La Turista Perdida, Cayambe, Ecuador (Jul 2006)

I can’t sit here forever, so I push up, bracing backwards on my elbows to take the weight of the pack that’s discommoding my center of gravity. I feel more than hear the prrrrr of fabric separating as I do, oh this is just getting better and better isn’t it? Now not only am I thoroughly lost on an unmarked track of a road somewhere in the Andes, not only am I out of water and pantingly dehydrated in the thin altitudinal air, alone and having left no trail of breadcrumbs literal or digital by which my vulture-gnawed corpse may be eventually tracked down and returned to my grieving parents, oh no that just wasn’t going to be quite enough—now I have a giant hole ripped in the seat of my pants. I am tempted to fall right back down to a defeated seat on this rock wall again, but unfortunately that won’t change any of the relevant details here and now I risk having rocks poke at my newly exposed skin through the brand-new ragged tear, so upwards and onwards I suppose, the choices are limited to say the least.

The day had begun so well, too, I should know by now to mistrust auspicious beginnings. Although actually, now that I am contemplating it in the leisure of this entirely lost moment with only my thoughts for company on an abandoned road, the auspiciousness of the day’s beginnings were dubious at best, it’s all relative. Leaving Otavalo in the morning after the market, I had aimed for the market in the next town over, Cotacachi. My guidebook has told me that it’s the second-best place in Ecuador to buy handmade leather goods, and it’s a lot closer to my planned route than the first-best place so I am on a mission for a lovely leather handbag, or perhaps a belt, or I don’t really know but I certainly want to come away with some manner of trophy or prize, something about which I can modestly say, “Oh, I just picked it up at the leather market in Cotachi...oh, a little town in Ecuador…it was about $15, I think?” when I am complimented on my unusual and lovely accessory.

Leaving Otovalo, then, and early early, both to hit the market right when it starts and presumably snap up the best or most unusual products and also because I have planned a rigorous day for myself, after the market I am to head back south towards Cayambe and then switch buses to the Hacienda Guachala, where I want to arrive no later than 2pm so that I can go horseback riding up to the old Incan ruins and be back before dark. Arriving in Cotacachi, early early and I get off the bus, the station is a bit outside of town away from the main square and for a market day I’m surprised how few people are on the bus with me. I pull out my guidebook and orient myself on the sketched out map, the town square is that way and up, of course its uphill, everything is in these Andean towns and is there any particular reason why they couldn’t build a town in a valley, or on a plain perhaps?

Through deserted streets with shuttered windows, I am the only person around and all the shops are closed. I find a tienda with it’s beaten tin shutter propped open on a stick, buy some cigarettes and some water. I ask which way the market is, I fail at this spectacularly but the dessicated old man manning the tienda knows where I’m going anyway, why else would I be here? He confirms that I’m headed in the right direction and eventually I arrive at the main square, the heart of the market. Or at least, it will be at some point today, but right now I have the park to myself, sharing only with a few pigeons and one of those old men that gravitate to the main square of any city or town to contemplate the Spanish colonial façade of the church that inevitably presides over any Latin American city or town.

I sit down on a bench, contemplating the Spanish colonial façade of the church presiding over the square. Smoke a cigarette and I am trying to appear as if this is exactly what I intended, arriving at this deserted square, maybe just to look at these giant plaster statues of garishly painted farmers, it reminds me of Paul Bunyan statues for some reason, folk heros. There’s probably a story associated with this oversized diorama, but I don’t know what it is and will likely never know, the old man on the bench could probably tell me, such stories seem to be the prerogative of the old men in the square but I don’t understand enough Spanish to hear this story or any other he may have.

Still just me and the pigeons, and the old man and the church and the diorama, and now someone is pulling up a wheeled cart covered with a frayed blue tarp. With a couple of deft gestures the cart becomes a pop-up craft stall, and the woman starts hanging leather handbags and trinkets on hooks studding the thin poles holding up the top of her stall. I give her a few minutes to set up and then casually sidle over, touching everything lightly and not speaking, pretending that I am one of a swarm of people evaluating one of many vendor stalls. My pretense isn’t going so well, and I’d like to just buy something and then get on with my day and get out of here but there’s nothing here I want, the handbags are all diamond patterned leather with a fringe that I don’t like and furthermore I saw these all over the market at Otovalo yesterday, I want something different, something the tourist groups swarming yesterday’s market couldn’t get there because they didn’t know to come even higher up to this town today, I want the prize, the reward for my superior knowledge and planning and this booth doesn’t have it.

Back to my bench, then, and oh here comes another tarp-covered cart and the magician’s touch that makes it a craft stall, and as I feared it is all the same things, that is the way of these markets the world over, everyone selling the same products and all competing to sell you the same trinket, buy it from me not her. I sidle over anyway, what else am I going to do here, touch everything gently, smile and step away. I am running out of time if I am going to keep my day’s schedule, and I decide that getting to my horseback ride is more important that waiting for these vendors to trickle slowly into the square to display their identical goods, and didn’t anyone tell them that markets are supposed to start at dawn?

I leave the square empty-handed, walk down the cobbled street back towards the bus station, downhill this way at least, the sun coming higher over the mountains and now the town is starting to wake up, there are sweepers in the street and the shop windows are rattling open, maybe here but no it’s those same diamond-patterned leather bags and so I move past and return to the terminal, and board my next bus, on to Cayambe, this goes smoothly too so I am on track so far. We rumble down the mountain and around the curves, it’s about an hour on the bus and then arriving, I’ve looked and my book tells me there’s no central station and the place I’m aiming for is a little off the track, there’s no direct bus anyway, I’ll have to catch another bus and then get dropped at the closest access point and walk, and I am trying to make this connection fast I can’t afford to get stuck waiting for a bus for two hours if I am going to end my day on a mountain pony so I jump off the bus in Cayambe, according to my book I need to go two blocks to the right and then one straight ahead and then I’ll be at the right local bus so I walk fast and see a bus right there, it’s about to pull away perfect timing but have to make sure it’s the right one, I shout “Guachala?” The bus tout responds in rapid Spanish, I look at him blankly and point at the bus and ask again, “Guachala?” and he nods his head while rolling his eyes and I climb on, third bus of the day down and I am on my way and almost there.

The bus is supposed to drop me off right by the equator, there’s a little monument there proclaiming the belly of the globe and we pass it on the road, I tug at the tout’s sleeve and ask the question with my eyes, it’s more eloquent than my Spanish. He nods, he knows what I’m worried about, this isn’t the right place. He asks me a question, I guess trying to confirm exactly where I want to go, I understand only “Guachala” so I say “Si, la hacienda Guachala,” my guidebook said the bus drivers would understand where I wanted to go. It’s an old hacienda or farm estate that’s been reimagined as an eco-hotel ranch in the heart of the valley and it’s the only place a gringa like me would be headed. My research indicated that I could take a taxi from Cayambe, or alternately take a local bus, this one that I’m on, and ask to be dropped at the access road, from which it would be an easy one mile walk to a clearly marked sign. The bus tout and I have now conferred several times and agreed on “Guachala,” so we are all good to go and he shouts to the driver to stop a few minutes later, he’s given up on talking to me since sign language works better and points at me, and then the dirt road that is branching off to the left, I step off the bus and ask one more time, “Guachala?” pointing to the indicated road, just to make sure one last time that we’re all clear, he nods and rolls his eyes again “Guachala” declarative and certain, and then the bus pulls away.

