Monanita So Sweet-uh

Fourscore and 8 years ago Grace took a trip to Ecuador by herself and went to a cute little surf town north of Guayaquil called Montanita.  We had booked our Galapagos boat tour in a buzzy haze the day prior and had a few extra days before heading to the islands to chill on the beach, max and relax.

Montanita was different than Grace had remembered, still small and surfy, but it had changed a lot in 8 years.  The cute thatched roof shacks of yore were now thatched roof 3-story buildings.  Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, it had just become like most small beach towns that got found out in the world; developed and generic.  You could have told us we were in Thailand and we'd have believed you...my stellar navigational instincts aside of course.


Anyway we had a nice time chillin on the playa and getting some good introductory tans and bug bites to make us look 2 Legit to quit.

Something Especial

Sometimes you have one of those nights.  One of those nights where you seem drift outside of your body, hover over to a popcorn machine and sit in a plush recliner to watch the scene you are participating in as it unfolds before you.

We just had one of those nights.

Our first day in Guayaquil consisted of investigating the best way to visit the Galapagos.  In fact, we debated whether we even needed to go that far since the first city park we happened upon had enough Iguanas to satisfy my reptilian curiosity (or so I thought at the time).  Don't believe what your parents tell you kids, Iguanas DO grow on trees:

It's crazy yo, they're like the pigeons of Guayaquil.  The best part was, as I was snapping pic after pic of these gigantorasauruses, the locals were doing the same with squirrels.  Squirrels!  Bizarroland.

After we left the park we went to see our friend Fernando who we had met 30 minutes prior at Centro Viajero travel agency.  We had compared a few options elsewhere, but we returned to Fernando cuz we thought he had a nice face and he had offered us a beer.  Tough sell I know.  5 beers later, we wound up in the living room of the travel agency owner, Douglas (aka Doogie Doogie), a delightful lunatic who made us Chinese food and gave us more beers.  Then Fernando's wife Stephania shows up and they all decide they are taking us to Fernando's hometown of Pedro Carbo, a suburb about an hour away.

Relying on the kindness of strangers, off we go.  Jesse, brave soul, had posted up in the backseat with DD who had brought a bottle of "Something Special" for the long ride.  That is not a euphemism, it's the actual name of the whiskey.  60 minutes later, there we are, in the teensy village of Pedro Carbo with maybe 7 streets, none of them paved.  We pull up to Fernando's humble abode and are greeted by his whole extended family, 10 or so adorable kids...nieces, nephews, and Fernando's 2 year old son, Benjamin.  Into the van we all pile and headed out to a delicious dinner at the local grill.  We also happened to be in Pedro Carbo the night before Mother's Day and they had a local Carnival to celebrate.  It had the sketchiest ferris wheel I have ever seen in real life, jimmy-rigged to a lawnmower motor and tied together with rope.  Naturally we had to ride it.



Survival of the fittest, but it wasn't over yet.  We were whisked off yet again to the local discoteca where Jesse was harassed by go-go dancers calling out his every awesome dance move over loudspeaker. According to Fernando, we were the first Gringos to ever go to this town, and it did not go unnoticed with the locals.

Around 4am or so we finally made it back to Guayaquil for 4 hours of sleep before catching our bus to Montanita.  Did that really just happen?  On our first night here?  Hang on to your hats and glasses, cuz this here's the wildest ride in the wilderness.

Whyaquil? Whynotaquil?

The eagles have landed.  The eagles have landed first in Panama City, then Quito, then finally Guayaquil; gateway to the Galapagos.  Magically enough, the eagles managed to keep 10 fingers, 10 toes (per person), and all items packed in tact...save one: Grace`s backpack.


When we reunited in LAX to start our journey, Grace and I did a quick run through of what we had each packed and how our preperations compared.  We were pretty proud of ourselves for not forgetting toothpaste, a lil disappointed we had each brought the same free reading book (Let the Great World Spin by Collum McCann, nice one), but it seemed we had done a pretty thorough job of packing the next 6 months.  We half-jokingly discussed the poor odds of both our bags not geand thought it was a little strange that when I checked in in LA, the Copa woman strongly emphasized that I must pick up my checked bag when we arrived in Quito, because our last flight leg was domestic and I needed to re-check my bag there.  ``Hmmmmm, my dude didn`t tell  me anything...`` quoth Grace.  Oh, well, s`probably fine.


S`probably not so much. Arrival in Guayaquil, thar my bag blows!  Thar Grace`s doesn`t.


Apparently down in yonder Sur America, people only work at the baggage counters when a flight is arriving.  One would think that would cooincide nicely with our arrival, but I guess it took us too long to find the appropriate counter with which to discuss our conundrum.  Don't fear, it all ends well, it always does.  We left the airport for a few hours, got some din and headed back to wait for the next flight fleets to arrive.  After many hoops had been jumped, many beers consumed and Grace's Spanish skills put to a major first test, we made it out with all wordly items in tow, and one other-worldy; our friend Jesse!  


