Hello there,well this entry brings me into the Ecuadorian capital.
I met this hippy chick in Cuenca a few weeks back, and she has been travelling through South America for 2 years, in a van playing music and selling bracelets to keep going. We got on really well when we first met and she had a great vibe (I even got up on stage to sing a song at one of her gigs which was great fun). Anyway, she told me that she would be in Quito for a while and to give me an email when I was done with the sanctuary.
I did, and she told me where she was staying. When I arrived, it was a cool vibe of dredlocked artisty types all similar to Laura. On my first night, I went out with Laura (my friend) and her friends from her van. They were on a market mission and Laura asked me to come along. When I say market, I don´t mean buying, I mean selling and so we all wandered to one of the main squares in the New Town and set up shop. It was a fascinating night, being purely an observer of course, seeing who came and the conversations that occurred. I had a long chat with one of Laura´s friends Nadie, about their whole lifestyle and a few things occurred to me then and over the next few days hanging out with these guys and people similar.
I think what they do is amazing. They travel incredibly slowly, and have absolutely no ties to society. What they make through music gigs, selling their crafts or other little ventures they scheme up, is communally put into the kitty and they do tend to live day by day, hand to mouth. They rely completely on the universe to provide and they seem incredibly happy doing it. I think that years ago I wanted to be one of these travellers, as it is a true sense of travelling rather than the more false ¨tourist¨ sense that you get on a shorter trip.
What I have realised though is this. Although I definitely have a creative side to me, I could never be this completely free. I love home, I love my family and my friends. I adore travelling and always will, but I like the security of saving up money and then going on a trip. I think I fit in the middle. I am not like Laura, relying on small change earned every single day just to buy food, and yet I am not like other tourists, whereby I don´t want to experience a country in a matter of a few days or weeks. I think I am partly like the former group, where I do make real connections with the local people through things like couchsurfing, help exchange and volunteering, but I do do some tourist things of course can see the definite end of a trip.
I have had several people say to me in my life ÿou´re so lucky¨that you can travel. This is one thing that I was chatting to Nadie about and we both agreed that luck has nothing to do with it. It is all about choice. I choose to do and spend my money on travel. Anybody could do it. I´ve just decided that I like the excitement and unpredictability of travelling.
So back to the hippies, I spent my last night with Laura as a return to where we began. Music. The thing that we connected over the most. This girl is talented with a sultry Janis Joplin style voice and guitar talent that really inspired me. We went to this bar where she had a gig, and she once again asked me up on stage, saying that she loved the collaborative nature of music. I would have to agree, particularly with this evening. After the official ¨gig¨had passed, staff members and friends went up and sung, played and jammed their way through a few English songs, but mostly Spanish which made the night extra special and different for me. We were at the bar til 3am and although exhausted, it was one of the best nights I have had since I have been in South America.
