And so it was on my second morning in Ecuador that I woke up in the oldest farmhouse in the Chone Cantón of the province of Manabi, seven hours west of Quito by bus, far from a stable internet connection, a change of clothes, or indeed, most of my gear.  Unscreened wooden doors along the eastern wall of my bedroom were spread wide, allowing in both the morning sun and an unspoiled vista of plantain, passion-fruit and cacao trees spreading off into the horizon.  Located in the central western section of Ecuador, Chone lay just miles from the coast on one side and the Andes on the other, with the proximity to the former giving the air a cool, fresh quality.

The Common Room, rum and coke in pot (stock photo)

I had awakened the day before at El Centro del Mundo in La Mariscal district of Quito at around 11 in the morning, still recovering from the hostel’s famous “Free Rum and Coke Night,” a local holiday so beloved by guests that it is celebrated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Basically, guests congregate in the main common area around a low table topped by a large metal pail filled with coca-cola and the cheapest possible local rum.  In a world of Captain Morgans and Admiral Nelsons, the variety used here was Ensign Pedro at best, but it got the job done.  La Mariscal is easily the most touristy region of Quito, widely known as “Gringolandia” to locals and travel books alike.

The hostel was a mostly younger crowd of Australians, South Africans and Israelis with a single other American, and we traveled from room to room sharing travel stories, of which I had none.  Drug use is apparently quite prevalent in hostels, with nearly everyone smoking joints of tobacco mixed with surprisingly dry and unattractive marijuana.  The 50/50 joint is apparently the norm in all of the world but North America, and I was grilled on why Americans like smoking pot alone, though I didn’t really have any answers for them.  At one point the Australians blatantly partook of cocaine in a room full of people, and while no one else joined them, I was surprised at how little anyone seemed to take notice of it.  I asked if it was as good as South America’s most notorious contraband is known to be and was told that not only was it better than anything they had ever come across, but it was only ten dollars a gram.  Without context, I asked if that was a good deal and  they explained gleefully that the same quantity of far inferior product ran $300 in Australia.  Yikes.  I was fascinated but stuck to the rum and coke, which despite any apparent bargains on other things was still the best deal in the house.

Ecuadorian showerhead, with heater

Remarkably hungover for not having spent a single cent on alcohol the night before, I stumbled out of my bunkbed and made my way to the showers to clean both myself and my laundry.  Hot water heaters don’t seem to exist anywhere in Ecuador, so showers are instead heated by an electrical attachment above the dangling showerhead, exposed wires ominously sticking out above the clearly well-aged contraption, as though every bather were a mishap away from an electrically charged cleansing.  Water temperature then is directly proportional to water pressure, as the heater can only handle a limited amount of flow at a time.  A trickle, then, is scaldingly hot.  Powerful torrents are almost entirely frigid.  And somewhere in the middle is a rich, drizzly warmth that does well to counter Quito’s regularly chilly mornings.

In lieu of detergent or a washing machine, I gave my clothes a good shampooing and did my best to rinse everything out.  Clearly I wasn’t successful, as I’m now wearing them again and find myself a walking miasma of Herbal Essence.  While drying off, I thought I distinctly heard my name being called, and upon investigating found the hostel receptionist calling for me with a blond-haired Englishman in a crumpled blue sport jacket, likely in his late 20s, standing next to her and staring at me expectantly.

“Yancy?”

I nodded blankly.

“Tom Nicolson, Ecuador Reporter…”

Oh yeah.

My writing gig.  I had emailed him a few months ago asking if  I could write for the paper while in town and I assumed he was just humoring me when he wrote back to offer me an intern position.  Somehow I assumed we’d casually meet up within a week or two of my arrival, and I’d get the occasional paragraph to eke out here and there.  That he’d seek me out on my first morning caught me a bit off guard, but it was a welcome surprise.  And I certainly didn’t have anywhere I particularly needed to be.

We made small talk for a good fifteen seconds or so before he jumped into it.

“I’ve got a piece lined up this weekend that really needs to be done and my travel writer suddenly can’t make it.  What are your thoughts on going off the deep end?”

“This whole trip’s off the deep end…”

Knowing absolutely nothing about  what I would be writing about or where I’d be going, I immediately agreed to it.