It’s a crisp, clear day, middle of the summer but pleasantly cool high here in the mountains, and the road across from me is invitingly shaded by tall trees on both sides. My directions say I can take another bus the rest of the way, but it’s only a mile and it’s a beautiful day and early too, before noon and I am right on schedule, I am sure I can walk it before a bus would come anyway and it’s a better story to “hike” in to this hotel as that is definitely how I will tell this story, with no mention of the bus option. There’s a bounce in my step, I adjust the straps on my backpack and make sure my water is handy, I only have about half a liter left but its only a mile and I’ll be at the lovely hacienda soon, I cross the road and set off down that shaded road feeling a little bit like an adventurer from a fantasy novel.

A beautiful day and walking down a pretty road, and not steep uphill for once just a gentle rise. I walk for a while, I’m not really keeping track of time yet. I know it should take me about 15 minutes to walk a mile but everything is a little harder here at high altitude so it may take me longer, I make sure to keep drinking water, hydrating is important. There’s a fork in the road, to the right it continues on and to the left there’s a gate, could this be it? But my directions don’t say to bear left, and this gate doesn’t have a sign and there’s supposed to be a sign and I’m not sure if I’ve gone far enough yet, I pause for a moment, indecisive. Wait, perfect, I see three people walking down the road towards me from beyond the gate, I wave and shout, “Donde esta la hacienda Guachala?” pointing first towards the gate, and then towards the branch off to the right. They look at me warily and then shout an answer, I don’t understand so I ask again, “Guachala? La hacienda Guachala?” And they nod to each other and then point up the right branch, I smile and wave a thank you, adjust my pack on my back and continue on up the road, still stepping lightly and confident that I am almost there.

The road is climbing more here, the uphill is a little steeper and the trees have petered out, the sun beating directly down on my head. Off to my right I see a giant plastic tent thing in a field, looks like an agriculture project of some kind, there are four of them in a row and that is definitely not a hotel ranch and I keep going. The road is getting rougher, the ruts deeper and with fist-sized rocks cropping up occasionally, I haven’t seen a car or a bus yet and I’ve been walking for a while now shouldn’t there have been a bus by now? But there hasn’t been, and those people told me I was going in the right direction so onwards and upwards, and I see a gate off to the left, it leads to those giant plastic greenhouse things it’s not where I’m headed but there’s a man in rubber waders by the gate, he’s leaning on it laconically watching the approach of the tall blonde with a backpack out here where there are no other blondes with backpacks, and as I approach I stop, leaning on my knees for a second and panting a bit, “Donde esta la hacienda Guachala?” He looks at me blankly for a second, I know I asked that question right but he seems confused, I ask again, “Guachala?” And he nods, a little abruptly as if startled, and confirms, “Guachala,” but doesn’t indicate a direction. I ask again, “Donde?” pointing both ways up the road, ahead and then back the way I came although I know it’s not back there I would have passed it by now and there’s going to be a sign. He nods again, says “Guachala,” and points up the road, I am still on the right heading so I wave my thanks and continue on.

I keep walking, the road worsening and sun growing hotter, I take my last sip of water and something has definitely gone wrong here because even allowing for altitude slowing me down I have walked far more than a mile and I know it, but everyone keeps telling me that the Hacienda is up this road, from the guy on the bus to those people by the first branch to the dude in the waders so I’m not sure how I went wrong but I did somehow, and I am sweating and tired and this bag is heavy, maybe I should just sit down for a minute but there’s nowhere to sit down out here on this empty road other than in the middle of it, despite the lack of traffic I’m not quite comfortable doing that so I continue on. A few minutes later I see a low rock wall to the right, loosely stacked and then it looks like covered with chicken wire to keep the wall a wall rather than a pile of rocks. I’ll just take a little break here, take stock and evaluate my options, which really means take a moment and pretend that I have options.

I sit down, don’t bother taking my pack off I’ll just have to put it back on and if I lean back a bit the bottom of my pack rests on the wall too, just take a minute and get my breathing back to normal and I really wish I had more water but I don’t. So nice to sit down, and I consider my options, I could just stay here, sitting comfortably, until a car comes along and, except there hasn’t been a car for the hour I’ve been on this road so that is probably not going to work. I could backtrack the way I came, back to Cayambe and then get a taxi I guess, but that would take the rest of the day and I know I’m close, I know it, I followed all the directions perfectly and Guachala is somewhere close by it must be, probably just a few more minutes up the road and I know they’ll have water there. Whenever I get there. So I take a deep breath and stand up and then that prrrring sound…

I stand there, swaying a little. I consider crying, hey look I do have options, I could cry or not cry, it’s nice to feel like I have a choice of some kind. Crying, however, would just mean that I would be a tired, crying tourist, lost in the middle of the road and alone and still not at the Hacienda Guachala or knowing which way to go, which doesn’t really progress me much towards the goal of being a non-crying, non-tired tourist seated in a comfy chair at the Hacienda Guachala which has to be somewhere around here, it has to be. I decide not to cry, for the moment, although I am reserving the right to cry later if I deem it necessary or helpful in any way. I adjust my pack again, this time trying to pull it lower to perhaps conceal the rip in my jeans a little bit, as if there is anyone out on this godforsaken road to see it anyway. I continue on in the same direction, if I am lost, which I am, I am at least going to commit to being lost, I shall be as thoroughly lost as it is possible to be, despite the fact that I have that sneaking feeling that the Hacienda Guachala is probably right in front of me and lit up with blinking lights and neon arrows and I have just somehow managed, with all of my considerable talent of being oblivious, to not see it.

Around the curve and then Eureka, at last, I see something off to my left that looks like a driveway and not to an agricultural tent, there is a bona fide fountain there I have found something! I am not ready to quite believe that I have found the Hacienda Guachala, there is no sign but this is by far the most promising thing I’ve found on this road yet. There’s a middle-aged woman near the driveway, she sees me approaching and pauses, looking at me curiously, and I stagger up, panting, and ask, “Esta la Hacienda Guachala?” Her face smooths a bit, “Si,” and “Oh thank god I thought I’d never get here,” speaking English now because I know the people at the Hacienda speak English, I emailed in my reservation a week ago and they are expecting me, but her face is crunched in confusion again, she didn’t understand me and does not seem to have any expectation that a tall blonde tourist will wander in off the road, this must not be it after all and we try to exchange information but it’s not working very well, she can see the defeat on my face though and stops, says that she will get her daughter.

She steps away and calls in a clear, ringing voice, I am familiar with that tone, it’s how my mother used to call me and my sister home when we were playing out in the countryside where we grew up. A moment later and a young girl runs up, she’s about twelve or so. She has a quick conversation with her mother in rapid Spanish and then turns to me where I am swaying with my knees locked, and asks “What are you trying to find?”

“La Hacienda Guachala.”

“This is the Hacienda Guachala.”

“The hotel?”

“Aaaah!” We are having a moment of clarity here at last, and there is another rapid exchange of Spanish and then, “It is on this road,” I was headed in the right direction the whole time go me, “About five kilometers,” you have got to be kidding me there is no way I can hike another two and half miles up hill with this backpack and no water, her mother doesn’t understand the conversation but sees my face fall and steps in, why don’t I come inside for a moment and set my bag down.

I am not sure this is appropriate and I feel like I’m intruding, a stray wandering in off the side of a mountain, but they are kind and I need to sit down and take my pack off so I follow them into their ranch house. The daughter sits down to talk to me, she is excited to speak English and also to make fun of her mother for not speaking English “very good.” They offer me water, I accept gratefully. They also offer coffee, or would I like some fruit perhaps but I really don’t want to impose and the chance to sit down in the shade and drink some water without my backpack is all I wanted or needed right now. Well, that and to be at the Hacienda Guachala, which I have still not quite managed.

