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