Ok, I'm just going to get these three things out of the way:
1) I almost died this weekend in the Pacific Ocean
2) I got dreads
3) I have a new-found invigorating appreciation for simply being alive
So this weekend I headed back on the Guayaquil-->Montañita route
with a different group. Something important to keep in mind before I
start out on this weekend adventure: this last weekend was Guayaquil's
festival, a national holiday, and thus all schools and businesses were
on holiday. This being said, the citizens of Santo Domingo (a city in
the province Guayaquil is in) decided that this would be the most
effective weekend to stage their protests and road blockades as all the
Guayaquil-ians would be wanting to take advantage of the extended
weekend and sit on the beach. The protests were in response to economic
depravity for the citizens of Santo Domingo since Guayaquil gets all
the money that is distributed to the province (because Guayaquil is the
largest city in Ecuador, it eats up a lot of money). Anyway, we did the
whole "leave at 9pm to arrive at 5am" trip and arrived early into
Guayaquil on Friday morning where we found out that despite the
protests we could take a bus up to the blockade, walk around it, and
then catch some other form of transport on the other side.
Excellent.
So we (a group of 11 at this point) dropped our bags off at the
internet cafe of the family of Julie (an Ecuadorian we traveled with)
and headed out to explore the clean, recently renovated, and
comparatively more tourist friendly (comparative to Quito) city of
Guayaquil. At noon we decided our 7 hours in Guayaquil were well spent
and we headed back to the bus station. $3 got us our tickets in a
brand-new coach bus that was to take us to El Progreso, the point at
which the road blocks, or "paros", were not allowing any traffic
through. Luckily there were plenty of locals taking advantage of the
situation and were offering rides those who needed to get through (be
it to get back to home or be it determination to get to the beach) and
we (now a group of 7) climbed into an extended van that had somehow
installed an extra row of seats facing the other way; of course Tracy,
Elisa, and I got into this seat and spent the whole ride to La Libertad
looking at everybody else looking at us and flying down the roads
backwards. [There were 20 of us in an 11 person bus] The alternative
route we took ended up being a series of winding dirt roads in the
middle of a desert landscape, so complete desolation all around. We
were pretty positive about the whole experience, congratulating
ourselves on successfully avoiding the big paros that had made it in
the news that were on the main highways; haha, nobody can stop US from
getting to the beach!
And then, of course, the paros came to the desolate roads. Somebody
must have alerted the protesting crew that there were a fair amount of
us getting by by taking this middle-of-nowhere route, and so, tires in
hand, they started building a pyramid of tires across the road. And not
just building the pyramid so we couldn't get through, but pouring
gasoline all over the place so it would light. "Luckily" we were the
first car to get there and our driver was able to bribe them with $20
to at least kick a few tires over to let us through, and indeed they
let us through, but our van definitely drove over fire. Wild.
Again, we think "oh what an adventure we just had, only an hour more to
go, what persistent tourists are we, etc" and we were in a generally
chipper mood. Then our van slows down again...never a good sign when
you're in the middle of nowhere and frankly nothing should be stopping
you. So we turn around in our seats to see what's going on, and we
realize that yet another group of protesters has spread brush and trees
and sticks across the road with the intention of burning it all. At
this point our driver off roads it, leaving the protesters yelling and
running after the van as we plunged down an even less defined road than
the dirt in dirt road we had just come off of, speeding through dried
river beds, and going though potholes and all. Every vehicle we passed
was a source of information as to where more paros were, what roads to
avoid, what looked like it was still open, etc. At one point we
realized that the road behind us was blockaded off, the road to our
left was ablaze, and the only choice was to go straight and we crossed
our fingers that this one would be open, because otherwise we were
pretty much stuck. It was at this point a slight fear set in as we
realized that if we got stuck, because we were in between a bunch of
paros, we'd have to 1) stay overnight in the van and 2) we were an
incredibly easy target for robbers. Luckily neither of these fears were
realized, and we somehow made it to La Libertad at 6pm; i.e. dusk.
Well we hadn't gone through all this adventure to stop here, so we
found a guy who promised to get us to Montañita "even it it takes until
midnight". Nothing to lose there, so our troop (still 7) climb into the
5-seat car and continue our journey to Montañita. Only an hour and a
half left! We can make it! We're going to Montañita! We're going to
Montañita! We're doing to see the Pacific Ocean! We're going to
Montañita!
BUT! (and of course there is always a but...) we get about 5 minutes
out of Montañita when we find semis, coach buses, domestic cars,
taxis...all forms of vehicles backed up. Again, we look up when our car
slows down (remember, never a good sign) and we see an entire tree has
been laid out across the road and embers from the previous fire were
smoldering away. And these protesters were serious. With french fry/hot
dog stands set up and blankets abundant, it was clear they were ready
to camp out for the night. After being assured there were 25 cent taxis
on the other side that could take us the rest of the way, we thanked
our driver and crossed over the smoldering brush and embers to get to
the other side. We were charged 50 cents for the ride and when we
protested, one of the drivers claimed that with high gas prices, they
have to raise the price...well if they'd stop using all their gas to
light tires on fire...
And we finally rolled into Montañita at 8:15pm! Seven hours for what
should have been a 2-3 hour trip...but a grand adventure! We then ate,
had drinks, ran into the Pacific (Elisa came all the way from Germany
to see the Pacific and she was really excited to run blindly into it!)
and then got back to our hostel where we passed out for the night.