The daughter explains that her father will be in soon, he is trying to sell one of the horses or something like that, and until then we make the obligatory small talk of travelers. She is really excited when she hears that I’m from New York City, so delighted that she delights me too, after all let’s think about context here—she lives on a farm in a remote corner of the Andes and a New Yorker has just walked up to her house to have a conversation in English. She introduces me to their dogs, they are beautiful, and we are still waiting on her father so she insists on showing me the farm, there are llamas and a pond and a stunning mountainscape all around, I could be Julie Andrews singing in the Alps, except that I can’t sing.

We go back inside, her father is done with his transaction and I going to meet Josef. He strides over and shakes my hand, says in perfectly accented and inflected English, “Hi how are you?” This is certainly an unlooked-for boon; it turns out Josef was formerly an English teacher in Columbia. We talk, and I tell him I am from North Carolina originally, explain that I grew up on something similar to their hacienda ranch. At last I learn where I went astray on this misbegotten search for the Hacienda Guachala:

As it would turn out, the entire valley is the historic Guachala estate, and the bus driver dropped me off at the wrong access point. This explains why everyone kept pointing me further up the road, a tactic which I was coming to regard darkly as a malicious prank pulled on the lost tourist, but no; the whole valley is the Hacienda Guachala, and the hotel that I am aiming for is only one small part of it. Josef’s sister in law owns the hotel, or something like that, a cousin or other relation. He offers to drive me up there, I accept but then his daughter interrupts, she had insisted that she would take me on horseback. Josef pauses, and then asks me, “Would you like to go by horse?”

I don’t want to intrude, don’t want to impose, but I really really do want to go by horse and it’s not so much of imposition really when it is making his daughter’s day, as this whole interlude most definitely is. He sends his farm hand to saddle up the horses, they are Peruvian walking horses and we talk horse-talk for a while, the only walking horses I’ve been on are Tennessee walkers, hearing of the Peruvian breed is news to me. He’s not really familiar with quarter horses, which is largely what I grew up riding, which makes sense as it’s a Western US breed by and large, a cross between the Indian plains ponies and the Spanish stallions.

He assigns me to his daughter’s horse, and she runs alongside as we trot up the road, its shaded by trees again and I am enjoying the peculiarly smooth walking gait of this horse, it is subtly different from the Tennessee walker gait, and I am getting my horseback ride after all. We arrive at a hacienda, yes yet another Hacienda Guachala but it’s the right one this time, we’ve come up essentially by the back door and there isn’t a sign if I’d been on my own I might have missed it, well that’s not true if I’d continued on I certainly would’ve run eagerly to any sign of human habitation whatsoever and damn the lack of signage. We pull up and dismount, he is going to walk me inside and make sure that I am solidly landed in my intended destination.

He greets his sister-in-law or cousin or whatever she is, they embrace and kiss on the cheeks, they are speaking in rapid Spanish again and I can’t understand much of it but he gestures to me and says “la turista perdida,” he is explaining that he picked up a lost tourist off the side of the road. I am still pretty tired, but this whole interlude has given me my sense of humor back and when the hotel manager turns to me to greet me I smile and say, “Si, yo estoy la turista perdida,” and we all get a big laugh out of it. Josef walks me in, he takes my notebook and writes down his email address first though, if I run into any problems in Ecuador, if I need any help I should call him. I have a $10 bill folded in my hand, I have read that if people help you you should tip them, I am not sure quite how to do this but I am first world and they are not and they have definitely helped me. I realize just in time though that this isn’t the kind of help you tip for, this is hospitality, it’s different, a tip would be insulting, would my parents appreciate a tip if a stranded tourist wandered up to their house and needed help, no they would not.

As we walk onto the veranda, Josef sees another family eating lunch, there are shouts of joy and surprise as they greet each other vigorously. I learn that these are old friends, from Colombia, they have not seen each other in years and this family just happens to be on vacation at the Hacienda Guachala this weekend, the world is really that small, what a coincidence. Josef bids me farewell, so does his daughter, and I am already plotting the gifts I will send to them when I get home, a “Brooklyn” t-shirt for the daughter and maybe some of my mom’s homemade pickles, appropriate hospitality gifts, I have already given Josef my parents’ phone number and assured him that he will always be welcome in North Carolina, knowing that my parents will be eternally grateful to the man who picked up their dumbass lost daughter in the third world and delivered her to safety, sitting in a comfy chair at the Hacienda Guachala, not-crying, not-lost.

I will wait until tomorrow to ride up to the ruins.

Turkish Toilet Prison, Trieste, Italy (Sep 2003)

At last I have a day to myself, a day to wander aimlessly and explore as whim takes me. I’ve been traveling in Italy for the last few days with Steve, my ex-boyfriend, and the context is a little strange to say the least; he has a girlfriend in Seattle who’s not thrilled that I’m in Europe with him while she’s back in the States, and particularly unthrilled that he paid for my plane ticket. It is awkward to say the least, but when one’s close friend offers an all-expenses-paid Italian vacation, one does not refuse. He’s here for work, ostensibly, a scientist conference of some kind, I’m fuzzy on the details and don’t really much care, I’m just happy that it landed me here but it’s been odd traveling with him and today he’s off to do his conferring and I am on my own to explore this little town on the Adriatic. I’m not sure what I’ll do or where I’ll go, maybe some shopping or I’ll find a cathedral to gawk at, seems like every town in Europe has a cathedral to gawk at.

Setting out in the morning and the air is clear and crisp, I can smell the salt from the sea tingeing the air and the sky is cloudless and a particular shade of blue that I haven’t seen before, not Mediterranean blue because that would be a cliché and besides that refers to the color of the water, which really is that color despite the clichéd nature of the description. I turn left, and then right, I’m wandering slowly towards the old center of the city, I want cobblestones and alleys and Baroque architecture or at least architecture of some kind other than Modern Brutalism.

There’s a pedestrian shopping mall area, I can have my cobblestones but all of the shops are closed, metal grates pulled down over the windows. The streets are deserted, horror movie deserted, zombie movie deserted, and I examine the “opening hours” signs to see if maybe I’m just up too early for a sleepy Mediterranean city but no, nothing will be open today because its Monday and wandering these streets is kind of creeping me out. I turn down alley after alley, getting thoroughly lost and there’s no car traffic here the road is too narrow, an occasional scooter kicking up discarded flyers as they zoom off to wherever this town’s population is hiding today. I find a café finally, I don’t really need coffee but I do need something to do, somewhere to sit, so I get a cappuccino and sit down at the table outside and write some postcards. I’m the only person at this little café and the waiter is overly attentive, he must have drawn the short straw to be stuck here today.

Three cappuccinos and I can’t sit here forever, I reluctantly abandon my abandoned café and wander on. I could ask the waiter where to go, what I can do in this town today, but I don’t speak Italian and he doesn’t speak English or French, or maybe he does but I’m too shy to ask. I have a phrasebook but I find myself reluctant to use it, nothing looks more gauche than a tourist thumbing through a tiny book and awkwardly pronouncing slightly inappropriate phrases with the wrong accent and incorrect verb tenses, as they inevitably are.

On I go, I have hours and hours and hours until dinner. Left and then right and then curving upwards, a winding alley or road or whatever you would call it and this is definitely not on the map in my guidebook, in fact I’m not sure my guidebook even bothered to include a map of this town since no one really comes here to look at things, there are so many other places and things to look at in Italy and Trieste doesn’t have much to recommend it. There’s a castle on the top of the hill, but I’m supposed to save that to explore with Steve, the castle is off limits today. My alley is hugging a tall stone wall, picturesque with uneven rocks and moss growing on it, and then I find a gate. It’s a garden in here, with terraced paths winding up through the levels, it seems like maybe its connected to a convent or a nunnery or some other religious thing but the gate is open and the garden is beautiful and I don’t have anywhere else to go.

