JJ's Travelogue

7/5: I’m sick of freezing up here in the mountains. I’m heading to the coast!

7/6: Arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. Although Quito is the capital of Ecuador and gets all the attention for being the center of arts and culture (and generally being a prettier city), Guayaquil is the economic hub of the country. It’s brasher and louder than it’s northern sister, and home to the large port through which so much of Ecuador’s commerce passes. Hardly any tourists come here, and for that reason I like it. It reminds me of Tegucigalpa in that way, which will probably get old but for now I like it. And the weather, ahh, so much better – I can leave the hotel without wearing three layers or really thinking about what to wear at all.

7/7: The trade-off to no tourists coming here is that there is very little tourist infrastructure. Most of the hotels are geared towards business travelers on expense accounts; it’s taken me a couple of days to find the cheap places. I thought cities were supposed to be cheap, the economy of scale? But I guess the wages are higher in cities, therefore the market can bear higher prices. Harumph. And for a country that is so wired, it’s largest city has a dearth of internet shops. Apparently the price of computers and home internet connections has fallen so much in the last couple of years that residents no longer have need of the net cafes as they do in the rest of the country. Great for the locals, but sucks for the traveler.

Why is it that coastal people (no matter what coast – the Caribbean of Panama, the Atlantic of Colombia, or the Pacific of Ecuador) always play the game of, “let’s see just how few consonants we can get away with pronouncing.” I really can’t understand most of these people – I swear, some of them sound like they have speech impediments.

Guayaquil’s mayors over the past 10 years have taken on huge initiatives to modernize the city. Arriving at the bus terminal was my first clue – it looks like Newark airport (that’s a complement, in case you’ve never flown through EWR). Huge, modern, safe, clean – like an enormous shopping mall, replete with a hotel, cinemas, medical center, supermarket, oh and 81 bus companies. 50 million passengers per year pass through what is the largest commercial space in Ecuador.

The malecón (boardwalk) downtown has been made over into something reminiscent of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor or New York’s South Street Seaport – food courts, pleasant landscaping, a lovely place to stroll in the evening breeze.. although a bit too sanitized for my tastes. I empathize with the city fathers – it’s difficult to clean up an area without making it too gentrified. Still, kudos to the city for making the downtown feel safe enough to walk around alone on a Monday night. It’s well-lit, with plenty of people and security about.

Another area I commend them on is the hill just north of the malecón, the historic neighborhood of Santa Ana. 10 years ago this area was as blighted as anything in Latin America, unsafe to venture through at any time of day. The mayor said to the residents, “we’re going to clean up this neighborhood – fix up the houses, the sidewalks, install new lighting, fresh coats of paint, hire security.. and you’re welcome to stay here, all you have to do is maintain the exterior of your house.” What a fresh approach, and a far cry from the treatment that poor residents usually receive when a city decides to “clean up” their neighborhood. Residents took advantage of the renewed tourism by turning many of their houses into bars, restaurants and clubs – a win-win situation for everybody. Although apparently prosperity has not touched everyone – glancing into several of the houses that look so nice on the outside, one observes very poor living conditions on the inside. It would be nice to learn the story of some of these people.

One of the downtown city parks, only the size of one square city block, has several hundred iguanas living in it. They’re so cute! But it’s a bit weird to see them lounging on every available surface, covering every branch of every tree (just don’t stand underneath or you’ll get shit on!). I would probably hang out in Iguana Park a lot if I lived here.

Tonight I met up with a local Couchsurfer who works for a pharmaceutical but used to work for a shipping line, so we had plenty of war stories to trade. Paulette is also a Spanish teacher. All told, she makes $1,000/month, and that’s a good wage here – many people make half of that and do alright, but I don’t see how – the prices at the fancy shopping mall we met at had U.S. prices. Afterwards while we were waiting at the taxi stand, she gave me a treatise on how to choose a safe taxi. Despite 10 months of travel through all manner of questionable areas, it’s still difficult for me to believe that taxi drivers can be robbers, or worse – sure, I know they’ll try to rip me off, but growing up in North America, they were always the safe ticket out of a dangerous situation. But just as I’ve recently learned to no longer trust cops, Paulette regaled me of the horrors committed by taxi drivers – kidnappings, robberies, rapes.

