Seven Days in Ecuador - Part Three

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Seven Days in Ecuador - Part Three

Fri 16/05 - Sun 18/05/08

The coach pulls into Mindo around 11am. Mindo is a small town with less than 3000 inhabitants. The high street extends a couple of hundred yards, consisting mainly of bars, restaurants and tour operators. Mindo thrives on ecotourism, pulling in the punters who come to see the diverse wildlife and to take part in outdoor activities among the lush jungle backgrounds.

I booked myself into a place called the "Frog Hostel" online, and so set about trying to find it. No one in town seems to have heard of the place, but I've got directions. I need to head for a place called Mindo gardens, then make a left and the hostel is a five minute walk from there. Mindo Gardens are 4km away, and I decide to walk it rather than take a taxi, as I've limited cash.

I make my way along the rough, stony road, along the riverbank. It takes almost an hour to reach Mindo Gardens, which turns out to be a hotel. Up ahead, the road comes to an end, blocked by a locked gate, behind which is a bridge crossing the river. There's a steep path junctioning to the left, so I assume this must be where I need to head.

As I walk up it, something doesn't feel right. The road is rocky and remote, and since leaving town I haven't seen a single sign for the Frog Hostel, whereas all the other places are clearly advertised. I round a bend and see a group of bamboo huts over to the right. I walk up to two workmen standing outside - "Frog Hostel?". They scratch their heads. They can't speak any English, but surely they would recognise the name of their own place. Just in case, though, I use repeat the question, using the Spanish word for frog, accompanied by a rather lame attempt to mime a hopping amphibian. Still no positive response. In fact, they look mildly concerned, though I mean them no harm. The place looks half-built and deserted, with no other sign of life.

I walk back down the path to Mindo Gardens. The directions on the internet also suggest asking there if unsure of the location. I walk along the path, past humming birds hovering at feeding stations, and up to the front door. The receptionist doesn't speak any English. I show her the address of the Frog Hostel with I copied from the net. She looks just as puzzled as the workmen.

She asks around, then phones her boss, but no one has heard of my hostel or has any idea where it might be. I end up being led back up the path by one of the Mindo Garden staff, to another building site further along. We clamber up over scaffolding, and talk to a young builder, who speaks a bit of English. As he makes phone calls, my friend from Mindo Gardens, a young guy around twenty, disconnects the generator powering all of the machinery, bringing work to a standstill much to the displeasure of a couple of the builders. The guy on the phone then talks to his workmates, but when he's done, I'm still none the wiser. Once again, I have somehow rendered a simple task impossible, drawing numerous others into the mystery and taking up their good time.

We walk back down to Mindo Gardens. My companion talks constantly, and I understand nothing. Eventually, I realised he is asking if I want to stay at their hotel, but it's too expensive, so I thank him, and leave. I head back towards the Mindo Mariposa, a butterfly sanctuary where the guy on the building site suggested I ask for directions. They also haven't heard of the Frog Hostel, which leads me to believe it no longer exists.

I end up checking into another hostel a few yards up the road, between the Mariposa and Mindo Gardens. I catch a lift back into town and explore for a bit, before going to one of the tour operators and booking a guide to take me bird watching and canopying in the morning.

Saturday. I'm up at 6.00am, and get ready to go bird watching with the guide I met yesterday afternoon. We leave at half six, and take a route up a pathway, above the river and into the jungle. We walk for three hours, spotting dozens of different species, including Toucans, Quetzals, Woodpeckers and Humming birds. At 10am we arrive at the canopying site.

Canopying involves ziplining through the jungle treetops on a series of wires, between 100 and 150 metres from the forest floor. I get kitted out, and a stunningly attractive Ecuadorian girl buckles up my harness (Ecuador's women are amazing). I get brief safety instructions, and then we move up to the first platform.

Looking out over the vast jungle, I feel a little nervous. I'm not great with heights, especially if there's nothing firm beneath me to reassure my brain that we're in no danger. So, the prospect of dangling high up in mid air causes me a little concern, and for a moment I'm doubting if I can do it. Then, I locate my balls, and step off the edge. I'm sat in an upright position, with one hand above me on the line, ready to pull down and slow myself when I near the end.

My fears wash away, and I stare down at the tree tops, taking in the amazing views. When I reach the other side, I look up to see a screaming girl flying in the other direction, lying on her front in what's known as the "Superman" position. The instructor tells me that's the last of the ten lines I'll be riding. It looks at least thirty metres higher than I am right now, and as I watch her disappear, the girl’s screams echo across the jungle.