There’s no one in the garden, perhaps the nuns are hiding with the rest of the citizenry. I see a stone bench, also picturesque with those rough edges and moss growing on the legs and I pick that out as my spot, if nothing else I can bask in a ray of sunlight and read my book in this unnamed, unmapped, deserted garden. First, though, that coffee is catching up with me, along with the unanimous closure of all businesses comes the unanimous closure of all bathrooms available to the public and I have been wandering for a while and I had a lot of cappuccinos. There’s a signpost where two paths cross, it has weathered wooden arrows nailed at the top and one of them has the word “Toilettes” burned into it so I branch right and wind up the path further into the grounds and by now I can barely hear the street noise, or imagine that I couldn’t hear the street noise if the street had any noise today.

There’s a little toilet bunker at the end of the graveled walk, Modern Brutalism not picturesque at all, shaded by drooping trees and quite discreet. I’m hurrying a little now, I go in and turn to the door on the left which has a little picture of a stick woman with a skirt. The door is a full door, not a stall door like I’m used to and it looks to be steel or something, apparently toilets must be secured in this bucolic setting. I push the handle down and open the door and then pause, door ajar and not yet inside, because this is what I was afraid of, I am confronted not with the familiar porcelain throne but instead with a hole in the floor, footprints molded into the ceramic on either side, Western toilets can’t be taken for granted here. I am not thrilled about the notion of squatting precariously while trying to hold my garments clear and I am especially not thrilled about the custom of using one’s left hand rather than toilet paper, but I see a pile of coarse paper towels on the window ledge and really, biologically I am out of options, ah the joys of travel so I step inside.

I close the door and confront my enemy, the Turkish toilet. First I need to set my bag somewhere and as this is a no frills toilette, the builders chose to eschew the convenient hook on the back of the door, how do people do this here anyway? I refuse to let anything touch the floor, there’s a thin layer of moisture and I don’t even want to think about the origins of said moisture but there my brain goes anyway, examining the swirls of mud patterned on the floor, shoe treads of others who have squatted here before me. There’s the window ledge but it looks pretty precarious, it’s only a few inches deep and the last thing I want is for my bag to come tumbling down on my head while I’m in the midst of this unfamiliar operation. The door latch on the inside is the only likely candidate, I gingerly hook the strap of my bag over the latch and test it for stability, it doesn’t have to sit there for long but even if the bag doesn’t fall on my head I’m not sure I could ever touch it again if it hit the floor, spilling my passport and phrasebook into the muck.

Turn to the task at hand, a task which is becoming more urgent with every passing moment and my guts instinctively starting to release their clenched hold in the presence of a toilet, apparently potty training doesn’t recognize the difference between a Turkish and a Western toilet so why should I, with my higher brain functions, draw the distinction? I am an experienced seasoned traveler open to new experiences and furthermore I need to go right now, so carefully pulling pants down around my thighs and then my calves but still holding them up a bit so they don’t touch the floor, lightly touching the wall with my right hand to maintain balance because let’s face it, balance is not my strong suit by a long shot and much as I don’t want my bag to touch the floor I’d really prefer to not topple over backwards and land myself in the muck either. I’m supplied with a fistful of those coarse paper towels in my left hand, I’ve taken way more than I’ll need but it’s the psychological comfort of the familiar I’m seeking here. Well, that and something to wipe my ass with.

Relief, and then that wad of paper towels scraping over my skin and dropped in the hole, there’s nothing resembling a flush mechanism here and I’ve had to restrain myself from swatting at the fly or two buzzing around in this little toilet cabinet, can’t upset this tenuous equilibrium, and victory, success, I have overcome and stand up carefully, re-buckle my belt and then reclaim my bag, the door latch held up just fine for its limited responsibility and now I can get back to my stone bench and read my book in the Italian sunshine, my day back on track after this little adventure about which I will tell no one.

I push the door latch down and step outside.

At least, that’s what should have happened. What happens instead is that I push the door latch down and it gives a little bit but not all the way, and the door shows a dismaying disinclination to open. I frown, and push down again, and it gives a little bit but not all the way. I push harder and it’s fine now, really its fine its just a little sticky and it will open this time but it doesn’t. Jiggle the latch up and then down and still no progress and I am starting to panic now but there’s no reason to panic the door will open I am just being stupid here let’s step back for a second and see what I’m doing wrong, I am sure I will feel awfully foolish maybe I should pull instead of pushing but no that does no good either maybe it twists a different way try to remember how I opened it from the outside if it opened from the outside it has to open from the inside right but no apparently it is required to do no such thing and this door is not opening.

Ok. Ok, ok, ok, I am a seasoned and experienced traveler and I conquered the Turkish toilet I will not be defeated by a bathroom door. Step back and think but don’t step too far back remember there’s a hole in the floor filled with things I really don’t want to think about but it’s hard to avoid that thought when I can smell it, a smell I’d blocked out before and its not that its crazily strong its faint in fact but I am panicking and all of my senses are opening up and my eyes are wide open and probably stare-y and my nostrils are flaring sucking in air and there’s no avoiding that smell now.

Calm down and look at the door. I consider trying to pick the lock with a credit card but there’s a lip over the doorsill edge and I can’t wedge it inside. I try anyway and unsurprisingly my efforts fail. Look for the hinges maybe I can unscrew the hinges with my bare hands or knock the pins out or something but the hinges are on the other side of the door so that won’t work either. I experiment with pushing against the door, I’m not going to run because there’s no room to run this room isn’t big enough to get a running start but maybe if I lunge a little bit but no this door is steel and secure and who was I kidding anyway I can’t break down a door I could try to kick it but knowing me that will only knock me off balance and I’ll go tumbling back into that hole I’m skirting.

Ok, calm down, calm down calm down calmdowncalmdown, you can do this, I can do this, I can figure this out and really I don’t have a choice do I because nobody knows where I am hell even I don’t know where I am and nobody is going to come looking for me here or anywhere because this entire town is horror movie deserted and I am trapped in a Turkish toilet in an unnamed, unmapped garden in Trieste and telling myself to calm down isn’t working I am claustrophobic well not really I’m not scared of small spaces per se I’m scared of being trapped doesn’t matter if it’s a small space or a big one but a small one is worse and I am trapped here hyperventilating and that smell stronger with every shallow breath.

There’s a window. Focus on the window. The window is definitely big enough for me to climb out of, unfortunately it is shielded with welded iron bars and the latch only opens it a crack that’s all it gives. I try to break it anyway but the thick pebbled plastic, opaque for reasons of delicacy, is built to survive such attacks I am after all in a public toilet what did I expect Murano glass? I pry at the edges of the iron bars and logic has gone completely because even if I did break the window I still wouldn’t be able to get out past the bars and even if I did manage to pull iron bars welded into the wall out of their frame with just my fingernails I’d still be stuck unless I got past the window but fuck logic if I had listened to my instincts before I stepped into this shithole I wouldn’t be trapped now and I climb up on the ledge not that it helps but I can get my face closer to that wedge of open air there at the top and I scream, “Help! Help!” but there’s no one to hear me.

I climb down. Breathe deep, breathe deep, ignore the smell deep breaths. Someone will come eventually, someone has to come eventually, I am not actually going to die here (ImnotImnotimnot). I look through my phrasebook, “help” in Italian is “Aiuto” and I climb back up on the windowsill “Aiuto, aiuto, aidez-moi” sure let’s throw in some French can’t hurt “Je m’ai ferme dans la salle de bain help I’ve locked myself in the bathroom” and strangely my phrasebook cannot provide an Italian translation so I will have to stick to English and French “Aiuto aiuto!”

It’s fine I am fine everything is fine I just need to remain calm ok who I am kidding I need to get calm again and stay that way, someone will come eventually, I will just lean here against the wall no sitting on this floor I will lean and read my book, yes that’s what I’ll do I’ll just pretend that I’m on that stone bench in the sunshine reading my book. I can’t read, can’t focus the words are just swimming off the page and what if someone is in the garden but they don’t know I’m here because I am quietly reading how would they know to come open the door and “AIUTO!!!!!!!”

