Montanita, Ecuador
This funky little town along the south coast of Ecuador is more a thriving South American backpacker resort than a functioning community. The small central area is no more than three or four tiny blocks packed with surprisingly comfortable and upscale restaurants, shops, and bars. In the afternoon and evenings twenty-somethings in surfer trunks and sun dresses roam these narrow unpaved streets in various states of inebriation and joyful celebration. Surprisingly, Matt and I were among the oldest tourists in town. I saw only one group with folks over 40.
The place has a frenetic, explosive energy, almost like I imagine the Wild West or gold rush towns of 19th century North America. Of course, the gold nuggets in Montanita are Chilean and Argentinian surf and beach tourists and more than half of these are women so it's not similar in that way at all. It's all a bit crazy, really. Internet cafes, night clubs, tiny hotels, and surf shops are packed into hastily constructed two, three, and even four story cinder block buildings that line streets not more than 15 feet wide. All night parties seem to happen on any day of the week. We found this out the hard way on the first night we arrived.
We choose a room about a third of a mile up the beach toward the point to avoid the noise and cro
wds of town. Imagine our surprise when an outdoor rave blasted us awake at 1 AM. Matt nearly lost his mind with frustration and anger, going so far as to confront the DJ, who only assured him that the party was just getting started and would last until 6 AM. True to his word, the repetitive beats rolled on all night. That lost night of sleep contributed no small amount of tension and frayed nerves to our partnership and it took us a few days of squabbling to settle town and agree to get along again.We hired a surfing
guide, Eusebio, to take us to some less crowded "secret spots" on Wednesday morning. This was a great choice. Since the surf shop's regular driver had recently moved away we took public bus, meeting at 7:30 AM to beat the tide. It's always eye opening to ride the local transport with the locals and their kids. Little children, their feet caked in mud, stared widely at the gringos. Indigenous Ecuadorians napped in simple, but dapper Western attire. A few indigenous women sported the felt hats that make Andean women famously distinctive. Since we were only travelling a few stops we loaded our three surfboards into the center aisle, nearly dominating the space. No one seemed phased by t
his in the least. After fifteen minutes of moving northward we jumped of the bus and began a scenic hike down a lushly forested ridge towards the fishing village of La Rinconada. Our guide was thrilled to see the new road, "I haven't seen this road before, " he told us in Spanish, "Until this year they took the fish out of here by donkey." Apparently he'd spent the last year living in Switzerland with his girlfriend. He was at a loss for what to do about the relationship. His family, including six siblings, all live in Montanita. After fifteen minutes of steep descent we came upon the village of La Rinconada wedged in a narrow valley that drains to a small, beautiful bay.During the pre
vious night, we noticed scores of fishing boats out to sea because of the bright lights trailing each panga. Only when we finally reached the rocky inlet at La Rinconada did we get to see one of these ingenious little lanterns. Four or five pangas lay on resting on the colorful cobblestone beach trailing their lanterns. Each lantern is built on a simple raft no more than two feet long by a foot wide. Atop this wooden raft rests a used gallon paint can. The lid is pierced with a thick wick to make a candle of the can. The whole apparatus is tied to the aft of the pangas with a simple rope.
We left our extra gear with a pleasant man on his circular covered porch overlooking the cove. Seemed like it must function as a restaurant sometimes. After some pleasant small talk between Eusebio and this guy we clambered over the loose stones, past the pangas, and paddled the 200 yards to the headland where we could see small waves breaking over a
rocky point. This place did not disappoint. There was no one out there but us. The waves were clean and powerful while staying small enough to manage easily. The rocks were the only hazard but we're good enough surfers to generally avoid them. It was one of those surf sessions where you can't help but grin ear to ear, marvel at the b
eauty of it all, and yearn for more and more. Sadly, after about an hour and a half of pure fun the tide came up and the waves faded away. Still, it was a peak experience.Interestingly, the surf shop we dealt with sells only real balsa wood surf
boards. Such boards don't really exist in the U.S. anymore except as expensive collector's art pieces. Apparently the balsa grows locally and is cheaper than the polystyrene foam generally used as the core of a surfboard. While they're a bit heavier than modern boards, they're beautiful, sturdy, and environmentally friendly. I would have purchased one if there was and easy way to get it home. Also problematic was that the boards in the shop were the owner's boards and he prefers to custom shape a board over two weeks or so instead of selling the boards he actually uses on a day-to-day basis. Finally, the sweet young woman running the shop went to University of California, Irvine and showed up in Montanita two years ago. She simply never left. She's got no plans to leave. Lots of young people seemed to be doing the same thing here. Find a
job in one of the few businesses and you can live cheap by the beach indefinitely.We, however, left town by taxi the next morning, headed for the airport in Manta, about two and half hours to the north. We had planned to take another
public bus back to Guayaquil and fly from there to Quito, but a strike and public protest blocked the road to the south. Moreover, the owner of our hotel feared that the blockage would be used as an opportunity by bandits to rob the public buses. This, she explained, had happened a couple of times recently and she fears the police are involved. After hearing all of this, sixty dollars for a direct ride to the airport sounded like a bargain.
