The Conscious Traveler: Ecuador

Getting through Ecuador proved to be the simplest out of every country I have been to. In my time there, I was able to zip and zap through the country on an average bus ride of three hours.

A Common Thing I Have Come Across

While crossing the border from Colombia, I met a Korean woman who quickly clocked me for not being Latino; I think it was the Birkenstocks. We chatted about our travels and the places we had been. I told her about my time in Latin America with my dog, and she told me about her time living in Bulgaria and her adventures traveling through Africa. I thought of her adventure as brave, not because of any clear danger or threats, but because of the stigma Africa has in the minds of many people internationally. I thought her willingness to break from that thought and still go was pretty impressive. I was also interested in getting firsthand information about the continent I'd be traveling to after my time in South America ended. Not to my surprise, she didn’t have many interesting things to say about Africa. Rather, she had only complaints, along the lines of: “Accommodation was expensive, and the rooms were not worth it,” and “There was not much to see and not much to do.” This has become somewhat common among other travelers I've encountered in Latin America. There always seems to be an idea that the place you go to is responsible for offering you an unforgettable experience and for a cheap price. Many of us in the Global North dream of exploiting a country for cheap fun rather than exploring a country for anything of meaning. There is nothing wrong with going to a destination for the sake of leisure and fun excursions, but these countries do not owe it to us by any means. As our conversation went on, she started to go down the route of “Africans can't take care of themselves” and started to criticize the fact that people bathe in rivers that are a darker tint than she is accustomed to seeing. This is another thing travelers do that I have seen in the past – the lack of ability to meet a countryman where they are and accept that as their way of life without criticism. Instead, oftentimes people want to play the savior, or in this case, the judge. It is one thing to highlight something you haven’t seen before or to be fascinated by a new culture. It is even okay to say, “You know what, this isn't for me,” but by no means can you say an entire country of people are incapable of taking care of themselves.

Laguna Cuicocha

After my conversation with the other traveler, I hopped on a bus destined for Otavalo, a town on the outskirts of Laguna Cuicocha. I wanted to quickly get to the lake and see it at sunset, but after a bus ride that dropped me off halfway from the lagoon, locals informed me that there is no way to the lagoon and I would need a taxi, but there were none available, and by the time I would have gotten one, it would have been nightfall. So, I headed back to town, where I desperately went looking for a coat. I was in the Andes once again, and it was drastically colder than the weeks I had just spent in the Amazon. I ate dinner and bought a couple of servings of tres leches, a dessert I have been growing more and more in love with since Panama. In the morning, I was able to take a taxi to the lagoon. I consider Cuicocha to be a wonder of the world, similarly to how I think of Caño Cristales. On top of this volcano sits a lake, similar to Volcán Maderas in Nicaragua, but this is much grander and more spectacular, because within this lake, within a volcano, is an island with its own impressive peak as well. In the background of the magnificent view were the snow-peaked mountains of the Andes—one of the nicest pieces of nature I have ever seen. On my way down the peak, I saw a bus that went up to the top—a bus I could have taken yesterday at sunset. I would have come back at sunset that day, but I was in a rush. I had to be down in Quito in a week to head up to LA for a film premiere. So, instead, I went back to my hotel, packed my stuff, and headed to the new destination.

Papallacta

I had learned about Papallacta while reading a National Geographic article on the Amazon and how it relies on the Andes mountain range to trap rain clouds to nurture the rainforest. In the article, it talked about a wildlife sanctuary and cloud forest that I recognized as being on my way through Ecuador, so, of course, I had to stop by to see it. I was also interested in the hot springs they have there. I hadn’t been to one since my time in Guatemala. When I arrived in Papallacta, the accommodation I had found was run by an elderly woman and her daughter, two of the sweetest people I have met on my journey. They set me up in a room, but there was no one else around, so I was basically free to roam around as I wanted. That evening, I went to the hot spring and felt the contrast of the cool Andean air on my head while I sat in a tub of hot water. I was proud, really. I set a goal of wanting to be immersed in nature, and since setting that goal, I had been in the Amazon and had been to multiple destinations within the Andes. In the morning, I set out to explore the nature sanctuary I had read about in National Geographic. After a fiasco on the bus (two different bus drivers dropping me off in the wrong places), I found the entrance to the Guango Lodge, an institution that takes care of the nature preserve, which has the largest diversity of hummingbirds in South America.

