The plan went kind of sideways. And upside down and inside out, but fun the entire time – and that’s what matters.
The flight to Quito got delayed more and more, to the point where my cleverly planned timeline (landing before sunset) got scrambled and we touched down in pitch darkness. The customs lady couldn’t quite comprehend the concept of somebody flying this far to work for free. (To be fair, my New York sister also had a hard time with that notion.) Fortunately, one of her colleagues had heard of Workaway, and I got waved through.
There were no buses running at that hour, only a $25 taxi to the motel near the bus terminal, and another $25 for the motel itself, once I convinced them a) that I wasn’t a vampire and b) to raise their metal barrier and let me in, eh. Mucho dinero hemorrhage, and within just an hour of my arrival in Ecuador. Ho hum.
Ecuadorian bus terminals take a bit getting used to: there is the Ticket That May Not Be Lost, and a tiny receipt with the gate QR code. Gods help you if you lose either one, eh. My high school Spanish returned surprisingly fast, aided by Google Translate and a pocket dictionary. I spent a few hours waiting for my bus to Manta (the west side of the country) by people-watching (so many vendors!) and staying in close proximity to my two backpacks. There were quite a few cops walking around the terminal, twirling their batons, but why take the chance?
Free pro tip: if you’re traveling across Ecuador, take the night bus, not the day one. The projected 8-hour journey took 11 hours total, largely because of the 40-minute breaks the driver started taking toward the end, when there was only one other passenger besides myself. From Manta (again, past sunset), it was a pricey taxi ride to the beach community of Santa Marianita, and to the guesthouse (which will remain nameless) where I was going to volunteer for about a month.
The place was fairly big and cozy: many hammocks, lots of books, 22 cats, three dogs, a nice 85-year-old lady who owned the whole place, one other volunteer, and a couple of long-term guests. There was also the guesthouse manager, a Scottish-American fellow who used to be a CEO in Colorado…
The five-ish hours of work, five days a week, were mostly easy, until they weren’t: lugging around big bags of gravel (about 80-100 lbs each) without any equipment was no bueno. Painting and varnishing the fences was a bit more fun. The ocean, just a few feet away, was the saving grace. The nearby town of Manta (described in guidebooks as “there is nothing to see here) could be reached by walking to the highway and flagging down a truck for about a buck. (Ditto for the return trip.)
I spent one of my weekends on a trip to Puerto Lopez, a very touristy town where I booked a trip to La Isla de la Plata (aka “The Island of Silver” aka “Poor Man’s Galapagos”) where we all snorkeled (wayyy outside my comfort zone, but fun!) and hiked and admired lots of blue-footed boobies. Those birds are too goofy to be real: they look like cartoon characters that escaped into our world. That tour was worth every penny of the $41 I spent on it, eh.
My volunteer adventure came to an unexpected end after just 18 days. Each Friday, the guesthouse’s owner hosted a restaurant night for all the local expats. Beer, burgers – the works, and for a fairly low price. The guesthouse’s manager utterly lost his cool when faced with a larger-than-normal crowd: instead of the usual 15 guests, he had 25. They were all slow-moving, slow-eating, and slow-drinking pensioners, but he treated it like a national emergency. Consequently, he treated us volunteers as if we were contestants on a British cooking show. He launched many an F-bomb at us volunteers when we couldn’t quite make sense of his rapidly changing plans for fork arrangements. (No, really.)
At the end of the night, when we too feasted on burgers and beer, I very politely asked him not to insult his volunteers again, please and thank you. He reacted by storming off, saying he’d had enough with me, and telling me to leave the first thing in the morning. Right around that time, he also shouted at the guesthouse’s 85-year-old owner. In front of witnesses. He then took off to do some drunk-driving around the neighbourhood.
While I tried to make sense of it all, he sent me a series of Whatsapp messages describing how serious he was and how much he hated me in particular. The room doors in the guesthouse were thin and flimsy… I barricaded my door with furniture and couldn’t fall asleep till 3am. I slept with two kitchen knives by my side: an overkill, perhaps, but when dealing with an irrational agent who had clearly had more than just beer, can you really play it too safe?
Morning came. He disappeared, perhaps unwilling to look us in the face. The guesthouse’s owner tried to assure me I could still stay, but with such limited space, and with no way to avoid the guy, it would’ve been one mighty passive-aggressive environment. I packed up, had my last free volunteer breakfast (bagels and eggs), and left town. I don’t stay where I ain’t welcome. Later, I heard that the other volunteers left soon after me, as did one long-term guest. The owner’s US-based daughter messaged me to get my side of the story. Not sure what happened to that manager, but meh, he’ll get his someday.
I hung out in Manta and (being a smarter tourist this time) took an overnight bus back to the capital, to Quito. Workaway has the option to search for the hosts who seek last-minute volunteers, and that’s how I ended up arriving at a vegan anarchist compound near the rainforest town of Loreto. (Which was another seven hours by bus from Quito.) There were no other volunteers here, just the two hosts and myself.
Their reforestation project was noble. The fruit trees and tropical flowers were beautiful. The sunset was lovely. I even got used to eating only bananas and quinoa, while using leaves for toilet paper. But… One of the hosts (the one I spent the most time around) started making jokes (plural) about genocide, followed by a racist joke I wish I could erase from my mind…
Life is short, and it’s important to be careful what kind of inputs you allow into your brain, your heart, your soul. The people you surround yourself with will always influence your worldview. That wasn’t the kind of influence I wanted… I invented a flimsy excuse (a volunteer meet-up in Quito) and bounced out after just two full days and two partial ones.