A few tips when choosing a cab: make sure there is a taxi number painted on the car; write it down or remember the number in case you need it later. Make sure that number is the same on all sides of the car; check that there is a telephone number of the cab company marked; that the car is painted the right shade of yellow – plenty of non-licensed drivers do a quick paint job to pretend they’re real taxis. Don’t take cabs waiting outside of clubs – instead, go to the corner and flag one down. She likes to see a cross hanging from the mirror. We both agreed that older drivers are more reliable. Of course, the best practice is to simply call one.

7/9: I’ve spent the last couple of nights hanging out with another Couchsurfer, named Chio. She’s generously shown me all around the city, first in her wonderfully ancient Russian car, then by city bus (another of the city’s recent infrastructure improvements). One errand I accompanied her on was to get a permission slip from a doctor friend so that another friend could take off work tomorrow! Just like in grade school. It was neat to see the inner-city hospital said friend works in the emergency room of. He told us that they see a large increase in admissions on the 15th and 30th of every month – people cash their paychecks, get drunk, and get into accidents. Chio is a computer systems tech and has had a lot of training and schooling in computer science, so naturally I had to ask her quintessential geek questions such as, “so babe, what’s your favorite programming language?”

Now lest you think that I only reach out to female Couchsurfers, the fact is that the majority of local people on Couchsurfing (at least in Colombia and Ecuador) are female. I’m not entirely sure why this is, probably something about the macho men thinking it’s beneath them. I would love to make some male friends, but there are simply hardly any out there.

I was planning on heading to the beach this weekend, and Chio suggested we go together, since she’s been trying to get out of town for weeks. So tomorrow we’re off to Montañita, a famous surfer town that I was going to skip but have been convinced otherwise.

7/13: I’m glad Chio convinced me to come to Montañita. Although the thought of dirty hippies and whities with dreadlocks gives me the heeby-geebies, this town is actually pretty fun. It’s tiny – just a few streets paved with sand, so you can walk bare-foot everywhere. Montañita became popular for being the best surf spot in Ecuador, and in high season (January?) it attracts a ton of surfer dudes. The beach itself is long and wide and surprisingly clean. And the Pacific Ocean, which in my experience has always been freezing, is delightfully warm here! There are weirdly shaped rocks forming interesting tide pools to play in and other mellow towns to walk to. Gringo food, breakfasts all day, and ultra-cheap hotels and hostels round out the appeal to my brethren. As you would imagine, on weekend nights the town becomes one big party. Dozens of tiny “bars” (like coffee stands, but selling deliciously cheap mixed drinks made from fresh tropical fruit right before your eyes) line the path to the beach, each one blasting out their own music. You create your own scene in front of whichever one strikes your fancy.

Several clubs feature live music from really fun bands. One was a Manu Chao tribute band, another seemed to be a Spanish gypsy band replete with violins, accordion, cello, acoustic guitars, percussion, and passionate vocals. Such fun dancing in the sand. One of these clubs had a bonfire going right in the middle of things! (ok, I guess that area was technically outdoors, and on sand, so it was reasonably safe). Beach bonfires are common here – surely one of life’s greatest pleasures. One of my fondest memories of living in Seattle was the beach fires we would have. Hard to believe they were legal, but they were.
It’s interesting how towns like this coalesce, bringing together the 60-year old Rasta Jamaican dude selling bracelets he makes and the 20-year old Argentinian couple eking out a living selling henna tattoos.

Chio headed back to work today. I’ll probably hang out here one day more before heading up the coast to Puerto Lopez, the jumping-off point for the “Poor Man’s Galapagos”.