Quito

In Quito, it was a disaster finding a place for my dog to stay while I was in the US, but luckily, I had run into a woman who assisted with helping me find a place. Her name was Lia. After dropping my dog off, Lia invited me out on what I thought was a date or a further chance to hang out that evening. She invited me to a movie theater. I did what any guy does when a pretty girl invites them to see a movie and told her I'd be there. That night, it was raining hard, and I was starting to lose interest in going. I knew I had a long day ahead of me tomorrow with leaving the country, but when has responsibility ever stopped me from doing anything? When I arrived at the theater, it wasn’t like any theater I had been to before. It was more like a club or bar, and I had to pay a cover. I quickly saw Lia there on the dance floor, and she showed me to the…. theaters. It was a porno theater. That would have been the most interesting part of the night if it weren’t for the fact that she brought me around a corner and revealed to me that the theater had doubled as a sex club. The grunts and moans of group sex were trapped in this space that sat behind the screens. Small nooks and crannies were filled with different people swinging and cruising in the pitch black, where your eyes took time to adjust to fully understanding what you were experiencing. I had never been to one of these; of course, I've been to clubs where people were having sex on the dance floor or in a booth somewhere, but never to a place solely dedicated to sex. I hadn’t even involved myself in any sort of group sex of any kind, but I decided to stay, and I hung out with her and her group of friends through the night. We danced and watched old pornos, things of that nature, and I enjoyed myself with an open mind. If anything else were to happen, that's my business and up to the reader’s imagination. My only negative takeaway of the whole night is that I wish I had known I was going to one to begin with, instead of showing up unaware, but something tells me the nature of the theater was lost in my broken Spanish.

The next day, I was set to leave the country, excited to screen my mother’s documentary across the US for the next month and a half. I dropped my laptop off to get repaired (I spilled coffee on it six months ago in Nicaragua and haven’t had the time to bring it into a shop), hopped on the bus, and went to the airport. I got to see all of the elderly couples who were returning home from visiting the Galapagos Islands, a destination that I desperately need to go to one day, but I don't see it in my cards during this long-winded journey around the world. One thing I have liked about South America, as opposed to Central America and the Caribbean, is that it feels like this place isn’t as bought out as the latter. I haven’t run into any enclaves of travelers or expats, although I know they are somewhere. I haven’t had many negative criticisms of these places, which is what seems to get the clicks, but I have enjoyed myself as I ventured through this chapter of the journey.

Los Angeles

When I arrived in Los Angeles, I barely had any time to get ready before the viewing. As I rushed over with Eve, the director of the film, I had all of these feelings and questions in my head about how the crowd would perceive my mother. When I saw my friend Francesca and one of her closest friends standing outside, that feeling eased. If all else failed, at least I knew I had two allies in the audience. This time around watching the film, like the first, I cried. Going up to do the Q&A was special, though; it was the first time the crowd spoke English, which meant nothing could be lost in translation. It also was the first time most of the crowd was there because they were fans of my mother and not because it was in a festival.

The Bay

After the premiere, I headed up to the Bay for a bit. I saw a couple of my old friends from Oakland and told them all about my experiences traveling in Latin America, the Bahamas, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Afterward, I got a chance to spend time with my ex-girlfriend and catch up on all the new things in each of our lives, all while tasting food from all the old spots I used to go to when I lived there. She was doing a little side gig at the Dickens Fair, so the next morning, she and I headed over to San Francisco, where I got a chance to be transported to a different century for a couple of hours. Our fun was short-lived because that evening, I had a flight headed to New York to do more screenings of the film.

The East Coast

I hopped on the New Jersey Transit in hopes of surprising my aunt Abbie when I arrived, but to my own surprise, she was gone for the evening, down in Atlantic City. I threw my bags over the fence and headed to the PATCO to spend the night sleeping on the train. By now, I was so accustomed to being homeless that a couple more hours of it wouldn’t do me any harm. The next day, I met up with my aunt, and we discussed my doings in America. I informed the family of everything I had planned for the estate, and when it was time for the screening of the film, my uncle had the pleasant idea of renting a limo. I am very proud of my uncle Mike. He has turned his life around in ways unimaginable to younger me and has become a leader within the family. At the screening, my friend and frequent editor of my work, Amina, came to show her support. My old sparring partner, Jon Truei, decided to pop his head out as well. Going into the film, I could tell that my family was nervous about what they were going to see on screen, but at the end, when it was all said and done, they actually quite enjoyed it. That evening after the showing, my father, sister, and others went to an after-party hosted by Eve. I got to meet so many people I had been dealing with over the phone from thousands of miles away. The next day, I had to prepare for another showing. This time, I was supposed to do another Q&A. After crashing with Amina, I headed to hang out with my father a bit before going to the theater at the Roxy. An ex from college showed up, and it was lovely seeing how she has grown and changed since the last time we saw each other. Our relationship had ended very harshly, which I have hinted at in a previous article I wrote for a publication. Who she had become and the reasons for it were eye-opening regarding the woman she has chosen to be. We spent the night hanging out with Eve and her friends. When we eventually separated, the two of us, along with two of Eve’s friends, went to a random bar in the Lower East Side, where, to my surprise, we ran into Amina. My life is a compilation of serendipitous tales at this point.

