At Sunset's Door - Olon, Ecuador

Before coming to Ecuador, I had researched the entire country for close to a year. Most people who had moved there before me talked about not having a personal vehicle. Buses and taxis handled the job of moving them around the country. 

I remember thinking how liberating that concept was to me, in both a personal comfort zone and in keeping with a "green" environment. The idea of riding the buses everywhere was a bit challenging at first, but after a few assisted trips I seemed to have mastered the art of travel here in my new home. 

Last week I went north to take care of some sightseeing and some personal business. It took me three different buses to travel the five-hour distance, but I actually did quite well maneuvering the big bus terminals. On the way home a few days later, the same trip was completed using four buses, but again I managed to get on the right bus each time, and safely made it back to Olon Thursday night.

So, yesterday morning I walked to the local bus station and boarded a bus to Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest and most populous city. I thought I was doing fine until I got to the bus station from hell in the city. The place is huge! A helpful soul assisted me in finding the taxi stand, where I needed to grab a cab downtown to get my official Ecuadorean Resident ID card. Getting a cab was perhaps the single toughest thing I've had to do since I got here two months ago.

I walked out to the taxi area, where I attempted to get into a line for the next incoming cab. I had no idea that  at least a hundred locals would jump in front of me, taking every available seat in every cab that pulled up. I knew I had to toughen up quickly, so I marched over to a woman directing the cabs, and basically whined in my best Spanish that I needed to get to the Civil Registry downtown. She smiled at me (probably thinking what a dumb Gringo I was), and put me into the next taxi that pulled up. Three more people piled into the little car, but at that point I didn't care if it was boarded by a troupe of clowns!

The driver took off for downtown, narrowly missing other cars and taxis by inches at least a dozen times. With my heart in my throat, I clung to the handle over the door and held on tight. But I made it, or I wouldn't be here to tell you this story, would I? 

After getting my business done a few hours later, I went outside and started waving down a cab. Two of the drivers actually refused to go to the bus terminal, and I instantly found myself respecting them for that decision! But I found a cab, and off we went. Within two minutes we had already had a couple of close encounters, but about five minutes later my driver played chicken with another car trying to get into the same space. I heard the slap of rear-view mirrors colliding, and thought that my trip was about to be delayed. Wrong! He just kept driving, not caring about what had just happened. It was actually pretty funny; I couldn't help but think that back in the States they would have both stopped, screamed at each other for a while, and then filed "whiplash" complaints, but here in Ecuador it was just business as usual!

But here's where the hell part started. My taxi dropped me off out in front of the building and I entered the terminal. The place is huge, as I said, and resembles a mall, with retail stores and restaurants everywhere. I went to where I saw ticket counters earlier, and began searching for the office of CLP, my bus ride home. I searched everywhere, or so I thought, to no avail. I asked a policeman where I could find the ticket window and he directed me to a completely different place I hadn't been to yet. I bought my ticket, after going to two wrong windows, and made my way back into the terminal to find Gate 74. 

I walked the entire terminal before I once again stopped to ask another policeman where the gate was. He said "Arriba" (upstairs) and pointed me to an escalator. Up I went, and began a search of this new level I had been unaware of earlier. With the same results (or no results, actually), I once again approached somebody to ask about my gate. I got another "Arriba, senor," and was pointed to another escalator. Three levels; hundreds of buses, and thousands of people. It was amazing that I ever got out of there, but I fell into my seat when my bus pulled in and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had conquered the giant and lived to get away! I felt like I had just won the lottery or something!

It is cool that Ecuador has an incredible system of buses and cabs throughout the country. Mass transportation is simply a way of life here, and the locals take it for granted that they have this available to them. In Guayaquil alone, there are probably a thousand city buses that move their four million inhabitants around each day. It's what we've needed in the US for a long time, but it will probably never happen; we all value our mobility too much to give up our vehicles. But here in Ecuador, I'll be riding the buses and taking taxis. Did I mention that I love not having to deal with owning a car?   