Saturday morning we shopped around, ate breakfast, and headed out to
the beach! A wonderful time was had as we all jumped in the waves,
Tracy continually picking up living sea creatures that I would just as
soon not think about the fact that they were swimming around me, and we
chilled on the beach. We ran into our friend Peter, also from Madison,
and decided to jump back in the ocean. We were having a good time when
all of a sudden a big wave accompanied with a strong rip tide carried
us out further than we could touch. Unending waves forced us to
continually dive below the waves before having to kick back to the
surface and it seemed to be an unending fight of waves vs. human. At
this point Peter was closest to shore, I was second closest, and Tracy
had been swept out the furthest. When Tracy made it known that she was
not doing well, that she as in fact having an asthma attack and
panicking a bit, Peter swam out to help her, and I was just worked on
staying above water and taking care of me, because it was really the
best and only thing I could do. So it was at this point I realized we
were in a bad situation, but in the back of my mind I was thinking,
just stay calm, keep swimming, Peter is taking surfing lessons, they
probably taught him some tips on how to get back, just stay above water
until he's able to regroup and yell out instructions...
After fighting with the waves for another minute more or so, Peter
yells out, not instructions, but rather a desperate "Anne!..help us!"
and I could only respond "no" which, though it sounded bad, I was
meaning to communicate "there is no way I can help you guys by swimming
out there to where you are, the only thing I can do is get back to
shore and get help for you" and apparently this message was kind of
relayed to them (they know that if could have helped, I would have). It
was at this point that I started to panic because Peter had really been
my hope to getting back and things were looking really bad; our friends
couldn't see we were in trouble, they were like little specks back on
shore, we were getting really tired, the waves were overpowering us, it
was really scary, but I just kept kicking and trying to stay above
water and yelling encouraging words back at Peter and Tracy. I was
still about 20 feet closer to shore than they were and all of a sudden
I was able to touch when the waves were down and miraculously the rip
tide didn't follow (which is what had gotten us into trouble in the
first place) and I was able to stay put and not get sucked in; the
water was still high, up to my shoulders, but at least I wasn't going
back out. So I turned back and was like "guys! guys! guys!! I can
touch!!! Just get to here and it'll be ok!!!" This was my "help" in the
whole situation, as Tracy claims that at that moment she had an
adrenaline rush and was able to keep kicking with thinking that they
just had to make it to where I was and we'd survive. We dragged
ourselves back to the beach and passed out on the beach, each of us
contemplating how close to death we had come. Land was looking like a
good place to hang out, so we headed back into town to get lunch.
So exhilarated about being alive, I ate lunch with a new appreciation
that I was eating lunch...and I was alive....that I was walking down
the muddy main street of Montañita...alive...that was getting so filthy
from the mud that was all around...but that wasn't so important,
because I was alive. We walked along the beach, found some cool stuff
like jellyfish, a dead tortoise, more sand dollars, some pelican
skeletons, coral....just cool beach stuff. I decided that now was the
time to get the dreadlocks I've wanted for almost two years now, and we
found somebody to do them for me and that's what we did from about
7pm-midnight. It was actually really cool because it was like a
mini-community project; some other artisans came over to help with the
dreads ("rastas" in Spanish), some of the waiters helped, Elisa and
Tracy did a little bit, some other USFQ students that were there helped
out...it was a nice bringing together of different people. At midnight
I said that we could finish up the next day, because I was done with
sitting around and I was ready to dance! so we up and left and went to
one of the only dance clubs in Montañita and danced until 4:30am...so
happy to be alive.
When I was in Montañita last month, an artisan named Yaco had done two
hair wraps in my hair, but because I was there for such little time, it
was kind of a hello/goodbye fleeting friendship. Well, I ran into him
again this time and we ended up chatting on and off on Saturday while I
was running about the tiny main street, and then again I ran into him
on the main street when we left the dance club...and we ended up
talking from 4:30-8:30am-ish on Sunday morning. Every so often I would
interject my line of "I almost died today!" almost like a joke, but
also because I was thinking about it, and Yaco kept reminding me that I
didn't, and that that is what makes life more beautiful, to have this
perspective that I'm still alive and that my experiences from here on
out will be that much more enhanced. It was wonderful to finally find
somebody in Ecuador who had thoughts and ideas and visions that were
more profound than superficialities, a very prominent feature in a lot
of my Ecuadorian classmates. It was a wonderful last morning in
Montañita and by 10:30am I was back in "our" restaurant ("ours" [Tracy,
Elisa and I] because we had spent 5 hours there the night before doing
my dreads and had made friends with the workers there :D) to finish off
my rastas. Four hours later we were saying our goodbyes, figuring out a
route to get back (remember, roads closed) and our little troop, now
down to 3, headed to Puerto Lopez before getting back to Quito at 4:30
Monday morning.
Now if this whole near-death experience thing weren't so dangerous, I
would really suggest everybody go through it. I have come out of it
with more exuberance about life and people, and I've been in this
wonderful mood for 5 days straight, because no matter what is going on,
no matter what other people say/think, I'm still so alive and I'm so
content.
Oh, and put your children in swimming lessons. It could save their life some day...
Here are my fotitos from the weekend:
http://wisc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2296783&l=141d2&id=8628451
living an amazing life,
annemary
