The Great Trip: Chapter 20: The Ecuadorian Dream

We indeed left on the Saturday. We discovered that our postponed departure was due to the fact that another boat for the same destination arrived on the Monday, so the 2 boats would travel together. Both boats were sooo ugly, totally packed. Steven, a 40-years-old English guy who looks 10 years less and who became soon our good friend arrived 2h before departure and struggled a lot to find a spot for his hammock; and I was sleeping under Tom’s and next person’s hammocks. The food consisted simply in porridge in the morning, rice and chicken for lunch… and porridge again at night. Didn’t help improving my health.

The same than for the prospect of the departure time, the arrival time was submitted to Peruvian notions: they forecasted 4 days, then 5, and on the 6^th day we were meant to arrive every hour… 6 days floating up the river Napo, enjoying every breaks on the shores under the sun (until once in Ecuador where we discovered that an oil factory had burst further up the river! Bad stuffs happen!).

We finally arrived in Pantoja, where the only hostel was full of travellers waiting for our boat to arrive and go back to Iquitos… sooo we slept one more night on the boat, for a change! The following day we took another 2h boat to Rocafuerte, just after the border of Ecuador. It was a very small place with a customs office, 2 hotels and a shop only. So we went to the customs, bought food at the shop, and slept in one of the hostel, what else to say? We chilled there a couple of days with Steven, and then another 9h boat to Coca, the edge of the Ecuadorian jungle. We did it! And still alive (almost)! Coca is a town led by oil industry, there was not much to see. The only appealing thing was the free zoo some 30 min outside the city, so we tried. But unfortunately, the zoo, meant to be open every day even bank holidays, was shut because of a “very important football game against Peru”. They have a weird notion of holidays there Ecuadorians hehe.

The following day we took a night bus for Quito, the capital ($10 for 12h of bus, so cheap here! Probably because Ecuador uses the US Dollar so the petrol probably costs less…). We were first hosted by Paul, a cool couchsurfer who lives on a side of Quito in a very luxurious flat with terrasse and beautiful view on the city, 2 bathrooms, 2 flat screens and a private room for us. He was working everyday so we just had the whole flat for us the entire day! Tom started to work a bit and came back the first day of work with a huge smile and almost $50 in the pocket!

After 3 nights at Paul’s we moved to the New Bask, THE hostel for travellers, where we met Franco and Niko, 2 musicos we hosted in Cusco; as well as Jose, that we also hosted in Cusco and went to Coroico with me; Ariana, that I met on the way back to Cusco; my Spanish friend called Jose as well, that I met in Scotland; and also 2 French girls and Agustin, alias Dr Angus, some fellows we met in Arco Iris in Iquitos. You will believe me when I say we directly felt home, with our brothers and sisters around =)

After that, we were more than blessed to find Ecuador Connection on Couchsurfing, an ancient social place that is not anymore but still welcome every year some German people getting involved in associations and foundations. So a big thanks to Gazina and Kathrien, who let us stay at their place almost 3 weeks!

Gazina and Katrien learning pois

View on Cotopaxi vulcan, from their terrasse

This period of time was focused on “how to help Tom to make money”. Every day he would go to play in the street with his brand new amp., he burnt CDs with 10 of his songs, I designed business cards for him, etc etc… I was also missing psytrance so he suggested organizing a party. ON. We found a bar the next day (we found it randomly; it was just full of UV lights so perfect pace for a psy night.) Spend the week doing decorations with almost nothing – painting a huge board used in the flat as table tennis table, the same with unused wooden shelves… well, I let you see on the photos.

The party was … well, for us, great! The decorations filled the space and music was good enough, you know Tom. I think where we failed was to organise the party to quick: even though we had very good key contacts for advertising the party, the message didn’t get to enough people and in the end only 10-15 people showed up… (Reminds me a tiny party we organized in the Galloway last summer! Conclusion: it is possible to organize a party in a very short time, but it takes more time to advertise it.)

The good think is that one girl who came to the party, Carolina, invited us to play the next day at a festival organized by her German friend Wind (yeah that’s his name!). So she picked us on the Friday and we headed together to one of the mountain surrounding Quito, at the very top where Wind’s parents own a tiny chalet. The festival was in fact just a small outside party with something like 50 people max., but the spot was sooo nice that we still felt blessed to be there (even after my computer, which was locked in the chalet, got robbed while we went for a 20 min walk… Again, bad things happen.). But now I’m writing to you from the new 2^nd hand computer we bought together the next week in Quito =)

View from the "festival"

Another week for Tom to make money and we decided to take some holidays at the beach of Pedernales. What a paradise! The blue-green and warmth of the Pacific Ocean, the calm and sun of the beach… A perfect place to relax!

Walking the whole afternoon on the beach covered with beautiful stones, we end up on a tiny beach with almost no one, Tom playing the guitar all afternoon while I would be like a fish in the ocean… until a bunch of young guys of the village join us, all exited, because they came to buy weed from the guy living there… Yeah, we did end up next to the big field of marijuana of the area! So we went back to Pedernales with a group of friend and the pockets full of weed =) (weed that Tom later threw away freaking out during the standard police bus weapon search hahaha)