Hasta luego! See you soon!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Enjoy your holidays!

 

Mark 

 

If you haven't read any of my books yet, let me offer you a free copy of my first one, Serpent's Curse. It's a fun, quick read, with a little bit of a dark twist. Here's a link for a PDF copy:

      http://www.cocoabeach.com/bradbury/Serpent%27s-Curse_Mark_T_Bradbury.pdf

Let me know if you like it! Thanks!

At Sunsets Door - Olon, Ecuador

Thursday, December 3, 2015

I was walking along the water's edge here on the beach a couple days ago. I was poking along, looking for interesting things when I spotted what appeared to be a black trash bag stuck in the sand up ahead of me. I was upset that someone would leave something like this on our beautiful beach, and so I worked my way up to the tide line to investigate. When I got to the "trash bag" I got a bit of a surprise.

It wasn't trash at all! It was a good-sized sea turtle caught up in the shallow water. It appeared to be dead, or so I thought upon my initial inspection. Since I was the only person around, I began talking to the turtle, hoping to get some sign of life. I was rewarded when she raised her head slightly and opened her sad eyes, looking helplessly up at me.

My guess is that she came up during the night to lay eggs on the beach, and couldn't get safely back to the water before losing her strength. Since the tide was low, and had gone way out, she was about twenty yards or so from any water at all. I don't know how long she was laying there, but the sun was shining brightly overhead, and it was probably cooking her inside her own shell. The sun here on the equator is very intense, and it doesn't take long to get a sunburn, so it made sense that she was probably extremely dehydrated.

Having never encountered a sea turtle quite so close-up and personal, I wasn't exactly sure what to do, but I knew she needed to get into the water to have any chance at life. I got a hold of her shell at top and bottom and tried to lift her into the water. She was heavy, and since I have a balky back on a good day, it took me a while to get her into the shallow water. I pushed her along as best I could until the incoming waves started to roll over her a bit.

I heard a woman's voice behind me asking me if the turtle was alive. I turned and told her it was, and she came down to the water to help. The two of us continued pushing the turtle into deeper water, and after a half-hour or so, she started showing some strength. Her flippers and back legs responded, and she was making every effort to swim into the waves. She wasn't quite strong enough to swim through the  crashing surf, so she kept getting washed back into the shallow water.

My assistant thought that everything was okay and continued her walk back towards the main beach. I spent another thirty to forty minutes helping my new friend back into the deeper water every time the incoming tide forced her backwards. She made a valiant effort to break through, flippers pumping and holding her head up high. I was pretty stoked!

Unfortunately, she didn't make it through the waves. She was pushed back once more into the shallow water, but this time she turned around on her own and headed back out. She raised her head and looked right at me; I could almost feel her gratitude. And then she started pumping her flippers and off she went. I think she made it that time, because I didn't see her again.

I've had some adventures since arriving here, but this one was probably the best. The worst part of it is that for the first time in weeks I had gone to the beach without my camera. I don't have a single photo of this event, but I have some terrific memories!

Hasta luego! See you soon!


Mark


If you haven't read any of my books yet, let me offer you a free copy of my first one, Serpent's Curse. It's a fun, quick read, with a little bit of a dark twist. Here's a link for a PDF copy:

      http://www.cocoabeach.com/bradbury/Serpent%27s-Curse_Mark_T_Bradbury.pdf

Let me know if you like it! Thanks!

It's been almost three weeks since I landed here in Ecuador, and so far things are going well. I had some early culture shock, having never visited this country before, but I got over it quickly. I think it's necessary for people interested in living in a new country to accept the way things are. If you think you're going to change the way they have lived for centuries, you should probably just keep your bags packed and return home.

That  being said, I was shocked by some of the things I saw on my way to my new home in Olon. When you look at the travel brochures or the travel magazines they do a terrific job at showing you the best of the beautiful places. They show the tropical beaches (which are truly spectacular), the natural scenery (again, nice) and the highlights of the towns and cities. They don't show you the Third World poverty that is the norm for most countries I've ventured to prior to coming to Ecuador, and this nation is no different.