As we walk from one line to the next, the guide points out the many species of orchids that line the pathway. Each line gets progressively higher, and the views more spectacular. On most, I fly across alone, but on a few I get encouraged to try out the "superman" and the "butterfly." I have no problem with the superman, although to a casual observer, it might appear to be an act of flying sodomy. The instructor stands behind me, whilst I lie on my front, arms out stretched and legs wrapped around his waist so he can support me. As you shoot down the line, looking directly down at the ground below, it does actually feel like you're flying - you can't see the line or the instructor behind, so to your eyes at least, it appears that you're floating in mid air.

The butterfly is less fun, and even less dignifying. You lie on your back, whilst the instructor grabs hold of your legs. You're then expected to flap your arms and legs from side to side, simulating the wings of a butterfly. Not only do you look a total dick, but because you're on your back, you can't see anything but the sky above. You miss out on the view, and the experience is quite disorientating. Thankfully, I only perform one token butterfly, just to show I'm game.

One of the wires has a whiplash effect that allows you to bounce up and down like a kangaroo. On the final wire, the highest and longest of all, I adopt the superman once more, and flash across the tree tops. When we reach the other side, myself and my guide head back down the mountain path. We hitch a lift on the back of a truck, passing by groups of young teenage girls, who giggle and flirt. My guide talks about how hard it is for a guy to find a good girl in Mindo, as the men outnumber the women by about three to one, meaning competition is fierce.

We arrive back in the town centre. There's a festival going on, celebrating the anniversary of Mindo's foundation a hundred and fifty years ago. A stage has been put up, and a crowd is standing around in a circle, watching traditional Latin dancing. I buy my guide lunch at a restaurant he recommends, then we part company, and I walk back to my hotel.

My plan now is to go tubing. This is one of Mindo's most popular activities, and involves floating down the river over rapids on a group of rubber inner tubes, all tied together. If you've ever met another traveller who's been to Laos, you'll have no doubt heard all about it. (As a retarded Israeli guy told us in 'Nam: "Forget Thailand, man, go to Laos"). Indeed. Anyway, it's still early in a day that will be my penultimate in Ecuador, so I just wanna tick as many boxes as possible.

The tubes are launched from the riverbank just across the road from the Mariposa. I talk to the girl in charge. She doesn't speak a lot of English, but I sit and chat to her for a while as we wait for enough people to turn up to launch a ride. (I can't remember her name, but it began with "M", so I'll call her Maria) Clouds of mosquitoes descend on me, and in a few minutes, my legs are red with tiny streams of blood. Mindo's insects are mean, flesh eating bastards - the thirstiest and most dangerous mosquitoes I've met on my travels.

Maria tries to help me fight off the bugs, and we struggle to communicate with our rudimentary knowledge of each other's language. As we're talking, a group of Spanish teenagers gather round. They want to know where I'm from. I tell them I'm English, a fact that causes them much excitement for some reason. I get passed a box of wine and encouraged to finish it, then get handed a beer. They tell me there's a festival in town tonight, and ask if I want to meet them there at 7pm.

Maybe the wine has gone to my head, because these guys and dolls are just kids, but for some reason I agree. I take a look at my new friends. The guys are all in their swimming trunks; tight, designed to give their genitals maximum exposure. It amuses me how much Latin men like to play with their cocks - these boys prod and poke relentlessly. The two girls in the crew are kinda bohemian, gypsy witches - tangled dyed hair, skinny bodies and pale skin. They make me pose for photos, and then they bounce off.

Eventually I get to tube. I take my seat, and we're thrust out into the waters. The sun is hidden, shy, behind grey clouds, and every few seconds, when the tubes dip and dive over rocks and through currents, I'm hit head on by waves of freezing cold water, every one taking my breath away. It takes almost an hour to negotiate our way down the river to where the ride ends. Tubing in Mindo is okay, but not as much fun as it looks. The rapids are fairly tame, without enough kick for there to be any sense of real danger, and the water is fucking freezing.

Back at the hotel I shower and get my shit together, ready to go out. I take a taxi into town at 6.45pm, and get something to eat. I sit in the restaurant, draining bottles of Ecuadorian Club, watching families as they come in for dinner. I'm in no hurry. I'm a little unsure how keen I am to hook up with a group of bloodthirsty, hormonal teenagers. It just doesn't seem like the kind of thing a responsible adult in their late twenties should be doing.

At some point during my third beer, the reality of the situation dawns on me. I'm not actually a very responsible adult. Anything but. So far, I've managed to get myself into countless scrapes and close shaves, bouncing from one ridiculous situation to the next in a befuddled haze; drooling, drunken, like a zombie, barely blinking as the bullets thud into my flesh and limbs drop off. So what if they're fucking kids? So what if I should know better? It's the holiday season, and when the schools are out and the sun is down, anything goes.

I settle up and head out onto the streets. I wander up to the top of the main strip, where it all seems to be going off. Floodlights blaze, and bodies heave, as a few hundred of Mindo's residents dance away under the watchful gaze of the moon. I pick my way through the crowds, trying to remember what my drinking amigos looked like. I circle a few times, but I can't see any sign of them. I look at my watch. 7.30pm. So I'm a little late, but they should still be here somewhere. I do a few more rounds, stopping for a few plastic cups of booze.

