, this is what West Virginia would be like if it had beaches instead of guns--wild, wonderful and wet.
The Isla de Plata (Island of Silver, below and above) sat in the Pacific like a rocky fortress, named by fishermen who thought the bird poop covering the cliffs shined like silver at sunset. We waded onto the island and hiked across it, seeing birds nesting in the bushes, blue-footed boobies perched on cliffs, living the good life, always ready to fly. And they fly wonderfully, like model airplanes almost, gliding rather than flying. After hiking we snorkeled, but as someone who once possessed a phobia of crocodiles in lakes for many years, I am still squirmish about things appearing out of murky waters and rushing by my face, even if they are small colorful fish. More interesting to me were the shafts of underwater sunlight that rotated and danced as the surface above bent and rippled. To celebrate, I climbed to the roof of the boat and dived into the green waters, scattering the fish below.
While returning, I fell asleep, and when I awoke the island had disappeared under the sun. I saw the coast approaching and it looked just like the island, but extending infinitely on each side, and I thought, "How strange to come and go from such places," and it reminded me of my favorite Dr. Seuss book, Oh the Places You´ll Go!
Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!
When I got off the boat I met people on the street who talked like old friends, including a guy living in a tent on the shore whose name was Crusty. "Why is your name, Crusy?" I asked. "Porque estoy loco!" (Because I am crazy!) That night we partied by a fire on the beach and when I woke up I decided to skip my trip to Montanita, Ecuador´s most infamous surf-party town. Instead I went to the town´s only stoplight and waved down a local taxi to take me to the beaches in the national park. The taxis in Puerto Lopez are not cars, but half-motorcycles constructed to fit dual-wheeled carriages, like motorized rigshaws. At first I thought it was cool, but after further inspection of its loose bolts and rusty metalwork, I realized it was only as cool as a moving deathtrap could be.
I arrived at Los Frailes and the feeling of beauty again overtook me. Only five other people lied along the shore of a beach that spanned almost a mile, a perfect half-bowl, again marked by near symmetrical rock bluffs at each end. I swam and then found a trail and walked through the dry tropical beach forest past hundreds of flowers, butterflies, cactii and small striped lizards that scattered nervously along the path. The second beach, La Tortuguita (below) was maybe the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I had it all to myself. My first instict was to leap into it, but my better senses told me to be prudent, if only for a moment. I found an inconspicous small sign at the edge of the brush, saying "Peligroso! No Bañarse." (Danger, No bathing). In a country generally without standard safety regulations, and where the word safety itself does not seem to be part of cultural vocabulary or tradition, it is important to heed the seldom warning when offered. I inspected the beach further and realized it was actually a rocky peninsula that dropped off as a small cliff at the edge of the shore where the waves crashed and doubled in eruptive size. At the middle of the beach was a tower of stone where the waves came together in opposite directions. I stood in the tranquil middle, feeling almost beloved by nature and then moved on.
At the third beach I almost cried (I am man enough to admit it!). Beauty, the image and feeling corresponding in perfect harmony, had finally overwhelmed me. Crabs ran sideways across black sand and shells of purple, red, pink, and green heaped in piles at the feet of placid waves. Water cut small caverns into the reddish rocks lining the shore as frigates and vultures soared above. I walked along the beach, trying to reach a cave but stopping at a collection of small boulders where skyblue-bellied crabs waltzed along the rocks. I meditated there for some time and then was happy enough to break out into a run going back the way I came. I felt childish, even native, running barefoot and shirtless through a tropical beach forest while lizards scurried before me to get away.
I left Puerto Lopez and the coast the next morning, afraid that if I didn´t leave then, that I might never leave and would spend all my adventure in a single wonderful place. Besides, it is not the nature of the trip to stay. If there is a mantra to my movements, it is movement itself. Until next time...
And when things start to happen, don’t worry.
Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
Beauty is a thing, perhaps a quality that best describes our personal attractions, however mysterious they may be, but beauty is also a feeling, and on the coast I was inclined to feel it everyday.
Last Thursday I entered Canoa as if walking into a sandy dream, but I left it in a sweaty daze. During the days I surfed, swam, and when possible, I napped in a hammock under a hut made of bamboo and dried palm leaves. At night I partied with a group of international neo-hippie intellectual adventurists, much like myself. We drank and danced on the beach until sunrise, greeting daylight by diving naked into the morning´s first set of waves.
