Enjoy!

Above: Annual harvest festival in Zumbahua, Ecuador

Above: Father’s Day bullfight in Pujili, Ecuador. Anyone was allowed in the ring to tease the bull!

When I was in Quito, Ecuador a while back, I visited a school for deaf and blind children.  This is a video clip from one of the classes I visited.  In it, children are learning how to sign different Spanish words.  The teacher put pictures of different objects on the floor and then asked the students what sign could be used to communicate each picture.

One of the things I found interesting:  Because the deaf students have trouble speaking and listening in the conventional ways, when they want to whisper to their friends during class, they don’t use their mouths–they sign with their hands.   At one point in the class, when many students were signing to their friends while the teacher was trying to teach, the teacher, frustrated, quickly folded her hands across her chest.  The students immediately did the same, and with this simple movement, all of the ‘chatter’ in the class ended.

I used a program I just downloaded called Autostitch to create the image above. The image is a compilation of four images taken from my camp spot on the side of Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador. The program is rad–no visible seams between images, fast, easy to use. Check it out if you like panoramic images.

**Click on the image and then click the ‘All Sizes‘ option above the image on its Flickr page to see more detail.**

Above: One of the outdated Colombian bills the crooks tricked me with. From 1967!

Thursday 7/3/08 Huaquillas, Ecuador

My lentil soup was so good and so shockingly meat-free I almost ignored the man to my right who was trying to get my attention. I was on the Ecuador/Peru border in a dusty town swarming with touts, food vendors, money changers, and taxi drivers. Just another guy who wants me to buy something, I thought as I looked down into my bowl.

The man persisted.

“Sir, sir. Excuse me, sir.”

I looked over at him.

The man said nothing and simply pointed down at my feet. I looked down and noticed a wad of money, neatly folded, a few inched from my right foot. Having made sure I saw the money, the man turned and walked away. Even though the money wasn’t mine, I assumed it was my lucky day and that the man had kindly drawn my attention to the cash because he took it to be mine. I leaned over and picked it up. When I sat back up, my handlebar bag, the one I had placed on my table right in front of my bowl of soup, was missing.

I was shocked.

The whole incident lasted no more than five seconds. In five short seconds, a thief walked off with my things and slipped into the chaotic dusty sea of drink vendors, shoe shine boys, police men, families, construction workers, fruit salesmen, and homeless people that clogged the street in front of me.

I laughed out loud.

“Did that really just happen?” I said quietly to no one in particular.

I would have been frustrated beyond belief by the robbery had I not done one crucial thing prior to entering the border town of Huaquillas, Ecuador: A few kilometers outside of town, I stopped by the side of the road and moved my iPod, camera, and Steripen (a device that cleans water with UV light) from my handlebar bag into my large, yellow trailer bag. I assumed the town would be dangerous, that my chance of getting robbed would be high, and hid my valuables. Because I did this, I only lost the bag, my headphones, and my bicycle computer—all things that can be replaced cheaply (kind of). It’s frustrating having to buy yet another handlebar bag and bike computer, but things could have been far worse. Having to replace a camera sucks. Having to replace a bike, I can only imagine, sucks even more. I still have the bike and my health—life is good.

This robbery, the second one on the trip for me, however, did force me to think about how safe a trip like this is for a solo traveler. I still think traveling solo by bike is safe, but there are clearly times in which a solo cyclist must be hyper-alert. When you let your guard down, you invite mishap to weasel its greasy foot into your life situation. I allowed myself to be pulled away from the present moment by a good bowl of soup and a wad of money that wasn’t mine. Had I treated the border town experience, every moment of it, with the caution it always deserves, I’d still have my stuff.

For other travelers out there who are reading this, below are a few other instances in which I was scammed/robbed while traveling. Please use my experiences not as anecdotes that scare you from traveling but as stories to learn from and use (because, as I’m learning more and more everyday, thanks to traveling, the world is not something to be feared but a beautiful place that is absolutely teeming with kind-hearted people.)

1. Thailand: In Bangkok, a bus driver approached me outside a famous temple. He was waiting for his tour group to return from the temple. We talked for 20 minutes or so, and after a while, he asked if I’d be interested in a tour of the city. He said his friend was a tuk-tuk (three-wheeled Thai taxi) driver and that I’d get a great rate for the day. I accepted (even though the rate was suspiciously low for a whole day of driving). We went to three different temples. At each one, strangely, I had to register and state my name and nationality. At each temple, a person approached me and tried to start a conversation. At one temple, a construction worker talked to me. At another, a man smoking a cigarette talked to me. Each man mentioned a great jewelry store in Thailand that he thought I should visit. I became suspicious after the first temple. By the third, I knew I’d be taken to this jewelry store that everyone kept talking about. Sure enough, the driver took me there. I refused to buy anything even though the sales women were pushy and pleaded desperately with me.