There's a couple from Florida here at my hotel that have been visiting for the past week. After two days here, the lady made the statement (often heard from travelers) "this is a nice place, with a gorgeous beach, but I would never live here." She's basically not willing to give up the comforts of an American-style retirement in Florida. The difference for me is that I'm willing to look past the poverty that surrounds us here, and accept the fact that the locals here are happy, well-fed and enjoy their lives despite not having the material things we've all struggled to get our whole life. The natural, rugged beauty of the coastal areas and the beaches here are balm to my soul. I made the choice to leave the States to live a more laid-back lifestyle. The natives call it "tranquilo," pretty much the same word.

The dichotomy of the coastal zone is everywhere. Walking down the streets around my little town, you'll see homes that are as rustic as it gets, and others that are finished nicely, side by side. Nobody seems to care if their neighbors are living in a shack; they all like and respect each other. Their kids play in the park together, or they play soccer in the streets, and I haven't seen a game console since I've been here. The middle class families from Guayaquil come here on weekends and play on the beaches all day long. This is definitely a good area to raise a family, even if some of the parents struggle to feed and clothe their young ones.

As many of you who follow my Facebook postings can attest, I spend a great deal of time each day walking the beach. I usually walk a couple of miles each day, soaking up the salt water and air I love so much. As I walk the sands, I see a tremendous amount of newer, and a ton of new, construction along the shoreline. Beach front property is no longer a cheap proposition here, as prices have gone up considerably in the last few years.

Homes, and compounds, like the ones shown here, are some of the newer additions to the beachside. A local friend told me recently that almost all of the oceanfront land has been bought up here, and construction of condos and gated communities is either underway or soon to be.

Eventually some of the money spent by these new property owners will trickle down to the locals here, but I doubt that their way of life will change that much. Things along Ecuador's Coastal Zone have been the same for centuries in some towns, continuing the uninterrupted cycle of life evident here since the ancient Valdivean culture built their homes and temples here.

Hasta Luego (see you soon)!!!!

This morning at 6:47 an earthquake of a 5.3 magnitude rumbled through Ecuador. The quake was centered just outside of Ecuador's largest city and major seaport, Guayaquil, in the south. Apparently, this isn't enough to stop a good fiesta.

Guayaquil won a battle with the Spanish and declared their independence from Spain 195 years ago today. They became known as the Free Province of Guayaquil, and would become a part of the country we know as Ecuador later on. For those of you looking for a calculator, that's October 9th, 1820! That's only forty-four years after our own American Revolution.

As I did my morning drift through Facebook I saw several posts about Guayaquil. There were some about the earthquake (which apparently is not a big deal there), and there were some about the celebration. The party was definitely getting the most press. Here's a photo of Ecuador's President, Rafael Correa, arriving for the parade.

  

         

                               Courtesy: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador

And here's an Ecuadorean dragon, I presume. 

                                                 Courtesy of Twitter Users

What parade would be complete without a few beautiful women?

                                           Courtesy of Twitter Users

How about a brass band?

 

                                                   Courtesy of Twitter Users

I've been told that Ecuador is a land of fiestas. It seems they celebrate everything there, and no little earthquake is going to stop the fun. I'm moving to an Ecuadorean beach town called Olon on the Pacific coast in three weeks. It's a relatively quiet little town, but is only about five miles away from the surfing and partying capital of the coast, Montanita. I'm told that a $1.50 cab ride puts you in the middle of the action, so I'm sure I'll be venturing over the hill that separates the two towns on a regular basis. 

As my travels to Ecuador unfold, I'll be sharing my experiences and photos. I hope you'll watch for them, and enjoy them as much as I plan to. 

I want to thank David Sasaki of Cotacachi, Ecuador for posting these great photos of the parade. David is an amazing guy who spends most of his free time enlightening the expats of Ecuador and the soon-to-be people like me.