He explained that to the west lay a region of Ecuador untouched by tourism that’s trying to get its name on the vacationer’s travel map.  Cloud forests are common throughout Ecuador - misty, vivid regions not quite as thick or wet as their rain forest cousins.  The majority of them are located between Ecuador’s mountain and jungle regions, so Chone (pronounced “Cho-nay”) was unique for having one instead between the mountains and coast to the west, with its own specialized agriculture and landscapes.

“When would I leave?”

“Well, we’d need you there tonight, and the trip takes about 6-8 hours by bus, so pretty soon, basically.  We just need to meet up with the photographer Joe, my number two guy.”

I quickly pardoned myself and packed my day bag with a vast assortment of things I wouldn’t need, like my laptop and South American Handbook (no entry on Chone), and avoided some things I really would need, like a single change of clothes.  Back in the common room, Tom was talking in fluent Spanish to our contact in Chone, Luis sorting out the details of the trip.

Vastly unprepared, I left my belongings locked up in El Centro del Mundo and made my exit with Tom, heading two blocks down the street to Finn McCool’s, an unexpectedly authentic Irish pub save the lack of Guinness – it’s nearly impossible to get most standard beers down to Ecuador.  Most bars and restaurants only have the two locals, Club and Pilsener, with Budweiser or Heineken tossed onto the menu sometimes as exotic foreign fare.  The bar was mostly dead, though an older Englishman with a nose-ring and partial mohawk entertained me with local stories while tearing through a small glass of dark alcohol, a large beer and a fizzy strawberry drink with liberal amounts of vodka, simultaneously.

Joe arrived and we headed out by cab to Quito’s main bus terminal.  The fifteen minute trip cost $2.20, and we left no tip.  Quito to Chone by bus would be eight dollars a person and take approximately seven hours.  An older bus making many more local stops would’ve only cost five, but we were in a hurry and not afraid to shell out the three extra bucks for more comfort and a mid-trip showing of Sylvester Stallone’s 80s prison classic “Lock-Up,” dubbed remarkably well in Spanish, potentially making the film better than it was in its original incarnation.

We darted down the Pan-American highway, often in the rain, over windy mountainous roads with little space between the railing at the edge of the road and continuous (yet quite idyllic) sudden death below us.  Despite the unnerving view and a seemingly frantic driver, it’s no Yungas Death Road and thus not known for a large amount of accidents or fatalities.  The mountains rose and fell, draped in misty clouds and their green outer coating was lush and vivid.

A woman sat at a desk outside the bathroom at the Chone bus station, saying “derecha” (”right”) as I entered, as though I couldn’t tell the stick figure on the door to the right without a dress on was an hombre.  The seemingly public terminal restroom had walls that were entirely blank save for two posters, arbitrarily hung: Shakira and Hillary Duff.  Upon walking out, the woman yelled “cinco centamos” as I walked past her, and I returned to pay the five cents, suddenly understanding her (fairly terrible) reason for sitting there.

Our contact, Luis picked us up and gave us a brief history of Chone and its history of political instability.  With a ratio of two cows for every one person, it’s somewhat of a cowboy town, “like, you know, ehh John Wayne movie,” he said.  The city has a bit of an attitude, and the people are a bit more hale than is typical in Ecuador so when fights get out of hand, it can be a bit problematic.  Several years ago, a mayor with a fairly large following was ousted and replaced with another man beloved by the other half of Chone’s citizens.  This split the town disasterously, and soon supporters of both men were fighting in the streets and, much like the Tenacious D song, burnt down City Hall.  Things have been calm for the past two years, but there’s still an unspoken rift and distrust between the groups, which has split up families and given the town a somewhat shady reputation.

In stark contrast to the irrational behavior and unbridled machismo of the city’s inhabitants, Luis assured us the people of the countryside would be warm and inviting, and the landscapes as beautiful as anywhere else in South America.  In the city center, we met with Roberto, the first of Luis’s many cousins.  Roberto had a decent understanding of English, which made things a bit easier since I’d yet to have a single Spanish class, and would spend the next four days being the most gracious host I’ve ever had the honor of knowing.  He drove us from town over dark, bumpy roads past homes made of wood, sugarcane and bamboo, almost always with clothes-strewn clotheslines taking up much of the front yard.  Just before midnight, we arrived at one of the oldest homes on the coast of Ecuador, La Providencia.