2. Cambodia: I bought a van ticket to travel from the beach in Cambodia to Bangkok. After four hours of driving, the van pulled over and the driver said he received a call saying that the road ahead was flooded. Even though it was the middle of the dry season, he swore there was water up ahead (us passengers couldn’t see any water). The driver said we just needed to wait a bit for the water to recede. We waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, after hours, the driver said we’d need to go back to town and that a van would drive us the following day, once the water receded. “I’ll take you to a nice guesthouse where you can rest for the night and then we’ll leave early the next day.” Of course, the driver had an arrangement with a guesthouse owner so that he’d receive a commission if he brought customers to the guesthouse. I refused to stay at the guesthouse and demanded to get my money back.

3. Honduras: I had a bit of money left at the border that I wanted to change. I approached one of the money changers loitering in front of the immigration office. I told him how much cash I had. He typed the figure into his calculator and divided it by the exchange rate. A low figure popped up on the screen. I excused myself and walked to a hotel nearby. I checked the figure with a hotel calculator and discovered the man had fixed his calculator to show the numbers he wanted it to show. For this reason, if you plan on using money changers (I rarely do), carry your own small calculator.

4. All over the world: Classic annoying scam: You sit down to eat a meal without asking for the price before hand. You finish your meal and go to pay and the owner quotes you a price that is two or three times higher than the standard price for your dish. With all the food in your belly, you have little you can do other than pay or argue. The tip: Always ask how much something is before you order it.

5. China: Someone stole traveler’s checks from my suitcase while staying in a hotel in China. I never figured out who stole them or the circumstances in which they were stolen, but I made the mistake of leaving traveler’s checks unattended in my luggage. I never use traveler’s checks anymore (debits cards are far easier to use), but I always keep my valuable documents, debit card, and money in a money belt. I wear the money belt around town and hide it in my trailer bag while riding.

6. Cambodia: I went swimming in the ocean and asked my ex-girlfriend to watch my shirt that was wrapped around my wallet. While I was swimming, a group of kids approached her and tried to sell her necklaces. A few of the kids distracted her while one stole my wallet. Luckily, I took my dummy wallet to the beach that day and the thief walked off with a crummy wallet, two or three dollars, and nothing else.

7. Costa Rica: You can read about how I was robbed in Costa Rica here.

**Can you add a travel-related scam to this list? If so, please include it in a comment to this post. When it comes to scams, educating ourselves is the only way to combat them. Thanks!**

Above: The bike gang in Guayaquil. Click this pic, then click ‘All Sizes’ above it on the Flickr page to see more detail

There’s not much cooler than riding around a big city at night with a pack of cyclists. Ablaze with flashing lights, a group of cyclists in Guayaquil’s Ecuador Aventura bike club and I rode to some of the city’s historic districts. Cars honked. People waved. We laughed. All went well. Thank you guys!

Above:  The support truck that rode with us on our ride

Are you a cyclist living in Guayaquil, Ecuador? Are you a cyclist who is going to pass through Guayaquil? If so, definitely check out the bike club Ecuador Aventura. It’s an active club that’s been around for 15 years. They ride every week and the members are beyond friendly. Pay them a visit!

Above: Ecuador’s block

For the past few days, I’ve been staying in a poor barrio in the city of Guayaquil in southern Ecuador. My host, a man by the name of Ecuador, is the founder of a local bicycle club in Guayaquil and has been nothing but hospitable. Today he was late for work because he insisted on walking me to a local barber shop.

Above: One of the best meals I had in Ecuador…with Ecuador…and his wife

When I walked into the joint, two guys were sitting in silence on chairs against the wall, waiting to get haircuts. The one barber who ran the place, the only person working in the two-chair shop, was chatting with a customer about the different political problems plaguing Guayaquil. Hair lay scattered at the barber’s feet like tiny anthills of black dirt. With a master’s speed, the man clipped away.

My turn came and I plopped down in the worn leather chair. The man strung up a plastic apron around my neck, first placing a line of toilet paper around the apron’s collar, and shook out hair from the previous customer from his comb.

“You want the same haircut the other guy just got, right?” The man asked in Spanish.

I hadn’t realized it until that moment, but that last three customers had received the same exact haircut–a gradual fade that bled into a slicked-back plume on top.

