An Ecuadorian Adventure

“So understand don't waste your time
Always searching for those wasted years
Face up, make your stand
And realize you're living in the golden years”
- Adrian Smith

These lyrics are inspiring. My interpretation: You should not spend your life looking back with either regret or nostalgia. If you spend too much time reflecting on what you could have been doing, your life will pass by you. You will miss out on what is truly important; what is right in front of you. Live for the present or look to the future and realize every moment in your life is precious.

The Giblins:

Jon and I arrive at Port Columbus an hour before departure time. We are flying American Airlines, and by the look of the check-in line, so is the rest of Columbus. There is a giant sign above the check-in counter that reads; “All check-ins must be completed 30 minutes prior to departure time.” The line is moving very slowly as the clock is ticking. 15 minutes passes and we have only moved a quarter of the way through the line. Reality sets in and I accept it; we are missing our flight. Another line opens up and things start to move more quickly. Now we are second in line with only minutes before the cut-off time. There is a family of about 15 in front of us with three times the luggage as people. We are not going to make it, I think to myself. Now, I am not sure what kind of problem the family in front of us was having but they were asked to move aside. Jon and I were called to the counter. The check-in agent explained to us that she would have to check us in together; otherwise Jon would miss the flight. Jon and I are checked in. We walk to security, and then walk to our gate, again, acting with no real sense of urgency. As we approach the gate, the agent says to us; “are you the Giblins?” Simultaneously we say, “We are!” He tells us to hurry; they are closing the doors now!

Jon and I must have done a million things wrong that morning to cut it that close, but I would rather focus on the one thing we did right. If we would have done one thing differently that could have cost us just seconds, we would never have had made it. Therefore, we did everything right that morning.

Fraud = Zero Funds:

We are now in Chicago. Vacation has started! We stop at an airport sports bar to enjoy a nice cheap, watered-down 12 dollar beer. Jon and I decide to log in to our bank accounts to see where the Giblins are with their funds for the trip. Jon’s account was negative seven hundred dollars and some change. His account was compromised. Someone ordered an Apple computer that morning at 7:38 with his debit card. After calling the bank, Jon had no choice but to cancel his card so it could not be compromised any further. We are now down to one card, mine. After doing some brainstorming we realize that we can have someone from back home deposit checks from Jon’s account into mine, so he can access his funds. Problem solved! We are now on our way to Ecuador stress-free.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

I arrive in Montanita with a warm and welcoming reception. It feels great to be back. Tito picks me up at the Casa del Sol and takes me back to his hostel so I can unload my gear and get cleaned up. His place is as beautiful and peaceful as I remember. He has also been making some improvements as well. There is now a temple for ceremonies and a sweat lodge. The moment you step on his property you feel a flood of serenity flow through your body.

We spend the day exploring town and relaxing on the beach. We return to the hostel in the evening for some dinner. After dinner, Tito introduces me to a shaman. They are having a spiritual ceremony in a few hours and they have invited me to join them. They inform me that the ceremony last from 10 pm to 10 am. With excitement and anticipation I agree. People begin to arrive from all over the country to participate in the ceremony. It’s almost 11; we begin to head down to the temple. “Ecuadorian time” is very similar to “Mexican time.” I enter the temple with zero expectations; all I know is this temple will be my home for the next 12 hours. I am excited. We sit around the fire in a circle and one-by-one we introduce ourselves and explain what our purposes are or what we would like them to be. The shaman gives us medicine intended to purge any negativity from our life and body and to help us see our true purpose. We spend the night sitting around the fire listening to some amazing tribal music being played on drums and listening to the shaman telling inspirational stories intertwined with some humor. I cannot fully explain in words what I felt or what I experienced that night. It was an amazing spiritual journey. I can say this; I have a new respect and understanding for the writings of Hunter S. Thomson. Although my experience was not quite like his, I can understand some of the visualizations he experienced on his journey. I will forever remember that night in the temple.