No luck, so I change my plan. I head back towards the town, and pick a bar. I sit at a table and drink tequila. The bar owner is an American. He tells me he moved to Ecuador a few years ago, met a girl, got married, and had two kids. After teaching English for a while, they moved to Mindo and bought this place. I'm impressed. His wife is hot as hell, and I like the place, too. I move to a stool by the bar, and we have a few beers. He's playing tunes through a PC, and when the Roots come on, I'm settled - this is clearly the best bar in Mindo.

By the time I stagger out, it's gone 11.30pm. I'm delirious with happy tequila vibes. I head back up to join the crowds. Somebody is shouting into a microphone from a stage, and as he does so the fireworks go off. Everyone stops and tilts their heads back to the sky, eyes wide in day of the triffids style trances. The floodlights and the pyrotechnic flashes above light up the townspeople with disco ball shades of pink and green, and eerie, radioactive hues of yellow. A human firework suddenly lights up in the centre of the square, spiting out sparks of hot ash like an angry dragon, chasing kids through the crowd.

I spin around, weaving through the throngs of people, watching the skies one minute, and happy faces the next. The smell of gunpowder floats across the airwaves and the music blasts out of heavy speakers. I find a beer station and top up. I stand and drink and watch the people. Everybody is so fucking happy. The whole of Mindo thrusts and gyrates. I still haven't seen any sign of the jets and sharks - the unruly teenage rebels with their weaved hair and tight pants. They're probably better off without me. Those cats were full of madness and free love - junior hippy chicks and red eyed junkie booze hounds, with a nose for trouble. I'm just here to get loaded on the edge of things. I'd probably cramp their wayward style.

Out of nowhere, I meet the girl from the river bank, Maria, who helped me fight off mosquitoes as we sat and waited for tubing. She’s caught up in the festival fervour, and tries to get me to dance. Reluctantly, I'm dragged into the melee. I wave my arms about for a bit, and then she heads off again, telling me her boyfriend will be looking for her. I don't want light up a domestic situation, so I slink off in the opposite direction.

I watch the final flurry of fireworks as they scatter in patterns across the pitch black sky. It's time to go home. As usual, I reject the option of a taxi. People lucky enough to have legs should make use of them, and taxi's cost money.

The moon is wrapped in cotton wool clouds, and I face forward and stride out into the dark wilderness. The road is quiet, filled with nothing but an eerie emptiness. I walk alongside the river as bats circle above. I pass by a few houses, lit up like torches showing me the way to go home. I laugh out loud to myself. Man, I'm drunk. Beer, tequila; more beer, more tequila. A wild, wild night in the middle of the jungle.

As I near my hostel, a flash of white appears before me in the road, and a horse strides out of the gloom. I hold out a hand, waiting to high five him as we pass, but he leaves me hanging. How you gonna do a brother like that? Maybe he’s just a vision - a metaphorical sign of things to come. I wish him a good night, and then I'm home, crashing, fading out to the roar of the river outside the window.

I wake up Sunday morning, and pack up, ready to check out. Then things start to go awry once again. Yesterday was a good day, so I suppose the yin and yang of my life needs to hand out a spoonful of bitter tasting negativity to maintain the balance. First, a mishap in the bathroom - despite taking all possible precautions and double flushing, I end up blocking my toilet. I didn't feed it anything it shouldn't have been able to handle, but what the fuck can you do - shit happens.

I could just leave it, but I feel pretty embarrassed. However, without any plumbing tools, there's only so much I can do, and the situation does not resolve itself. I pick up my things, and go to check out. I don't have much cash, and I’m relying on my credit card to pay the bill. I already thought I'd paid for the room, because my card got swiped when I checked in, but when I get to reception, Teresa, the young girl left in charge, says that my card has been rejected.

A heavy stone sinks to the bottom of my stomach. My head reels. For fucks sake. Why? How? I know my Visa card has money on it. Certainly enough to pay the $55 I owe. I just wanted to make a quick escape - to get out without my bathroom indiscretion being revealed. The stress of the situation is crippling, almost dropping me to me knees. Teresa says that the Visa guy on the phone told her I had funds, but that the card had been blocked by Barclaycard in the U.K. Motherfuckers. The two "B's", causing me trouble and strife once again - bowels and banks, the twin sources of all my problems since leaving home.

I shake my head. I explain that I haven't got enough cash to pay the bill. Teresa doesn't know what to do. She says that I can't use their phone to call the bank. She can clearly see how bad I feel about the situation. I explain that sometimes banks, being motherless, godless and demonic tools of pure, molten evil, will block your card when you attempt to use it on foreign soil, for fear of theft or fraud. I look into my wallet. I have $20 and 20 euros. I offer them to Teresa. It's all the money I have.