“Can I get something a little different?” I asked. Never before had I asked a barber for permission to have my hair cut a certain way. “I just want my head shaved. With the buzzer. A number two razor on my whole head. Easy. Is that OK?”

For a split second, my luck could have gone either way. The old barber’s gray eyes showed no sign of acceptance of my proposal. He mulled over the prospect of creating a renegade customer, some hair freak who would walk the streets without the barber’s signature do, a lost advertising opportunity. Then, he smiled and reached for the buzzer.

“No problem.”

After 10 minutes, I paid my $1.25 U.S. and left the shop a few bazillion hairs lighter.

Above: I feel like a walking Which-of-These-Things-Doesn’t-Belong picture in a children’s book. Which is fun, by the way.

Above: One of the boys who lived near the farm described in this post

“You are Jesus Christ! You are! You understand me, no?” The woman, an imposing figure almost twice my size who somehow had access to eyeliner despite us being miles from the nearest house with electricity, asked me in English that was muddied with a thick accent. She followed her question with a smile that was unmistakably flirtatious. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about (or smiling about, for that matter), but I was afraid to admit it to her directly. Anyone who accuses strangers of being Jesus Christ must be dealt with gingerly.

I let out a nervous laugh.

“Uhh, I kind of understand you. You think I look like Jesus Christ, right?” I asked.

She scrunched her brow and made a face like she’d just eaten a rotten strawberry.

“No, I said different thing. I said you are Jesus Christ. You are he. Not look like. It iss different, no? You are Jesus Christ,” she repeated. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. “Translate my words to my family. Tell them in Spanish what I say.” Pause. “Do it. Iss OK, do it,” she ordered.

I looked around. Her family, a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses clustered around two plastic tables in front me, waited in total silence for me to translate. The moment was so laden with awkwardness that time slowed to a quarter of its usual pace just so we could all absorb the weirdness of the scene: An odd white guy who was invited to someone else’s family reunion BBQ was blushing and the name Jesus Christ was being tossed around in conversation like a syntactical beach ball. Chicks and baby ducks jumped about at our feet. The pig that was slaughtered that morning was now being ripped to microscopic shreds in our bellies. Dogs and cats with bloated lice on their ears waited at attention around us for table scraps.

“Uhh, she says that I am Jesus Christ,” I explained in Spanish.

“No, she means you look like Jesus Christ,” the woman’s brother said in Spanish, attempting to correct me.

“No, that’s not what I said,” the woman objected in Spanish. “He is Jesus Christ. You know why I think so? Because I’m Mary.” Pause. “You know, like Mary Magdalene!!”

Everyone burst into laughter.

*****

Above: Ecuador’s mom, the owner of the farm, stirring the world’s biggest pot of soup

I had been invited to join a local bike club on a ride out to the countryside. So few cyclists showed up for the ride that the afternoon post-ride BBQ, something that was originally slated to be a cyclist event at the home of one cyclist’s mother, turned into a family gathering with a few cyclists thrown into the mix. Plates upon plates of plantains, fresh pork, and homemade salchicha (a type of meat-less sausage made with mashed plantains) came and went. We took baths in the river that ran out behind the house, set up our tents, and talked our way deep into the night.

Above: The house as seen from the front. No electricity, no running water. One room.

For me, it was a fascinating night because my company, all Jehovah’s Witnesses, challenged a stereotype I had previously had about Jehovah’s Witnesses. Prior to this trip, I had never spent any amount of time talking to a Jehovah’s Witness and, based on the pushy few whom I had met on my doorstep over the years, people who had hoped to convert me to their faith (or at least get me to commit to attending one of their services so I could convert later) yet showed no interest in my own spiritual beliefs (because they weren’t like their own, and hence, not valid, I can only assume), I hoped to keep it that way. I know, I know. I shouldn’t write off a group of people based on the actions of a select few. But my impression of Jehovah’s Witnesses had been cast. When I heard that I’d be camping out with Jehovah’s Witnesses after the ride, I braced myself for a forceful religious conversation.

Instead, I got friendly talk about politics, life in the countryside, cycling, and a myriad of other subjects. Sure, at one point someone asked me to come inside to ‘take a look’ at a stack of Witness-related books, but the conversation that ensued was neither pushy nor one-sided. Much like a Harley enthusiast shows off his hog to a guest after the BBQ embers die down, so did one Witness show me her books. She didn’t want me to read them, she simply wanted me to admire their well-preserved condition.

*****

Above: A MASSIVE pot of pork and plantains. To give you a sense of perspective, those plates are large, full-size dinner plates.

At one point in the night, one man asked me how I afforded to pay for my trip.