But careful, don’t scream yourself hoarse you can’t scream constantly and you’ve been in here now for two hours and no one has come yet and no one will be looking for you for another few hours if then I am supposed to meet Steve at 7 or so won’t he worry? But no, he won’t worry for a while, he’ll just assume I got distracted and caught up with something beautiful I can be flaky sometimes and he knows it and even when he gets worried at 8pm or so NOBODY KNOWS WHERE I AM and “Help, help, aidez-moi, aiuto, m’aidez” and I am screaming “Mayday” out a crack in a window in a public shithole in a little town in Italy not a pilot going down but I might as well be for all the help I’m getting.

Up and down off the window ledge, deep breaths and screaming. An hour on top of another hour, up and down aiuto help me aiuto and then maybe I am hallucinating but is there movement out there on the path? Screaming again at full volume yes there is someone hallelujah AIUTO and he sees me! He hears me, he does and then he disappears from sight nononononono he can’t leave he can’t leave me here not really can he nononononono AIUTO and whew relief there he is again but I am still screaming I am going to scream until I get out of here I won’t stop maybe not even then maybe I will be screaming for a long time AIUTO and he’s coming towards the toilet bunker and my fingers are actually bleeding a little bit from where I tried to pry to door open or the window bars off or the window open just trying to get out of this prison and oh my god the door knob is turning I have been in here for lifetimes it seems lifetimes and the gardener or whoever he is is opening the door and he looks awfully puzzled because why is this American screaming from inside the bathroom he doesn’t know the latch only works from the outside I didn’t know either and I don’t know any Italian so I can’t tell him I just push past him gasping for the fresh open air and the sunlight beating down on my pallid skin “Grazie thank you merci gracias grazie grazie mille grazie” I know how to say that and I should stay here and try to explain to him that I’m not actually a lunatic but I need the open air I need space around me and I am nearly bolting up the path to the top of the hill I need to see vistas stretching in all directions instead of the dirty tile walls of my Turkish toilet prison and gasping in the air and staring directly into the sun I don’t care that I’m getting those sunspots in my vision I am finally free again and I will never trust another door after this privacy can be a prison too and I am gulping in air gasping still until finally I slow down, my heart slows down too and now I am just sitting here on a rock in the afternoon sunshine, breathing deeply.

Scrabbling in my bag, I pull out my book and start reading again.

N.B.

Hey there, at this point I've spoken to some folks about these essays, and it seems like the biggest complaint is the lack of chronology. Each one is dated in the title, and I chose to write them out of order so that I could grab more breadth instead of writing about Ecuador for 3 months before moving on to a different environment. Also, it's more fun that way, so suck it up.

Additionally--thank you for reading! Now please tell me that you're reading, and comment at the site with your thoughts and post the links if you care to, as I am but a introverted shy writer sitting at home wondering if I am screaming into the void and there is nothing introverted shy writers like better than knowing that people are reading their work. I tried to set up a site meter but I am internet retarded and all I get is a weekly email saying NOBODY LOOKS AT THIS EVER EVER EVER.

Paragliding in Manali, India (Aug 2008)

Finally, a clear morning.

I’ve been stalking the adventure sports outfits in Manali for two days, waiting for a morning without monsoon rains so that I can jump off a mountain with a sheet tied around my neck. I’ve never been paragliding before, and I’m not sure it would have ever occurred to me as a thing to do until I read in my guidebook that Manali was a major center for paragliding. My guidebook wasn’t entirely sure that it still would be, as the operation was shut down for a few years after a few tourists jumped off mountains with sheets tied around their necks and failed to fly, instead dropping into the valley below in a distinctly non-superhero fashion. My luck is in, though, or out depending on your perspective, and the industry for dumbass tourists to leap to their probable deaths is back up and running. Of course, it’s pouring buckets of rain all day every day, and on the only clear morning we’ve had so far the jump shops were all closed for some reason. I’m leaving today, already booked my bus ticket on to McLeod Ganj for this evening, and I was afraid I’d wake up to rain again, no reason to expect otherwise. But fortune has smiled—or frowned, again depends on your perspective—and I am hovering outside the jump shop up the street from my hostel in Old Manali for an hour before someone finally shows up.

While I’m waiting, hunched on a slight stoop and trying to keep my feet out of the way of the motorcycle traffic occasionally roaring up this narrow alley, I am joined by others, waiting for who knows what, this is a country where people wait, especially tourists who can’t let go of that idea that things will actually happen when they are supposed to. We don’t talk, at least not to each other although the Israeli kids who came up here to party for the full moon are exuberant as they tease each other about being afraid of the snake guy. Said snake guy has pulled up a section of dirty stoop right next to me and spread out his baskets and bags of reptiles, and take a break from caressing his cobra to offer it to the Israelis, look ma I played with deadly snakes in India. He’s offered it to me as well, I didn’t jump away, I’m not scared of snakes and I know this one doesn’t have venom anymore but I have no interest in holding a cobra while someone takes the obligatory picture. The snake guy is impressed by my nonchalance, and when the larger snake slithers off his arm for a moment to explore the gal sitting next to him he is even more impressed when I absently stroke it’s satiny scales and then hand it back. He asks for a cigarette and I give it to him, then turn away slightly, I’m really not in the mood to gesture through a conversation right now I just want the dude running the jump shop to show the fuck up.

Only half an hour later he shows up, that ain’t too bad for India. I follow him in eagerly as he raises the metal curtain over the windows, “I want to jump today.” He looks around at the clearing skies and offers me a few price options, the cheapest jump isn’t going to end up so cheap for me since I’m going alone and I’d need to take a cab to the jump site, if it’s a few people going the company springs for it but not for just one. We talk about the high jump, it’s a little more expensive but he says he’ll include transportation for that one so it works out and I am going to jump from high over the valley, flight time should be around 20 minutes.

He has to call the pilot, and I have to check out of my hotel since I won’t be back before checkout, at least not reliably as we’ve learned nothing is reliable here. I throw my pack together and leave it in the hostel office pending my return, I’ll need to change clothes when I get back before my night bus ride. Back to the office and my pilot is waiting, he’s a little shorter than me and very fit, we don’t talk much as he leads me away from the office to our ride in a nearby parking lot, and by parking lot I mean abandoned corner of concrete somehow wedged into the alley.

It’s a motorcycle, the ubiquitous Enfield Bullet, and I am grinning on the inside while maintaining a solemn demeanor, I wish Gina and Maarten hadn’t left this morning so I could share the joke with them. These old British bikes are the transit of choice for machismo’d out locals and tourists alike, and the day before we’d seen a flyer advertising a Bullet for sale, touting amongst it’s many virtues the bike’s capacity as a “Babe Magnet.” This in turn led to a spirited discussion of how the magnet might function, if the babes were only magnetized when they were on the bike and thus the owner would be required to remain on the bike at all times, rendering some difficulties in reaping the benefits of said magnetic effects. Was the bike calibrated to a specific kind of babe, and if not would such calibration be possible or would the owner be saddled with magnetic babes of all stripes despite his personal babe inclinations?

I climb astride the Babe Magnet, and I must admit I do feel a little magnetized. We’re now part of that roaring motorcycle traffic and tourists leap out of the way to preserve their toes for another day, heading down the steep slope from Old Manali to the new town. Naturally there are no helmets, these roads are shit and my driver along with all the others drives like a madman, I’d hate to crack my skull open on the road, I’d like to save my skull-cracking for the mountain.