Eduardo, our driver, blasted Puerto Rican hip hop and Mexican drug ballads as we sped past concrete fishing villages and through a wildly rolling landscape that alternated between arid scrub and tropical deciduous forests covering massive hills to the east and beaches and dramatic sea cliffs to
our west. The scent of diesel fumes mixed with the smell of burning vegetation. Along the coast, the cool, moist sea gave the air a distinctively marine smell like that of kelp. In a couple of towns this scent rose to pungency as we passed fish canneries and fish oil factories.2-1-2009
En Route to Montanita, Ecuador
The bus to Montanita was first class and not all what guide books had led me to expect of Ecuador's buses. Total cost was $5.60 for a three and a half hour ride. Moreover, the passengers seemed by and large to be well off. Only later did I understand that most people heading to Montanita are actually from Chile or Argentina and are themselves tourists.
As the bus headed out of Guayaquil to the west the landscape became rolling hills covered with tropical scrub punctuated by the occasional village of drab cinder block dwellings t
ypical of the entire poor world. Now and again a house was built entirely of sticks. Such bamboo or cane houses are generally elevated on stilts and often cling to the side of the hillsides.After reaching the coast at the Santa Elena peninsula, the bus turned north and followed the coast closely. The landscape here is arid and treeless and much of the coast has been turned over to salt production. Huge, man made pon
ds line the coast. Most are for salt, with the occasional pond dedicated to tourism. North of this salty region, narrow fishing villages are wedged in between the beach and the hilly coast. The coast road runs smack the middle of these two or three block wide towns and the buildings are built surprisingly close to one another and line the highway. E
very building is ugly unpainted concrete block, but the density and the the two and three story edifices give the towns and urban feel. As the bus rolls through town, you can see into the homes and shops that line the road. Young faces peer through the iron bars of concrete window frames. There's no glass in these windows.Guayaquil, Ecuador
I met my friend Matt without incident at the Guayaquil airport late on February 1. We flew in on separate flights so there was real possibility that one of us would be delayed. After clearing customs we headed straight for the Tangara Guest House, a small hotel in a residential neighborhood in Guayaquil. The city seemed strangely quiet as we rode the taxi to the guest house. Like many urban areas in Latin America, most every building had iron bars over the windows, sturdy gates, and glass or barbed wire atop exterior walls. Even during the next day the streets were strangely vacant. As I suspected even before coming here, there is a
The hotel was pleasant enough, though, and we met two young Indian computer networking professionals who were there on a two month business trip. An American company would likely have put their employees up at a much more expensive hotel downtown. .
In the morning we headed to the Malecon, which is widely touted as one of the most successful urban redevelopment projects in South America. The entire downtown waterfront has been turned into a gated boardwalk lined with restaurants, gardens, and movie theaters. Since this development is directly across the street from the city center, the whole area makes for an attractively dense urban core. There's no d
oubt that the city has done a good job with the Malecon. Even early in the morning people were using the park and enjoying the river.The Duale River is wide here. In fact, the whole city of Guayaquil is essentially in a river delta, very near to the ocean. Because of a the flood tide the river seemed to be flowing upstream. Large clumps of vegetation, much like those
I saw in Bangkok, were headed north at a rapid pace in the turbid current. Young couples sat on park benches watching while it flow while holding hands and giggling.Since we were rushing to get on a bus to Montanita, we stopped at, of all places, a riverfront McDonald's. This place put U.S. McDonald's restaurants to shame. Not only was the restaurant clean and efficient and the building both contemporary and on the river, they were playing good bebop jazz instead of the pop music drivel we invariably get in the States.
2-1-2009
American Airlines Flight 202, LAX-Miami
Somewhere over Texas
Lately these trips have taken on an air of drudgery. They've become a task. I've left home so often that it's getting very difficult to say goodbye to Catalina each time, knowing full well how much I'll miss her. This feeling is only increased by travel to poor or dangerous places since I've knowingly put myself and my happiness at even the smallest risk. It's worrisome and makes me feel selfish. Such anxieties are coloring my experiences and my observations. While I've always been skeptical, even cynical, I dwell lately more on problems and disappoints in my destinations.
Case in point is the way I feel about this trip to Ecuador right now, having just read the U.S. State Department's travel advisory for the country. It makes for a chilling read. Crime in Ecuador was up in 2007 and 2008. Americans have been victims of car-jackings, kidnappings, and homicides. "Hundreds of Americans are robbed in Ecuador each year." Public transportation is described as dangerous both in terms of personal and road safety. (The Lonely Planet guide describes Ecuadorian bus drivers as "lunatics.") The CIA World Factbook notes that economic uncertainty and a slowdown was underway in 2007. Ecuador is heavily reliant on petroleum revenues and the downturn in oil prices will certainly make crime and the economy more severe.
The country is roughly the size of Nevada and has about 15 million inhabitants. Mestizos and indigenous people make up 90% of the population. 25% is strictly indigenous. The economy is 60% service-based, followed by industry at 34%, with agriculture a distant third. This is likely because only 6% of Ecuador is arable land. GDP purchasing power per capita is estimated by the IMF at $7200, placing it roughly in the league of Jamaica or Thailand. 38% of the population lived in poverty (less than $2/day) in 2007. This despite an unemployment rate of only 8.7%. More than twice as many people are born each year than die, but the country is growing at only .8% each year because of massive and longstanding emigration to neighboring countries and the rest of the world.
While there has been civilian rule in Ecuador for nearly thirty years, the list of presidents is mind-boggling since there has been a new government roughly every two years. The last three presidents were removed mid-term, largely because of popular frustration with economic challenges, including massive inflation and the switch in 2000 from the Sucre to the U.S. dollar as the national currency.