First Day Back

I forgot to mention: The first time I stepped foot back in New York, I was taken into custody by the police and jailed. There is something to say about being gone so long and coming home, and one of your first experiences is getting cuffed and thrown in the back of a wagon. It all happened because I helped a woman with a stroller through the emergency door, and already on the platform, I decided not to walk out just to walk back in and pay. A plainclothes cop grabbed me from behind, real aggressive-like. I thought that it was someone trying to get me for my possessions. I yelled, “Nigga, get your hands off me.” I turned around and saw his badge. Now, this was a Dominican cop with something to prove to his white colleagues and a disdain for being confused for or even equal to a Black American, or “nigga.” He got me for resisting arrest for yanking my shoulder away from him. When the other Latino cops showed up (I emphasize Latino because, in this day and age, Latinos, if they be fresh off the boat or first generation, have a tendency to join the ranks of the police so they can distance themselves from a certain race that is the same color as them or a few shades darker, in the hopes that white people grant them the status of model minority. This can be seen amongst many Asian police officers as well, especially ones that did not fare as well as other Asians academically). When I had my hands cuffed behind my back, I asked one of the officers if he could put my headphones, which I still had in my hands, in my bag. The only way to give it to him was to toss it. When he caught it, he threw all of my belongings on the ground and said, “Don't throw your shit at me.” I just looked at him, and as a few seconds went by, the hamster on a treadmill he called a brain realized I wasn’t going to give him the reaction he wanted. They weren’t going to get me to do something outlandish so they would have a better chance of getting something heavier to stick. I was sent to the tombs for a few hours, where they processed me and let me go because there wasn't any reason for me to have been there in the first place. I was stuck in there with a guy who got caught selling fake work at the same station I was at. To my knowledge, and what I overheard, he was released right after me. All in all, it took about a dozen and a half officers to wrangle me and the fake drug dealer up. What a beautiful investment of the taxpayers' dollar. I also missed an important meeting with my lawyer because of this fiasco.

The funny thing about my arresting officer was that he wanted to present himself in a very stereotypical Black aesthetic. I am not sure if it were for his plainclothes disguise or because he liked the look. My guess is both, but there is something to say about a dark-skinned Dominican immigrant who adopts a Black aesthetic but is highly offended by being considered Black. While locked up, I was listening to and watching the conversation he was having with the other detainee. The officer was wearing a diamond-encrusted Cuban link, about which he could not shut up. He told the guy he spent twenty thousand on the chain. In my head, I thought to myself either A, the obvious: it is fake; B, the maybe: he's a dirty cop wearing something he found in the evidence locker, or he's been stealing cash from the evidence locker to fund his expensive taste; or C, the probable: the stupid son of a bitch took out a loan or went into debt and bought the chain to impress the people he puts behind bars.

Anyway, when I went to court a few weeks later, they told me they threw my case out and that there was nothing to worry about. The entire thing had been a waste of time.

Philadelphia Premier

The last thing I had to do before heading back south was to premiere the film in Philly. I had more family who didn’t see the film, so I was excited to show them. Afterward, I found myself out and about with fans of my mother, one of whom I became pretty close friends with—as close a friend as you can get in the short time we have known each other, but like every friendship I have made in the past three years, it is only a matter of time before miles of distance are put between us.

My Return

I returned to Ecuador two weeks ago. I picked up my dog and headed down to Peru, where I am currently. I am teaching a group of children English and staying in a small town in the north. Eventually, I will head south, exploring the rest of the country, after which I will return to California to do a week's-length screening and Q&A and head up to the Bay to hang out with a few friends. If you happen to be in Los Angeles in early March, come and hang out a bit. Oh, and if you are wondering, my laptop was never fixed; the technician in Ecuador just sat it on a shelf for two months.

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