Through the old town and then turn up the road to the pass, I have no idea where we’re going but it’s a beautiful day and the wind is in my hair and I’m gawking around at the glorious beauty of this Himalayan valley with the sun on my face and a huge grin stretching my cheeks, what my dad would call a bug-catcher grin. We roar along passing the occasional TATA truck, and WOW what was that I give a brief shout of delight, off to our right in a roadside ditch a young boy is rinsing off a weary-looking elephant with a hose, it’s my first elephant sighting in India I wish I had my camera out but we are already going past, I am craning my neck backwards but its gone already, my pilot is aware that I am reacting to something and he smiles a little when he realizes what, silly tourist but I don’t care I finally saw an elephant. This ride is worth it already, I’d much rather be going up the mountain to my probable death riding pillion on a Babe Magnet and nearly falling off when I see an elephant than crammed into the back of a cab with three other people.

We pull over at turnout, we are waiting for something but I don’t know what. My pilot points to a knob of rock far above us, that is where we will jump from. We hover in the sunlight, I’m smoking nervously and then another car pulls up and disgorges four other guys, I guess this is what we’ve been waiting for, the parachute. There is some discussion amongst them and then he gestures me back to the bike, they will follow us or meet us there or I’m not sure exactly what the plan is but apparently there is a plan. Back we go up the twisty road, climbing back up towards the Rohtang Pass. I came over that pass three days ago in blinding rain, the name of the pass literally translates to “Piles of Dead Bodies,” which was naturally immensely comforting, especially when we stopped because a bulldozer had to squeeze alongside us on the narrow road to make repairs before we went over it. Today is clear so far, but the clouds are moving back in and it will probably rain before the day is out and I would like to not be on this road on a motorcycle when that happens, I tested my luck quite enough when I survived it the first time.

This, of course, from a woman who is heading up for the specific purpose of jumping off the mountain.

Up, and onwards, up the switchbacks and then we pull over at a roadside chai stand, we are waiting again, we beat the guys with the parachutes. My pilot buys me a chai, we make a little small talk but I’m not really in the mood and he’s not either. There are a few other people up here for the same reason and I have a chance to watch them jump, they fly over my head and into the valley with whoops of delight. Soon that will be me, and I am comforted by seeing them not-die, not-plummet-like-a-rock-to-their-inevitable-and-painful-death.

The other group has cleared the jump site now, and our chute has shown up, it’s my turn. We cross the road and climb up a steep hill for a few minutes, the track is muddy and slick. I’m carrying my day bag, containing everything I wasn’t comfortable leaving in the hostel office, like my passport, money, guidebook, and it looks like I threw a spare sweater in there too. Said day bag wasn’t designed for this purpose, it’s actually a handbag I picked up at a street fair in Brooklyn earlier this summer, and it slides off my shoulder, unsettling my precarious balance. I stumble and slide sideways in the mud, this is awesome. My only task was to walk ten meters up the hill, most people who come out here do multi-day treks and I am falling down already. My pilot comes back and picks me up, takes my bag in addition to the giant parachute-containing backpack he is also carrying. I am glad I am not with a group, there is noone to witness this particular iteration of clumsy incompetence except the pilot and his friend and I am sure they expected it anyway.

They spread out the chute on the mountainside, it’s blue. My guy takes my bag and shoves it into the back of the harness, suits me up with a helmet. He explains that after he gets in the harness I will strap on in front of him, when he says “go” we will run in tandem down the mountain for a minute or two and then jump as the parachute lifts into the thermals. He takes my camera and attaches the lanyard to the harness, and we buckle in.

I’m nervous, and scared, and excited—I don’t have a fear of heights but I do have a fear of falling, with good reason as I manage to fall down on a regular basis, and now I am going to fall on purpose. He gives me the signal and here we go, run run run and slip on the mud and I fall down sure enough, but its too soon to fall down he is urging me back up we still need to run so up and run run run and

Im flying over the chai stand and the highway and woosh to my left a huge bird wingspan must be three feet at least and we are sharing the same air the same thermal he cruising along just as we are and its so quiet up here no sounds just the softest of ssssh sounds from the wind and Im looking down between my boots at the valley below us carved by the silver ribbon of the river and tilt we are angling over to the cliff face and whoosh back over the valley on the other side and the wind is still making that ssssh sound and I am making little sounds of ecstasy Im flying now flying look up at the blue canopy darker than the blue of the sky beyond the bird is gone flew off somewhere else from where we are flying I am flying dropping gently through the air swaying slightly from side to side as we ride the winds down around the shoulders of the hills I am reaching out to try and touch the clouds the way a baby clumsily grasps for a bright toy I want to feel the clouds we are flying and down gently down slowly down and whoosh and rocking side to side as my pilot zeros in on our landing zone I want to stay up here forever and down the rocky expanse hes chosen for us getting ever closer hes explained that he will just set up gently down butts on the ground and we will slide to a stop I don’t want this to stop ever ground getting closer and close and bumping down on the ground sliding gently to a stop and I am still making those little noises but they are sad now because its over.

Go Slow, Caye Caulker, Belize (Aug 2007)

At last, we have achieved island paradise. It’s been a long, uncomfortable slog across Guatemala and Belize, and yesterday afternoon we were finally able to catch the ferry from Belize City to Caye Caulker. It is already working, within an hour of stepping off the ferry we’ve found an apartment for a few days and suddenly all the tension is draining out of my shoulders, maybe now it can just be a vacation, a pleasant interlude like normal people do instead of battling my way across Central America trying not to get killed, with only marginal success.

Still gotta move, though, the boat leaves at 9am and I’m going to make damned sure I’m on it. After learning that we can’t go to the Blue Hole (apparently it’s a tech dive that requires weeks of training in order to experience, who knew? And we don’t have weeks), the next best thing was a snorkel trip around the reef. It’s 8:45 and I’m walking up the main, and only, street. Not that it’s paved or anything, I’m barefoot on the sand. Debi and I split up and will meet at the boat, she wanted to stop at the bank and I didn’t want to wait, this trip has been such a challenge with Murphy’s Law in full effect and I just know that if I give the cosmos any opportunities I will end up missing this boat.

One of the locals wandering about in the street tries to stop me, to talk to me, and I brush him off, smile a little bit to take the bite out of my rebuff but I don’t slow down. He is offended, this may be the same guy that tried to talk to me yesterday right when we got off the ferry, calls after me, “Slow down, mon! Where are you from, New York? You’re on the island now!”

I call back over my shoulder as I pull further away from him, not breaking stride at all, “Actually, yeah. And this is slow for me.”

I get to the dock at 8:55am, everyone is assembled except Debi and while I don’t want her to miss the boat I am going to feel awfully smug if she does. I sit down and chat with an American couple, they’re living in El Salvador for a year and have just come over to Belize for a few days on vacation. They’re nice, but there’s an air of wholesomeness about them, they are not terribly specific about what they’re doing in El Salvador but I am pretty sure they are saving the world one country at a time, do-gooders who don’t curse or sin. You meet a lot of those folks in Central America, and I end up feeling slightly defensive about my purely hedonistic travel plans, designed solely to satisfy my own desires and passing by the poverty and desolation, it’s not on my itinerary. It’s worse because they’re so gosh-darned nice, all of them, they’ll help you with your bags, share their water, give up a seat on the bus, it’s hard to resent a candidate for sainthood but I manage it just fine.

It’s 9:15 now, and we’re still sitting at the dock. Debi strolls up, she is a better person than I am and there is no smugness about how she was right and I was wrong, there was really no need to rush after all. We are about to leave now though, and this boat is going to be more crowded than I thought, there’s a tour group joining us of twenty-something Americans. Debi and I talk mostly to each other on the boat, there are insular groups here, the Americans, the do-gooders, another random couple. The staff on the boat passes out our fins and masks, and lectures us very sternly that We Must Not Touch the Coral Under Any Circumstances. Then they relax a little bit, they’re flirting with us the way that locals flirt with pretty tourists in bikinis who are leaving tomorrow.