I lied in a hammock Monday morning, dirty, burnt, bitten and tired. The beauty I first encountered in Canoa´s wide beach and horizons had quickly dissipated in a fog of beer and sweat, and I knew it was time to leave. I had only a faint idea of where I should go, but when you travel alone, faint ideas gain brighter traction quickly, and by that evening I was sitting on yet another beach, drinking a beer and watching the orange sun set between pink clouds and blue sea, having returned to Puerto Lopez, the wild fishing town tucked like sandy pages between rocky bookend bluffs.
Beauty struck me then, prompting me to stay there longer, but it also made me lament the need to have a plan, the need to think of schedules and returning dates, to be anywhere at all at certain necessary times, and as the sun lowered itself into the Pacific, dousing its color in the now darker blues, my thoughts drifted to Bolivia.
When walking more than two years ago through Switzerland, my friends and I dreamed of a place called Cinque Terre, a small collection of coastal villages in Italy, and everyday we fantasized about ending our trip there, knowing nothing about it, but letting our imaginations run wilder every day we neared it. In the end, we never got there, but it served as inspiration, the approach and process of being high by traveling, not knowing where we were going, but always drifting towards a dreamland. In South America, Bolivia is my Cinque Terre. I know nothing about it except what trusted friends have told me, and I know only that I want to go there. I don´t know if I´ll make it--in all likelihood I won´t--but for me Bolivia is less of a destination or a country than it is an idea. That I do not have to end my vacation. That I don´t have to be anywhere at anytime because I am controlling my own journey, and I can end it where I want-- in Cinque Terre, in Richmond, Virginia, or in sweet unknown Bolivia. Every time I have one of these moments, I am afforded with a new and invigorated attitude, and I go on to have wide-open adventurous days.
The next two days were the best yet of my trip. I woke early in the morning and walked along the beach with a group of tourists. The fishermen were bringing in their morning catches and their families backed trucks onto the beach to get ready for the load. Above, frigate birds swarmed the air like eager puppies while pelicans floated in the waves like cool cats, waiting for the market leftovers. Men sliced through the heads of fifty pound albacore with rusty machetes, and bloated blowfish the size of overgrown babies sat discarded next to six feet swordfish (below), its colored fan splayed out in dazzling display that made me wonder how much more marvelous it might appear when alive and cutting through the water.
Our guides pushed a boat out into the water and we all waded through the waves and hopped in, starting straightaway for an island, a faded blip on the horizon, about forty kilometers away. As we left the coast I could see another nearby island, guarding a secluded beach between yet another set of rock bluffs set like points of a coastal semicircle. The further we went, the more the faded coastline looked like a smaller set of Blue Ridge Mountanis, perched on a wide bed of blue water, and I thought, this is what West Virginia would be like if it had beaches instead of guns--wild, wonderful and wet.
The Isla de Plata (Island of Silver, below and above) sat in the Pacific like a rocky fortress, named by fishermen who thought the bird poop covering the cliffs shined like silver at sunset. We waded onto the island and hiked across it, seeing birds nesting in the bushes, blue-footed boobies perched on cliffs, living the good life, always ready to fly. And they fly wonderfully, like model airplanes almost, gliding rather than flying. After hiking we snorkeled, but as someone who once possessed a phobia of crocodiles in lakes for many years, I am still squirmish about things appearing out of murky waters and rushing by my face, even if they are small colorful fish. More interesting to me were the shafts of underwater sunlight that rotated and danced as the surface above bent and rippled. To celebrate, I climbed to the roof of the boat and dived into the green waters, scattering the fish below.
While returning, I fell asleep, and when I awoke the island had disappeared under the sun. I saw the coast approaching and it looked just like the island, but extending infinitely on each side, and I thought, "How strange to come and go from such places," and it reminded me of my favorite Dr. Seuss book, Oh the Places You´ll Go!
Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!
When I got off the boat I met people on the street who talked like old friends, including a guy living in a tent on the shore whose name was Crusty. "Why is your name, Crusy?" I asked. "Porque estoy loco!" (Because I am crazy!) That night we partied by a fire on the beach and when I woke up I decided to skip my trip to Montanita, Ecuador´s most infamous surf-party town. Instead I went to the town´s only stoplight and waved down a local taxi to take me to the beaches in the national park. The taxis in Puerto Lopez are not cars, but half-motorcycles constructed to fit dual-wheeled carriages, like motorized rigshaws. At first I thought it was cool, but after further inspection of its loose bolts and rusty metalwork, I realized it was only as cool as a moving deathtrap could be.