The New Year’s Eve Party!:

It’s the morning of December 31st. The streets come to life and begin to fill with people from all over South America. Every corner we turn there is unprecedented talent, from fire dancers, to stilt walkers juggling bowling pins, to unicycle riders, etc. The celebration has begun! We spend the day walking around town making new friends. Tito has put together a reservation only New Year’s Eve dinner party. It was a feast with a variety of authentic Ecuadorian cuisines. After dinner we head down to the beach to bring in the New Year. The beach is filled with bomb fires and the most creative and beautiful effigies I have ever seen. We wait patiently for the clock to strike midnight. Children and adults alike are dancing around the bomb fires with anticipation. It’s midnight now; the children throw their effigies into the fire and continue to dance. We are all handed roman candles; we shoot them off into the sky in unison. The sky lights up like the mid-day sun is beating down on us. We watch as the fire falls into the ocean. Downtown is displaying a beautiful firework show while children run around cheering with their sparklers. We head down the beach towards downtown for the beach party. We sit around the bomb fires all night until the sun rises.

The No Pants Dance:

It’s New Years. We head back downtown after just a couple of hours of sleep. The party has not stopped. People have not slept. We join the party. The day seemed to last forever. It is now nightfall. Somehow in the mist and haze induced by rum and excitement, I have lost everyone I was with. I head down to a popular street called “Cocktail Alley.” Surely I will find my friends here. I stop at stand after stand trying new kinds of cocktails. At this point, finding my friends becomes less of a priority. I am a party by myself and I’m having a great time! I stumble into a club. Many of the clubs in Ecuador are “open air,” they don’t really have doors. I wander in. the club seems very slow, there wasn’t anyone in there that I could see; which surprised me, because the streets were filled shoulder to shoulder with people. There were several couches. I decide to take a seat in one; I have been on my feet for hours.

Now, I am not sure how much time pasted or how long I was sitting on that couch, but the next thing I know am back at Tito’s place laying on the couch there. I am unaware of how I got here. My friends must have found me and took me home. I am happy. I feel safe. I decide to get comfortable and go to sleep where I was lying. I take everything off from my waist down and grab the sheet on the couch and wrap myself up. Good night.

I am abruptly woken up by a man in a uniform yelling at me in me in Spanish. I am confused. I sit up and look around; there are hundreds of people dancing around, many of them staring at me. I never left the club! That was not Tito’s couch! That was not Tito’s sheet I covered up in! n realit, I pulled a curtain off the wall in the club to cover myself up. I slowly and humbly put my pants back on. I apologize, although I am not really sure how to apologize for an infraction like that. I walk out with my head shamefully down into the now pouring rain.

My mission now has returned to finding my friends. I comb the very crowded streets looking everywhere. It is now 5 am. The rain is turning into a down pour. It is time for me to go home. I approach a cab and say “Bromilia” (Tito’s place). Then I notice there is someone already in the passenger seat trying to negotiate a price. I take a closer look…it’s Jon! I scream “Jon!” He screams “Casey!” He jumps out of the cab and slams the door. Apparently the driver was really trying to rip him off. We go and get a bottle of rum and sit on curb of the street exchanging stories of our night. His stories were a lot less embarrassing than mine.

Déjà vu:

It is very easy to make friends in Montanita. There is actually a saying; “If you can’t make friends in Montanita, you can’t make friends anywhere.” This is very true. Some of the most friendliest and accepting people live there. My friend Martin and I were spending the day walking around town and taking photos. A younger guy comes up and starts talking to us. He seems friendly enough. We spend the day with him. He seems very interested in my camera. He asks if he could use it for a while to take some photos. I don’t mind. I am usually behind the lens, so it would be nice to get some photos of me too. I ask Martin to help me keep an eye on him. He seems genuine and just interested in photography, but we really don’t know him, and I cannot lose my camera. We spend hours with him as he takes photos. We enter a club. Martin excuses himself to use the restroom. Our new friend and I go upstairs so he can get some bird eye view photos of the club. I lose sight of him for just a moment. He is gone. I search the whole club. He is nowhere to be found. I go outside the club and wait for it to close. Everyone fills out; he is not in the crowd. I go back to the hostel, devastated. All of my photos are gone. The next morning I tell Tito and the rest of the people at the hostel what happened. Tito asks me if I would recognize him if I saw him again. I tell Tito that I will never forget his face. Tito says, let’s go find this guy. We all go into town looking for him. Martin and I are the only two who know what he looks like. Tito suggests we hit the beach and search for him there. We are not on the beach for two minutes before I see him. He is walking towards us. I point and say “that’s the guy!” We walk quickly to approach him. I sternly tell him he has my camera. He says that he knows. He takes off his back pack and takes out my camera and hands it to me. I am ecstatic. I am overwhelmed with joy and happiness. He tells me that he has been looking on the beach all morning for me to return it to me. Now I am not sure if that was true or not. He could have been looking for me. Or he could have seen 5 guys that look angry and on a very specific mission coming towards him. I like to think that people have the best intentions, so I like to believe he was looking for me to return it. In the end, his intentions were not important to me. I got my camera back!

Déjà vu dos:

It’s interesting, each day here in paradise seemed to last as long as a month, but when it’s over, and it’s time to go home, I cannot believe how quickly my time here went by. Time is a funny thing in that way. We say our goodbyes and get on our bus headed to the airport. About an hour into the drive, smoke starts flowing out of the front of the bus. It is overheating. The driver pulls over and we evacuate. We wait till the next bus heading into Montanita can take us back. We have missed our flight. I contact the airline. They refuse to put us on a later flight. They explain to us that if we wanted to change our flight time we had to do so 24 hours before departure time. We spend two days looking for a one way flight back to the states. The cheapest I can find is 1,400 dollars. I discuss this with Jon. There is no way we can afford two of those. Standby tickets were a little under 300. I explain to him that I need to get back. I cannot afford to do standby again…last year I spent 5 days sleeping on a Columbian airport floor. I was already two days late for work. He took a little more time off then me, so his schedule is a little more flexible. He agrees to this.

We go to the bus station and buy two tickets to the airport. Even though Jon was not flying back to the States yet, he was going to accompany me to the airport. We have to buy tickets 24 hours in advance. We both get tickets for the 1 o’clock bus. My flight leaves at 6:30, so that will leave me plenty of time. Later that day, Jon and I are enjoying our last evening in montinita. I am not sure why I did this but I pulled out my ticket and looked at it. They screwed up my departure time. They put me on the 5 o’clock bus for tomorrow! It is 4:40. The bus station closes at 5. I leave Jon at pub and run as fast as I can to get to the bus station before they close, so they can change my ticket. I am running down the street and I hear someone honking behind me. It’s Tito! He is taking Martin and his friend Frankie to the bus station so they could catch a bus to the Galapagos Islands. He picks me up and runs into the station and explains to them what happened, with only moments to spare. I now have the correct ticket.

All of this was a blessing in disguise. If they would not have screwed up my ticket, I would have not needed to go back to the bus station. And if I never went back to the station, I wound not have had my chance to say my goodbyes to Martin before he headed to the Galapagos.

Farewell Jon:

I woke up fairly early considering the time we went to bed the night before. I am surprised Jon woke up not long after me. We had a laid back morning. We finish some last minute packing and we have some coffee and breakfast. Tito takes us to the bus station around 12:30 so we can catch our 1:00 bus. We say our goodbyes for the second time and then we are off again. We take a nice three-hour bus ride through the countryside. We arrive at the airport. I say my goodbyes to Jon he is not coming with me and he is not returning to Montanita either. He met a girl at the beginning of our trip. He was going to take a bus into the mountains, to her hometown, to try and find her. I wish you the best of luck on your adventures Jon and I will see you on the other side, brother.

Viva Montanita!