She agrees to accept. She says she can change the euros in town. I tell her how sorry I am. She says she’s sorry too - that this has never happened to her before. She asks if I want a lift into town. I tell her it's okay - I'll walk. I've caused enough trouble, and I'm wracked with double the amount of guilt. Teresa has been really nice to me ever since I arrived, and now she's gone out of her way to be understanding about a situation that will leave the hotel short changed, and probably land her in trouble with her boss. How do I thank her? By leaving a toilet full of jammed up filthy brown water.

As I disappear down the road, head bowed in shame, guilt weighing heavily on my shoulders, eyes stinging with anger and fear, and heart aching from fresh sins, I imagine the scene back in the hostel, as some poor soul struggles to undo the terrible damage I've done, up to their elbows in my evil deeds. I'm such a son of a bitch. I didn't mean it, but I came to Mindo, rode their waves, danced with their daughters and fucked up one of their best and most hospitable hotels. Hell is rolling papers, licking its lips and waiting to smoke me up when I finally descend.

No use dwelling. I can't change what I've done. Now, I just need to get back to Quito, where they have ATMs that will accept my maestro card, and refill my wallet with cash. I have 25 cents left on me, and a bus ticket, which I at least had the foresight to purchase in advance. My bus leaves in two hours, at 2pm. The journey back to Quito is another two. The earliest I will get to eat today will be around 4.30pm.


When I get to town, I just sit around, watching the world go by, feeling bad about my situation and having angry rants at Barclaycard in my head. Just how many times can a bank screw me over? Stay tuned, because the story run and runs.

Eventually, I get onto the bus. I'm seated next to an old man. We get talking, and it turns out he speaks perfect English. He's an Ecuadorian, but he's travelled far and wide - Cuba, the USA, France, England, as well as most of South America. He tells me his name is Mike, and he was just visiting Mindo for the weekend. He tells me the place has changed a lot since he was here last, twenty years ago. Then, the air was thick with butterflies, circling and enveloping you. Now, they're behind closed doors and you have to pay to see them.

I talk with Mike for about an hour, then he falls asleep. As we creep through the outskirts of Quito, the traffic slows to a crawl. Every few minutes, a siren sounds, and a fire engine or police car flashes by. As we move along, I look out the windows, and see scenes of destruction. It has obviously rained a lot in Quito over the weekend, and there have been floods all throughout the city. I see collapsed buildings, overflowing drains, and people huddled under blankets as the rescue services help them from their sodden homes.

We near the bus terminal, but the waters have reached there too, so we get let off at another spot. Mike is still by my side, and trying to find out where we need to go to catch the metro into town. I tell him I need to find a bank as I've no money, and he says he'll lend me the 25cents I need to pay for the bus. I thank him, and we end up on the metro together. He has to get off before me, and when we reach his stop, he asks if I'll be okay getting to where I need to be. I tell him I'll be fine, and we shake hands and part company.

The world needs men like Mike. Good, honest souls with hearts of gold. Once again, yin and yang. Bad news bears and a seat on a bus next to a kind man to see me through the day. I get off the metro in the centre of old Quito. The first ATM I try doesn't yield any goods. I don't panic. I find another. I hold my breath. Ker-fucking-ching. I tuck the notes away in my wallet, and take a seat in a restaurant, high up on a balcony looking over a square. I order chicken soup and a steak. My first meal of the day arrives at 7pm.

Deep breath. I wash the food down with a bottle of club, and stare out over the balcony. The world drifts in and out of focus. Sometimes, it's best to just laugh. No matter how crazy the shit gets, no matter how thick the soup - just remember where you are. Better down and out and in the thick of it in Ecuador or some far off, wild wood, than sitting at home, safe and sound, counting your money, enjoying the squalid monotony of normal life.

All it takes to get through the day is 25 cents, and the kindness of strangers. For all the bad things I've ever done, all the toilets I've destroyed, and all the unpaid bills - all I can do is hold my hands up, shrug my shoulders and say I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It wasn't me. I was only passing through.

Cheers, Mike - I couldn't have made it without you.

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Photos

The Mildly homoerotic "Superman"
You'll believe a man can fly (and be simultaneously bummed)

Comments

[Scott Perry]

Dude!
It is such interesting reading I had to comment. You are hilarious. But I keep wanting to yell "chill out man, take it easy, shiat happens, especially in Latin America. Well, good travels and nice blog.

[Barbara Wilson]

I am in your photo
I was just looking over your log of Mindo and I realized that I was watching those dancers when I was there in Mindo last year. I zoomed in and sure enough there I am to the left of the tree. Barbara Wilson, El Quetzal de Mindo Restaurant