I arrived at Los Frailes and the feeling of beauty again overtook me. Only five other people lied along the shore of a beach that spanned almost a mile, a perfect half-bowl, again marked by near symmetrical rock bluffs at each end. I swam and then found a trail and walked through the dry tropical beach forest past hundreds of flowers, butterflies, cactii and small striped lizards that scattered nervously along the path. The second beach, La Tortuguita (below) was maybe the most beautiful I had ever seen, and I had it all to myself. My first instict was to leap into it, but my better senses told me to be prudent, if only for a moment. I found an inconspicous small sign at the edge of the brush, saying "Peligroso! No Bañarse." (Danger, No bathing). In a country generally without standard safety regulations, and where the word safety itself does not seem to be part of cultural vocabulary or tradition, it is important to heed the seldom warning when offered. I inspected the beach further and realized it was actually a rocky peninsula that dropped off as a small cliff at the edge of the shore where the waves crashed and doubled in eruptive size. At the middle of the beach was a tower of stone where the waves came together in opposite directions. I stood in the tranquil middle, feeling almost beloved by nature and then moved on.
At the third beach I almost cried (I am man enough to admit it!). Beauty, the image and feeling corresponding in perfect harmony, had finally overwhelmed me. Crabs ran sideways across black sand and shells of purple, red, pink, and green heaped in piles at the feet of placid waves. Water cut small caverns into the reddish rocks lining the shore as frigates and vultures soared above. I walked along the beach, trying to reach a cave but stopping at a collection of small boulders where skyblue-bellied crabs waltzed along the rocks. I meditated there for some time and then was happy enough to break out into a run going back the way I came. I felt childish, even native, running barefoot and shirtless through a tropical beach forest while lizards scurried before me to get away.
I left Puerto Lopez and the coast the next morning, afraid that if I didn´t leave then, that I might never leave and would spend all my adventure in a single wonderful place. Besides, it is not the nature of the trip to stay. If there is a mantra to my movements, it is movement itself. Until next time...
And when things start to happen, don’t worry.
Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Rainbows and Beaches
On the coast, everyday is better than the next. I started my Pacific trip in Puerto Lopez, a sort of wild coastal town famous for whale-watching and its local islands. As a traveler, I am often skimming in and out of local life, constantly on the outside, but always peering in, and on the best occasions diving below the surface for a taste of what it´s like to live somewhere else. The degree to which I can, in the words of travel writer Tom Swick, "approximate the life of a local" is often the best measure of success for me while traveling. In other words, am I hanging out with Ecuatorians?
By this measure, Puerto Lopez was my best stop yet. After dinner, I played cards with the family who owned the restaurant (and I won a dollar). I stopped often to chat with people on the street and in shops. I mildly partied with others around a bonfire on the beach. And I made friends with the owners of the hostal. At night I waded out to the water at low tide, and I believe that despite all the glory the sun disposes upon the water in the daytime, the Pacific is even more beautiful at night. The moonlight illusionary tricks moving through the water, enough to make me wonder if I was hallucinating, and the waves rise and break without warning in the dark, like an angry dog sprinting out of a shadow, but much more pleasant. The sky and sea are the same, possessing no horizon, each an extension of the other. I thought that I could stay there for days, if not weeks, but I decided to change my habits of lingering in the places I liked most. Instead I attempted to continue my fortune through movement, and the next morning I promised the hostal owner I would return next week, and then got a ride with a Chilean couple to Portoviejo and continued on bus to Bahía de Caraquez.
Bahía is the antithesis of Quito. Instead of buses there are bikes. Instead of garbage there are trees. Instead of volcanoes there are rainbows. Everyone is relaxed and the locals speak slowly. The town itself is a thin inlet, like a kitchen knife laid flat against the table of water, cutting into the Pacific and forming a wide bay between it and San Vicente, the town across that table. Around sunset, I took an aimless walk in the streets. I walked through a very poor neighborhood and up a set of crumbling steps towards a large cross on top of the town´s only hill. The walls of houses were made of old, dry bamboo and the rooves made of tin. As I walked upwards residents smiled and exchanged salutations, pointing the way up. More and more I notice that in Ecuador, the povery of smaller towns and rural communities is accompanied by amability, while in larger cities like Guayaquil and Quito, poverty preempts crime. Is this the same everywhere or in the States? And why? I can´t think of a good reason yet, but I am working on it. What do you think?