There’s a lot of us, and we all splash into the water for our first stop, I’ve never actually done this before but it can’t be too hard. We’ll follow the guide, he’ll point at things and we will look at them with no comprehension, and above all we Will Not Touch the Coral. Face down in the water and breathing through the snorkel tube, we swim along with small leg kicks, the fins are doing most of the work. The reef is quite shallow here, it’s right beneath us and there are schools of brightly colored fish swirling within inches of me. The guide points at this fish, or that one, we are all bumping and jostling for position. I’m having trouble with my mask, it’s leaking water, and every now and then I get a gulp of saltwater instead of air through my snorkel. I want to turn myself vertical, get my head out of the water and see if I can fix it but I’m right over coral and it’s challenging enough to keep the current from sweeping me into a hundred-year old, delicate, endangered organism and destroying it with a stray fin kick.

It doesn’t help that the bitch in the blue bikini keeps on crashing into me, every time I get my mask fixed and am able to concentrate on the snorkeling bit, ooh cool fish pretty reef, within moments this same girl will swim right into me, her fins will kick my mask or her shoulder bump into mine and knock my snorkel back into the water and then sucking saltwater again and choking, turning on my back to try and fix it maybe since I can’t put my head up out of the water.

Back on the boat and we’re sailing off to our next snorkel site. People are spreading out a bit more on the boat, I’m glaring at the blue bikini girl but she is oblivious. She looks Mediterranean or something, and now that I’m observing her I realize she’s a trophy wife, or girlfriend, slim young thing with a tight, perfect body and draping herself all over a grizzled man at least twenty years her senior, and she is immune to my glare, she is totally focused on her sugar daddy and couldn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks.

Before we get back in the water, one of the staff stops us, starts throwing chum in the water. Nurse sharks start swarming right next to the boat snapping up the boat, and he bellows, “Everyone get your cameras!” and the whole pack rushes over to the side, pushing for a better angle or a better shot. I’m stepping back a bit, my camera is down below and I’d rather take a long look at the sharks than rush to get it and then shove for a spot on the rail. I’m a little disenchanted with this whole process anyway, the photo op creation and the rush to capture an artificial moment, look ma I swam with sharks. The bait is gone and everyone got a picture, except me, and back in the water we go. I’m a little nervous because well, those sharks are still pretty close to the boat, but I guess they just ate so it’s ok.

Following our guide again, and look there’s an eel and that bitch in the blue bikini kicks my mask again, saltwater in my nose and I can’t see and I’m flailing. The guide sees that I’m having trouble and swims over to me, “You’re over coral, you’re kicking coral,” and I am a horrible tourist destroying a delicate ecosystem and I’ll feel bad about that once I’m not drowning. He tows me over to deeper water, I’m coughing and feeling sick, the saltwater burning my throat. This is not exactly an idyllic experience. He tries to help me adjust my mask, figure out why I keep getting water in my snorkel, and finally trades masks with me, his is way better than the shop stuff they give to day-trippers. It’s better, it’s an improvement, but I’m still feeling queasy as we climb back aboard the boat. Sunbathing on the deck as we sail on, Debi and I start chatting with the American group, or more specifically with their tour leader. The icebreaker is of course the giant bruise that is still adorning my left thigh, I’ve named it Margarita Bruz, I’ve spent three weeks traveling with it, it deserves a name. I tell him my bus crash story, and we talk about travel through Central and South America. He asks me if I’m looking for work, thinks I’d be a good tour guide and their company always needs good people. I laugh it off but I’m flattered, maybe I am pretty decent at this whole traveling thing, all that battling has paid off.

The last snorkel stop goes much more smoothly, as in I actually enjoy it despite Blue Bikini Bitch. I can’t believe she’s not aware that she’s jostling me every single time, she can’t be that oblivious, but somehow I get the feeling that punching one’s fellow tourist would be frowned upon.

As we’re sailing back into the harbor, the reggae starts blasting and we’re served fresh ceviche, raw shrimp cured in lime juice and salsa. It’s delicious and tangy, the rum punch washes it down nicely and I am going slower now for sure. The captain rings the bell, “Dolphins off the bow! Dolphins off the bow!” They’re escorting us back in, there’s the rush for cameras again but again I don’t bother, just teetering my way along the side of the boat to the front, one hand for me and one for the boat but the hand for me is holding a cup of rum punch, I am lucky that I don’t end up in the water with the dolphins.

There are two of them, and they splash and play in the water rilling back from the bow for quite a while, I probably had time to get my camera after all and I think about going back for it but really I’d rather just watch these sleek mammals with their permanent smiles as the sun sinks into the water, blasting a palette of reds and oranges across the clouds and glittering off the waves.

Border Crossing, Ecuador to Peru (Aug 2006)

Cuenca is just as beautiful as everyone told me it would be. It also happens to be really boring, an intensely Catholic city that rolls up the streets at dusk. Oh, it’s lovely to wander about during the day, gawking at architecture and wandering through the museums, but there’s no way it has enough to hold my interest for the next three days before I head back to Quito to fly home.

After three weeks in the Andes, wearing sweaters and demanding extra blankets in July, I am ready for something different, it is summer and I am in South America and I want a beach. Problem is, the closest beach in Ecuador involves almost two days on a bus to get there. Mancora, on the other hand, is ironically much closer—it just means I have to cross the border into Peru.

I’m nervous about this. Somehow, magically, I’ve managed to bump along here in the third world, all by myself and not understanding any Spanish. Ecuador’s good for that, prices are generally fixed, people are generally nice, and it’s generally safe. None of that holds true for Peru, as I’ve heard from travelers coming up north from Macchu Picchu. To compound the matter, I don’t have a guidebook for Peru—I’ve been clutching to my Ecuador Rough Guide as if it is the Alpha and Omega of my trip, it’s filled with notes and color-coded shiny stars and sticky pieces of paper, this has been my Bible for the past three weeks and I can’t imagine venturing into a new place without it.

But it is really boring in Cuenca.

The first thing I have to check is the immunization information—I didn’t need a yellow fever shot to come to Ecuador, and I don’t need one to enter Peru from Ecuador, but I might well need one to re-enter Ecuador from Peru, internet information is a little fuzzy on this and I don’t want to get stuck there when I have a plane to pick up in Quito. The woman at the tourist information booth on Cuenca’s main square assures me that I will be fine. I question her again, she’s not a guidebook but she seems convinced, even though she hesitated at first. If I get stuck in Peru I am going to blame her.

I met some German girls who had come up from Peru a week before, and I borrow their Lonely Planet, wishing all the time it was a Rough Guide, I trust those guides more than the LP. Their guide has two pages on Mancora and how to get there, so I take a few notes on the bus transfers required and write down a couple of hostel names. There are a couple of ways to manage this border crossing, everything seems to indicate that I should go through Huaquillas and there are a couple of transit options. I am tempted to go the total shoestring route, local buses all the way with multiple transfers and a couple of combi taxis in the mix. Now that would be an adventure.

Ultimately though, I chicken out. I am tempting the gods quite enough by striking out from my Ecuadorian safe space, I will take the luxury bus. I have to come back to Cuenca anyway, and I don’t want to take the whole backpack with me across the border, I’m tired of carrying it and also the bigger the bag, the more vulnerable you are, so I buy a small duffel bag in the market and pack for a beach weekend, just a bathing suit, flip flops, towel, and a couple of tank tops. To the main Cuenca bus station and I’m off for the first leg, Cuenca to Machala.