With my volunteer plans dashed to hell, I decided to just spend my last two weeks in Quito, at the high-rated (and, at just $8 a night, quite cheap!) hostel: Community Hostel in the historical district. It was, without exaggeration, the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at. The view from the rooftop was glorious, especially at night. The Basicilo del Voto Nacional looked like something from a Disney cartoon when it was lit up in the darkness.
Much partying and exploration followed. Ecuador is not a rich country, and foreigners are advised to stay indoors after sunset (because, ya know, vampires) and to avoid most of the city even by daylight. The hostel was just a five-minute walk away from the presidential palace, but there were three-way knife fights and domestic violence happening right underneath our windows almost daily. We watched, and could do nothing, and stayed indoors.
I write this as I pace the hostel’s rooftop deck, looking at the wide street below, covered with piles of trash and flimsy blankets where the most unfortunate Ecuadorians sleep on the sidewalk. As I write this, a homeless woman is urinating on a palm tree. …now she picked up a stick and started poking the homeless person trying to sleep.
Ecuador is a beautiful country, but (and I say this as an imperfectly informed outsider) its social and structural systems are broken. Crime is rampant. The air is polluted from all the vehicle exhaust. It’s particularly bizarre when one of the many local municipal buses drives past you and belches a giant cloud of black smoke into your face. The only drinking water comes from large water canisters that are delivered daily, by truck, along with metal cylinders filled with natural gas for cooking. Local entrepreneurs drive those trucks starting 6am, each with their own little tune playing at top volume. There is no postal service anywhere in Ecuador as a result of some government shenanigans a few years back: only delivery companies remain.
Ecuador’s nature is beautiful, though – at least the parts that are protected from developers. A two-day trip to Mindo resulted in a ride on a cable car, a nice little hike to several waterfalls, and a visit to a butterfly sanctuary. (I leveled up as a druid when I learned how to lure those giant butterflies on my hands and nose. Huzzah!)
But not all is gloomy. Ten days ago, there was a national constitutional referendum. The government banned alcohol sales for that entire weekend. (Though the ban wasn’t enforced all that well…) There were dozens of armed soldiers all over the capital, prepared for trouble. In the end, the people voted to protect the environment and to keep the US from setting up military bases in Ecuador. No violence erupted. I carry two passports on my person, so I showed only the Canadian one, just to play it extra safe.
This country can be so cheap… There are tourist traps that can and will charge you $15 for a mediocre meal. But there are also cheap local places, like my favourite breakfast diner, where a local grandma cooks only one thing – an avocado omelet. It comes with coffee and freshly squeezed juice, and costs just $2.50. Combine that with the dirt-cheap, overabundant fruit and cheap hostels (mine cost $8 per night for a dorm bed; others cost far less) – and you can live here long-term for very very little money…
Quito is beautiful if you choose to look only at the pretty buildings. Cathedrals, museums, murals, the occasional parade – just ignore the cops beating the hell of a fruit vendor lady who dared to push them back. Ignore the waitress with a knife scar extending from her mouth across her cheek. Ignore all the many, many people who are missing eyes or have broken noses. Ignore the walls upon walls covered with “missing” posters: all genders, all ages. Ignore it all and spend and smile and laugh.
Meanwhile, I’ve made a few buddies at the hostel during my two-week stay. They taught me a few neat tricks about low-cost travel. I’ve also resumed writing my ambitious novel featuring apathetic space aliens – and finished a rather snappy flash story (950 words!), while submitting it and others to anthologies and magazines. Glad I decided to bring my old netbook!
I’m typing this last part in Quito’s international airport at 10:33pm, waiting for the first of my three flights. This airport features the world’s most expensive duty-free store. (If I really do buy those five boxes of wine for $160, do I get to turn that plane into a party plane?) It also sells tiny bottles of coke for $5 a piece. There’s the world’s most puritanical Victoria’s Secret. Alpaca scarves that cost 300% more than my local souvenir vendors charged. (Incidentally, I got an excellent deal on a poncho a few days ago.) I’m munching on a $4 bag of Doritos in protest of this price-gouging.
Weird place, Ecuador… I don’t think I’ll visit it again. I hope the people retake control and make their country more like Costa Rica and less like Russia. They deserve stable, peaceful lives, as do we all.
And meanwhile… My initial plan had been to spend a month or so in a different South American country. (Peru? Argentina?) But a lady friend I’d met at a Montreal party almost two months ago (and have stayed in touch with) invited me to Tokyo, in exchange for symbolic rent, for as long as I want. When the universe sends you that kind of invitation, how can you possibly say no? And so, I found the cheapest airline out there (ZipAir: $238 for a direct Los Angeles-Tokyo flight!), spent a few hours double-checking all the details, and now I’m about to board the first of my three flights.
I’ll spend a total of 22 hours in the air, with a big 24-hour layover in LA, but it’ll all be worth it in the end. Plans change all the time, but my current best bad plan is to hang out in Japan until the film festival season kicks off in February, and then my nomadic odyssey will continue.
Here is to more vagabonding.
Grigory Lukin.com 