Jesse decided on a whim to join us for the first month of our journey and it was the perfect start to see his smiling face there to meet us at the airport.  And so the adventure begins...

Rrrrrrrrrrollin' rollin' rollin', keep those tongues a rollin'

Me + Spanish = Sad.  I have never been the kind of person that just "picks up" a language.  They don't resemble fallen coins on the corner so much in my mind.  My lame attempts at French and Italian were both thwarted by my lack of confidence combined with other people`s reations when I spake it.  Some may think this would make South America a poor choice to set up shop for many meses, but think again!  That`s what I brought Grace for.  I kid, I kid...mostly.  So far what I know of hablaring the Español is what I've learned from my mentors Chris Farley and Keanu Reeves. "Yo soy El Nino" and "Vaya con Dios" are about all I feel completely comfortable with, but I have been successful at one aspect of the language: the rolling of the Rs.  Contrary to popular belief, this talent is not hereditary.  See Exhibit A:

I`m relly sorry fambles, but I just couldn`t resist.  Love you and miss you already.

Oxymorons are the best kind

In case you missed it, I used one up above in yonder blahhhg description.

But today I'd like to discuss the other kind of morons.  The kind that started planning a trip to South America many many moons ago (like a years worth of moons), and yet somehow did not realize that they had booked their flights one day apart from one another til T-minus 2 days prior to departure.  Yep, the morons I am referring to are none other than myself and my travel companion Grace.

Let me rewind a bit.  Ever since my first international experience at age 12, I have been mildly obsessed with the idea of traveling and as I gained more wisdom (age) and independence (financial) it became an easier and more important thing to incorporate into my life.  Henceforth, I would call myself a bit of a wanderer.  I roam aroundwowowowound and can`t get enough of exploring/seeing/being in new places near and far.  There's something about that initial sensation of complete unfamiliarity and anonymity when you arrive somewhere new that is so freeing.  In that moment, the possibilities are infinite and there is so much yet to be learned that my inner school nerd, which I've never been successful at hiding, completely takes over.

Over a year ago, I started thinking how I really needed to listen those astute Spice Girls and spice up my life already.  Now, to be fair, it was already fairly picante.  I had been at the same awesome job for 4 1/2 years, was living in a city I loved with amazing friends and roommates, had traveled a ton and seen a pretty good chunk of the world...so basically I was the luckiest person ever, but my wanderlust kept begging me to feed it Seymour.  As is typical with everyday life and any kind of life that just finds you (as opposed to one you actively seek out), there was an inexplicable void haunting me.  A comfortable, content kind of boredom that I felt I was too young to be settling into.  I still had a lot of things I wanted to do, risks to take and some major antalones in my pantalones feeding the itch. You know what I'm talkin about...the really freakishly gigantic kinds in Africa that haunt your nightmares?  They were IN MY PANTALONES!  It was clearly time to take dem reins and move 'em out, head 'em up Raaawwwhiiiiiiddde.  And what better place to crank up the spice than a whole continent full of Latin culture?  Also, going to South America meant I could travel almost an entire continent on one language.  We'll ignore Brazilian Portuguese for now.

SO I devised a plan for myself... I said SELF, in a year I will quit my very comfy job, leave my lovely city and go travel for as long as I can/want to.  Once that decision had been made, I had the good fortune to stumble upon Grace, a friend in the exact same situation, wanting to do the exact same thing.  I told you, I have crazy luck (I prefer to think of it as karma).  So we chatted, procrastinated and finally bought our tickets some 3-4 months ago.  We bought them at the same time, in front of each other, confirmed we had the same flight numbers, departing on the same day.  Grace would be coming from SF and I would hop on to meet her in LA so I could spend my final week with family.  Dandy candy rainbows and unicorns.

Fast forward to yesterday, when after quitting work, packing up my life, flailing around and trying to squeeze in as much QT with my loved ones as possible, I thought I should probably double check my flight times and print my boarding pass.  Ticket from LAX to Guayaquil, Ecuador? Check.  Departing 5/7 at 2am.  Chhhhhheck?  Hmmmm, wait a tick, since it's leaving at 2am shouldn't that be 5/8? Grace is departing San Francisco on 5/7 at 10pm right? So then that would mean she'd depart LA at 2am on 5/8?  But mine says 5/7 at 2am. um. fuuuuuuuuck.

Now I know what you're thinking, I've spent this whole time setting you up for a catastrophe, but the truth is, I just called the Airline and they magically charged me one easy payment of $6.99 to change my flight to the next day.  Karmalamadingdong.  So what's my point other than making you crazy jealous of me?  If every blog out there needed to have a purpose aside from self-indulgence, I think there might be only 3 left.  I just thought I would take this opportunity to illustrate and introduce what this blog is likely to contain; the musings of two idealistic morons with a shared dream.  I hope you will find our adventures to be mildly entertaining if nothing else.  Tune in right here folks.

Did I mention that I didn't get my passport mailed back from the Bolivian embassy until today?  Now that's a horse of a different color, but it's probably a good thing I pushed that flight back a day.  Morons or not, wander we must and wander we shall!