Machala is still in Ecuador, so this is the easy part, we pull into the central bus station and I learn that I have an hour or so until the luxury bus leaves. I buy a quimbolita from a street vendor, I love these things it’s become my favorite bus snack, a dense cornbread wrapped in a banana leaf and sometimes filled with meat. There’s an internet café across from the bus station, so I go over to see if I can avoid backtracking this entire bus route on my way back, maybe there’s a hopper flight from Tumbes to Cuenca, no luck it seems I’d have to fly from Tumbes to Lima to Quito to Cuenca and that’s just ridiculous, maybe if I’d brought my pack with me but I didn’t so I am resigned to busing it all the way back after this little weekend adventure is over.

Time to board, and the luxury bus is really quite luxurious indeed, it’s a double decker with reclining seats and footrests, there are TVs playing movies and it’s comfortably air-conditioned. It’s about twice as expensive as the other options, but the bonus here is that the bus will take me all the way through to Peru, making the necessary border immigration stops, rather than getting dropped off on the Ecuador side and having to manage the crossing myself, then picking up transport on the Peru side. Huaqillas is supposed to be one of the easier border checkpoints but as at any border, you’re vulnerable and exposed and there’s a whole battalion of people hovering to take advantage of that.

We reach the border and the bus stops. I don’t really know what I need to do so I just follow the slightly impatient lady from the bus company, and trail off into the station after everyone else. I’m the only gringo and I get in the wrong line, everyone else is waiting in the line for Ecuadorian or Peruvian nationals and I am obviously neither. The immigration official hands me a piece of paper, it’s in Spanish and so are his instructions, he grimaces at me wearily and waves me off to fill it out after a few failed attempts to explain it to me. I step uncertainly to the side and try to puzzle this out, and while I’m all apuzzled a local guy rushes up to me and says, “I will explain you, I will help you.” He takes it away from me, I was already halfway there with my name and passport number but he insists and I don’t have the wherewithal to reject his insistence, I’ve heard about this happening, he’s next going to insist that I give him money for assisting me but I just won’t, that’s my solution, and I’m just too confused by this whole process to stop him. I wish I spoke more Spanish.

All the paperwork is filled out now and the guy leaves while I get my passport stamped, maybe he was just being nice after all. I leave the office and head back to where the bus is waiting, no such luck here’s my new friend or really jackal as he should be known, or coyote and he is demanding that I give him twenty dollars. I wave him off but he follows, I laugh at his twenty dollar request, it’s an absurd amount of money for this part of the world. He did help me, though, so I give him two dollars just as that slightly impatient lady from the bus approaches, she’s seen what’s going on and she chases him off, guides me back to the bus, stupid gringo.

I’m a little shaken, I thought I was tougher than that but I was wrong, see what happens when I don’t have my guidebook? Thank god I decided to take the luxury bus.

Now that we’ve passed immigration, we have to actually cross the border. We can’t do that on the bus, so they drop us off in the town and point in the direction of Peru; they’ll pick us up on the other side. The area around the bridge is frenetic, merchants and food vendor stalls crunched up on top of each other and sideways in this dusty, hot town with nothing to recommend it other than it’s fortuitous position between countries. I’m meaner than I need to be, probably, as I snarl at everyone who tries to talk to me, tries to sell me something. Over a simple footbridge and now I’m here, I’ve arrived in Peru. I follow my fellow busmates and we board the bus again, the next stop is Peruvian immigration and for the next few hundred meters I am not anywhere officially, I have left Ecuador but am not yet in Peru.

Peruvian customs is much easier, and we get back on the bus and go on to Tumbes. From there I need to find a bus to Mancora, but I also need to get some solas, the local currency, all I have is dollars from Ecuador. There’s a guy on the bus with me and he has already guessed I’m headed to Mancora, where else would I be going on this bus from Machala to Tumbes, if I wanted to go to Lima or Cuzco from Ecuador I wouldn’t chosen a different route, maybe through Villacamba. He speaks pretty decent English and he’s very patient with my non-existent Spanish, I ask him where I can go to get solas and he looks at me, the earnest and inexperienced, perhaps slightly dim tourist, and says that I should go to the money exchanges. This is not terribly helpful.

I disembark in Tumbes. I don’t have a map of this town, no friendly hints as to the best or safest places to change money, and worst of all there are no central bus stations in Peru, the bus companies are all spread out around the city. The city I don’t have a map of. I have no idea where I’ll find my next bus to Mancora.

There are tuk-tuk drivers swarming the bus as we get off, they drive auto-rickshaws around the city as a cab alternative for short distances. I’m overwhelmed and mostly I just start saying “No” over and over again, have to get clear of these parasites. My new bus acquaintance directs me to one tuk-tuk driver, I don’t trust him really but what else am I going to do? I’m at the mercy of these people, I just want to get to my next bus as fast as possible.

I tell my driver that I want to find a money exchange and the bus to Mancora. He drives us around for a while, everything I wanted was probably within walking distance of where I got off the bus but I don’t know that for sure and I don’t know what direction it’s in. He insists on talking to me in Spanish even though I’ve explained repeatedly that I don’t understand. I change some money and then he takes me around to a bus company, he says this is the next bus to Mancora and I really have no choice but to believe him. I made a mistake though, we didn’t agree on a price before I got in and now he’s telling me that I owe him 20 solas, I don’t know anything about this place but I know that the going rate for a tuk-tuk ride in town is about 2 solas. It’s too late now though, maybe if I’d taken him up on his offer to be my Peruvian husband I wouldn’t be getting ripped off now.

I snarl at him, letting him know that at least I’m aware I’m getting ripped off, I may be a clueless gringa but I know that much. He leaves, and now I just want to get out of this place, it’s dusty and dirty and hot and these people suck. I go into the bus station and they tell me the next bus will leave for Mancora in 6 hours. What the hell am I going to do in Tumbes for 6 hours??

I don’t know where anything is here, I could choose to just hover close to this miserable bus company office for the next six hours waiting for the bus that will take two hours to get to Mancora, or I could venture forth all defenseless into the teeming flocks of tourist vultures that nest in Tumbes and try to find another way.

I’m not a particularly patient woman, so I venture forth, keeping careful track of how many blocks I’m going and what turns I’m taking so that if nothing else at least I can backtrack to the six hour wait if I have to. I find a couple of other bus companies, but no one is going to Mancora any sooner than the one I just left. I’m about to give up when I hear a tout shouting, “Mancora, Mancora!” It’s a combi taxi, which means it’s a minivan with people crammed into it, he’s going to Mancora and leaving right now. I go over and ask how much, it’s 6 solas and I climb in. I think that I’m the last one in because it’s so full, but no another two people and their boxes and bags squeeze in, I’m hunched into a corner in enforced fetal position and really damned glad that I don’t have my backpack right now.

We leave a few minutes later, and it’s a uncomfortable two hour drive down the PanAmerican Highway. Pretty though, with the desert-ish scrub out the left window and occasional glimpses of the Pacific out the left. Out of Tumbes at least and now these people seem nicer, I manage to tell them where I’m trying to go and when we get to Mancora at last they make sure that I’m pointed in the right direction to find my hotel, the one whose name I scribbled down from the Lonely Planet guide a few days ago.

I walk in, the hostel is right on the beach. They do have a room available, and I just go ahead and book it for the next three nights, for better or worse I’m staying here. Traumatic enough to get here and I am not going to bother with shopping around for a better or different hostel tomorrow, this place is right on the beach and that’s all I wanted really. I drop my bags in the room and then walk out, sinking into soft sand almost immediately. The Pacific is right there in front of me, and the hostel beachside bar has tables stretching almost to the water’s edge. I sit down, light a cigarette, order a mojito from the waitress who swings by, and watch the sun set into the ocean in Mancora.