SustainablEthos

Quick note: this will be my last post from abroad. I am due to return stateside Thursday evening around 5:30pm barring any crazy situations. But I would like to take the chance to thank you for following my travels thus far – there will certainly be more to come – and let you know that I plan on posting three more times, after I return, on my time with Planet Drum volunteering in Ecuador and my last tourist sight of Latacunga and the Quilotoa Crater. Further, I plan on keeping this site going to touch on my new environmentally-minded career path in addition to anymore travels in the future…southeast Asia is already on my mind

Up to now, two full and memorable months, I have been traveling to travel (or “viajar por viajar”, as Che’s role says in Motorcycle Diaries). I have met some absolutely wonderful and interesting people (hopefully lifelong friends), hiked some of South America’s most sacred and beloved lands, survived the touristy, gringo-trap cities, and traversed all reasonable destinations by bus (almost 9,000km thus far). I tried not to have any expectations, other than to spend a wee bit less dinero, but the ability to say the above words with smiling satisfaction has made it well worth it. I can look back at the açai overdose-induced bout of bowel difficulties and laugh. I can also look forward to the next sixty hours of bussing from Puno, Peru to Bahía de Caraquez, Ecuador and know it will also hold a life lesson and/or memory.

The hardest part, though, has been the farewells. It wouldn’t be fair to name names as they have all made an impact on my experience here and, ultimately, who I have become. I traveled with an amazing individual from Spain from my first day in Mendoza ALL the way to my stay here in Puno. I met him by chance in El Chalten and hiked with him for a day to Mount Fitz Roy and didn’t think anything of it until we realized our paths were crossing just perfectly. We “chillar’d” and “bueno’d” our way through wine country, Inca country, desert country, and northern route 40 country to reach this moment where they are all now memories. Like a bandaid, we looked at each other, gave thanks, hugged, and parted ways until next time – in this life or another. What didn’t need words was the understanding and appreciation that a friendship can be shared across borders and languages. This is what makes traveling so special and, in my mind, priceless.

So I boarded my first bus from Puno to Lima at 3:00pm (21hrs, Cruz del Sur) and eventually my second from Lima to the notorious border town of Tumbes without any feeling of doubt in my mind. En route, I watched about ten movies, drank some wine I snuck on board, gazed out my cama window for inspiration while I wrote, and slept fairly well. This was, as I had been told a few times, the most dangerous part of my trip. Lima, as a stopover, was nothing compared to what I would face in Tumbes. As I told my dad about my experience here, he asked me how I could trus tthe girl that took me by the arm and offered to share a cab that would drop me off at the only secure bus terminal (CIFA) to safely take me across the border. I simply told him that I could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. Not everyone in a given town, country, or hemisphere is out to take advantage of you, violate you, or worse, and you need to be able to put your trust in non-friend or family members throughout life. Understanding this can provide you with a lifelong skill and hopefully put the odds in your favor in most situations. It certainly isn’t “perfectable”, as I would learn in Guayaquil, as one must always must adapt to new settings and situations as they progress through life.

After safely passing the “barbarians at the gate” who were eagerly waiting for a gringo outside the bus terminal, I had to find money, and fast. I had to trust another person behind the ticket counter to not pawn off my things while I ran ten blocks to find an ATM. Finally stepping on the bus, with money and personal items secured, I entered the most unsecure of bus atmospheres I had experienced thus far. I sat with both legs through my daypack straps and my head out my window to look out for my bag stored below as the bud stopped frequently in “iffy” areas. Six hours of this brought me to Guayaquil, five hours from Bahía, but one hour late for the last bus that day. After so much transport, there was no doubt in my mind that I was staying in my first hotel on this trip! Once settled, I ventured to find massive Colombian dinner and washed it down with an ice cold beer followed by a scrumptious Magnum ice cream bar (food $8, hotel $40). This was one of the best nights of sleep on my trip, and I would recommend the place except for the fact that I believe the guy behind the front desk in the morning snagged by debit card number and code without me noticing because (I think) I refused to pay an 8% CC fee that I wasn’t told about the night before when I asked them about it. $1,300 was the value of the two flights purchased that same day, but, fortunately, I had just retrieved cash from the ATM as my bank was suspecting suspicious activity and was already in the process of cancelling my card. I didn’t realize all this until here now in Bahía.

The five hour bus ride into this coastal Eco-city was equally “iffy” but successful. I disembarked on a random street, grabbed an Eco-taxi ($0.50, a tricycle bike with a front bench for up to two people), and cruised into the most tranquil pueblo on my trip.

Tags: Bahia de caraquez, border crossing, cruz del sur, eco-city, eco-taxi, Final abroad post, identity theft, Jesse Bania, life lessons, lifelong friendship, motorcycle diaries, sustainablethos website

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 9:40 am and is filed under jesse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.