First Days

I’d like to forget the turbulence filled, horribly delayed, over-night plane flights that brought me to Ecuador so I won’t even comment on them. After the flights, I was picked up at the airport by probably the friendliest, most outgoing driver I have ever met. He was overjoyed at the opportunity to point out every notable landscape and attraction as we made our way out of Guayaquil. Among them he identified the massive slums of downtrodden shacks that blanketed the smaller mountains surrounding Guayaquil. He showed me the fruit farms and the large, wild mountains which he claimed to be left natural (he must not have seen the huge mining operations which had already devoured a large chuck of the mountain). After that I fell asleep despite my driver’s best efforts to keep me awake by pointing out everything we drove past. When I awoke we were driving through a completely desolate landscape made up solely of dead vegetation, dirt, and other debris. I soon learned the state of the landscape was due to the large oil drilling operation. Next we hit the ocean shore and passed through a few tiny fishing towns, fish hatcheries, and salt refineries. Each city was poorer than the next and I thought to myself … in a two hour car ride I had seen fruit farms, some type of mine, an oil drilling operation, a salt refinery and immense amounts of fishing, so where was all this money going because I could see it clearly was not making its way to the people of Ecuador.

The first day in Montanita was spent mostly getting a sun burn on the beach and convincing myself of the reality that I was basically living in paradise for a month. After some confusion I was finally put into a home stay with a great family. I ate the traditional meal of fish and rice and proceeded to sleep for 10 hours in order to recover from the travel. In the morning I found out I had a roommate, Christian, who was German and had been to Madison once and was going back after this trip –it truly is a small, small, world. My roommate, a few others and I spent the day surfing and drinking beer on a beach one town over from Montanita. This town was in many ways identical to Montanita. It was the same size with the same terrible dirt roads, half finished construction projects, and a central square built around a cathedral. However, this town did not have the same tourist industry and that made a substantial difference. In Montanita, there were more dodgy corner stores than there were corners, all sorts of reggae themed bars, street performers, food carts, and the other general tacky tourist attractions that are commonplace in a beach town. This town, however, had none of that and therefore none of the money that comes with it. It was fascinating to me how two completely homogenous cities could end up in such different situations. The thought was interesting but fleeting – my mind drifted back to the beautiful sunset I was watching while joking with friends in broken Spanish. I was having no trouble adjusting to life in Ecuador.

cheers,
matt