“I worked for 3.5 years and saved my money. For one year during that time, I rarely went out to restaurants or spent money on things other than groceries,” I answered honestly in simple Spanish. “Also, it’s cheap to travel by bicycle. I can live comfortably on $8-10 dollars a day,” I added.

“Oh, it’s good that you know how to save money,” the man responded in Spanish. “Here in Ecuador, not many people live like you. Many people don’t save money. They don’t think about money for the future. If they have food in their hands, they have smiles on their faces,” the man said. “Like here, this pig that we had for dinner. Do you think people here thought about salting some of the pig and saving it for later? Of course not. No, instead they eat the whole pig in two days and give half of it away to neighbors so it doesn’t rot. That’s how we live.”

“Why?” I asked. I was perplexed. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t save a little money or food or whatever if they had the resources to do so.

“Because we don’t trust our government or our banks. Saving for the future is silly if the bank takes all your money one day and tells you to leave, to get lost.”  Pause.  “I will never put money in a bank again. I had 8,000,000 sucres before dollarization took place in 2001. [In an attempt to stabilize Ecuador's currency, the sucre, the government switched to using U.S. dollars as currency. In the exchange process, many Ecuadorians lost huge amounts of money by submitting to the horrible exchange rate the government imposed on the banks.] That money should have been worth $1,600 U.S. based on the old exchange rate of 5,000 sucres to the dollar. I could have bought a farm twice this size!” The man exclaimed, waving his hand at the property around us. “Instead, you know how much I got? I got $400 U.S. That’s it. My life savings was cut down to $400! No, no banks for me again,” he said, a wild rage buried deep in him flickering up through his eyes.

“So where do you keep your money if not in a bank,” I asked.

“In jars and boxes. I bury them in the ground around my house. Lots of people do that now. No one trusts the banks. What else can you do?” The man took a sip of his limonada.

“After the dollarization, why didn’t Ecuadorians take to the streets and protest? I mean, so many people lost so much money, why didn’t everyone go crazy and refuse to work, to pay taxes, to do anything until the exchange rate was corrected?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t sounding accusatory.

“We did, of course. But here, the government controls us.  And also, we have so much corruption and so much illegal activity in our government, we grow used to accepting these types of problems. They are a part of life here in Ecuador. What can you do?” The man asked me with a smile.

I didn’t have an answer for him. The man reached to slap a mosquito on his ankle and our conversation ended with a loud SMACK!

Sunday 6/29/08 In the countryside near Vinces, Ecuador

Week 38 Stats

Start city: Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

End city: In the countryside near Vinces, Ecuador

Total distance traveled: 128 miles

Days on the bike: 3

Average miles per day of riding: 42.7 miles

Longest day: 50 miles

Shortest day: 30 miles

Total money spent: $137.90

Average per day: $19.70

Whales spotted this week: A few

Bike clubs met: 1

Nights spent camping: 1

Total miles ridden with my friend Mikey before he left Ecuador: 555 !!!

Mikey’s longest riding day: 72 miles !!

Baths taken in a murky, brown jungle river: 1

Times I feared catching some tropical disease while bathing in the river: 2,964,210

Nights spent in a poor barrio in Guayaquil: 2

Total money spent on the trip to date: $4,249.10

Total number of days on trip to date: 266

Total average money spent per day to date: $15.97 per day

Most expensive week to date: $1,129.75

Cheapest week to date: $8.75

Total miles ridden to date: 6,682.5

Highest mileage week to date: 430 miles

Lowest mileage week to date: 10

 

Sunday 6/22/08  Puerto Lopez, Ecuador 

Week 37 Stats

Start city:  Latacunga, Ecuador

End city:  Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

Total distance traveled:  254 miles

Days on the bike:  5

Average miles per day of riding:  50.8 miles

Longest day:  72 miles

Shortest day:  30 miles

Total money spent:  $61.15 

Average per day:  $8.79

Longest continuous stretch of downhill:  57 miles !!!!  (a trip high so far!)

Longest day in the saddle:  6 hours 50 minutes (finished riding at 8:15 p.m)

Hours of riding in the darkness on the long day:  Almost 2

Number of times I’ve ridden in the dark on this trip so far:  3 or 4

Volcanic crater lakes visited:  1

Afternoons spent in a hammock reading a magazine:  1

Nights spent camped out in a school:  1

Number of mandarins a shop owner gave us when we stopped for a soda:  5

Cheapest day:  $4.50 U.S.

Most expensive day:  $12.30 U.S.

Times Mikey and I felt weird stomach stuff in the past week:  A few.  Uggggh.