At the top of the hill I saw all of
Bahía and above it a full arching rainbow, stretching from one end of the bay to the other. It seemed perfect. A place of birds, bikes, beaches, and rainbows. But like in Puerto Lopez, I was determined to keep moving. The group of friends I met in Mindo had told me everyday that I should come to Canoa for the beginning of April, and the more I moved North the better everything seemed. The next day, I took a boat out of Bahía (the best way to travel) and then a bus to Canoa where once again I felt like I had walked into some kind of sandy dream. The beach was wide, the ocean wider, and everyone was friendly, everyone seemed like a friend. I could have kept moving, but I decided to stay for the weekend of Semana Santa, when a very large party will ensue on the beach. Until then, I sleep each night in a tent at the edge of the beach and spend the day loitering and swimming in the water at a temperature approximate to my own body, a true blissful bum in a lazy beach town.
In this week´s segment...
The Traveler´s Proverbial Metaphors or Metaphorical Proverbs or Metamorphing Proverbial Wisdoms
4. Strangers are friends you haven´t met yet
5. Barefoot is better
6. Say Yes more than No
7. Jump off Bridges (but don´t tell your mother)
Paz y abrazos
By this measure, Puerto Lopez was my best stop yet. After dinner, I played cards with the family who owned the restaurant (and I won a dollar). I stopped often to chat with people on the street and in shops. I mildly partied with others around a bonfire on the beach. And I made friends with the owners of the hostal. At night I waded out to the water at low tide, and I believe that despite all the glory the sun disposes upon the water in the daytime, the Pacific is even more beautiful at night. The moonlight illusionary tricks moving through the water, enough to make me wonder if I was hallucinating, and the waves rise and break without warning in the dark, like an angry dog sprinting out of a shadow, but much more pleasant. The sky and sea are the same, possessing no horizon, each an extension of the other. I thought that I could stay there for days, if not weeks, but I decided to change my habits of lingering in the places I liked most. Instead I attempted to continue my fortune through movement, and the next morning I promised the hostal owner I would return next week, and then got a ride with a Chilean couple to Portoviejo and continued on bus to Bahía de Caraquez.
Bahía is the antithesis of Quito. Instead of buses there are bikes. Instead of garbage there are trees. Instead of volcanoes there are rainbows. Everyone is relaxed and the locals speak slowly. The town itself is a thin inlet, like a kitchen knife laid flat against the table of water, cutting into the Pacific and forming a wide bay between it and San Vicente, the town across that table. Around sunset, I took an aimless walk in the streets. I walked through a very poor neighborhood and up a set of crumbling steps towards a large cross on top of the town´s only hill. The walls of houses were made of old, dry bamboo and the rooves made of tin. As I walked upwards residents smiled and exchanged salutations, pointing the way up. More and more I notice that in Ecuador, the povery of smaller towns and rural communities is accompanied by amability, while in larger cities like Guayaquil and Quito, poverty preempts crime. Is this the same everywhere or in the States? And why? I can´t think of a good reason yet, but I am working on it. What do you think?
At the top of the hill I saw all of
Bahía and above it a full arching rainbow, stretching from one end of the bay to the other. It seemed perfect. A place of birds, bikes, beaches, and rainbows. But like in Puerto Lopez, I was determined to keep moving. The group of friends I met in Mindo had told me everyday that I should come to Canoa for the beginning of April, and the more I moved North the better everything seemed. The next day, I took a boat out of Bahía (the best way to travel) and then a bus to Canoa where once again I felt like I had walked into some kind of sandy dream. The beach was wide, the ocean wider, and everyone was friendly, everyone seemed like a friend. I could have kept moving, but I decided to stay for the weekend of Semana Santa, when a very large party will ensue on the beach. Until then, I sleep each night in a tent at the edge of the beach and spend the day loitering and swimming in the water at a temperature approximate to my own body, a true blissful bum in a lazy beach town.In this week´s segment...
The Traveler´s Proverbial Metaphors or Metaphorical Proverbs or Metamorphing Proverbial Wisdoms
4. Strangers are friends you haven´t met yet
5. Barefoot is better
6. Say Yes more than No
7. Jump off Bridges (but don´t tell your mother)
Paz y abrazos
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