Pensamientos de Sudamérica: Thanksgiving at the Beach

Thanksgiving is without doubt my favorite holiday, so as you can imagine I was pretty bummed that I wasn’t going to be home in snowy Montana to celebrate with my family. I had my Thanksgiving dinner with my Portland friends before I left, but I still just couldn’t help but think about missing the actual holiday. However, rather than mope around Cotacachi completely by myself, a group of friends and I decided that the far better option would be to head toward the warm weather and roll around in the sand for a few days. And so we did.

My friends Kayla, Taylor, and Sam are all in Ecuador doing study abroad internships at the moment, and Sam just so happens to be living with the mayor of Otavalo. This turns out to be a major bonus when wanting to head to the beach, because all the government officials have private time-share style beach accommodations. YES. Sam’s host mom set up everything. All we had to do was deposit 50 bucks in a random guy’s bank account, hop on a bus out of Ibarra, and get ourselves to a bus stop in the North where we would call a guy named Ramon to pick us up and take us to the cottage. Ok, so it sounds a little sketchy, and I’ll admit, we were a little bit sketched out by the sound of it, but we figured if the mayor’s wife was setting everything up, it was probably pretty legit.

On the morning of Thanksgiving we began our departure from the mountains toward the coast. It was supposed to be an easy day of traveling mixed with a session of lying on the beach. Sam’s host mom said the bus ride would be about two and half hours. Being that we’re now on Ecuador time this of course turned into about four and half. As the bus got further North, I entered into a completely different world. I had previously thought that the condition of the Indigenous villages around Cotacachi had been rough, but they were nothing compared to the shanty towns strewn along the road toward San Lorenzo. The houses were no longer made of concrete and brick, but of crumbling wood with numerous gaps in the walls and floor. Most of the shacks were on stilts that looked like they could give way at any second.

The area was populated by escaped slaves who were brought from Africa during the times of European colonization, but as privatization of the land has increased in modern times, they no longer have land to live on, and thus are living off the side of the road. It is half heart-breaking and half inspiring. Something that continues to amaze me as I spend more time in this crazy place is the level of survival and adaptation of the people. The people living along the North Coast of Ecuador have survived the slave camps in Africa, the ship ride to a foreign land, and the horrendous conditions under which they were forced to live. They now continue to survive under conditions of immense poverty and hardship, and they still wear smiles on their faces, and find a way to make life work… and I bitch about my car breaking down or the heat going out in my house. I’ll have to work on that.

After finally arriving in San Lorenzo we discovered that we had to take another two hour bus ride to get to the place where Ramon would pick us up. We were a bit frustrated at this point, and definitely wanting to get to our destination. There was also about a 50/50 chance that we were headed straight toward the Northern Colombian border which is a definite no no for four blonde American kids a couple hours from dark. Thankfully we finally came to a town that we knew was southwest of San Lorenzo, away from the border and toward slightly safer areas. We arrived at our destination safe and sound and with all of our belongings, and were greeted by Ramon. He loaded us into the back of his truck and we headed to the house to be greeted by his three sons, Ramoncito, Ramoncito 2, and Carlos, and his wife Mary, who he referred to as what basically translates to “Little Blacky”.

The family was incredibly humble and hospitable. We had our own separate building of rooms, and three amazing meals per day of fresh lobster, prawns, fish, and whatever other culinary masterpieces Mary cooked up for us. In the mornings we got bowls of fresh fruit, and ate about a watermelon each in addition to that for snack time. The house was literally on a private beach, but because it was a “virgin beach” we couldn’t swim in the water that was apparently heavily populated with manta rays.

So, I got my couple days of paradise before heading back to the mountains. I haven’t made a final decision yet, but if nothing else comes up, I’m headed toward the western waves after I spend a few days with the study abroad crew in Quito…where I’m going to see Harry Potter in theaters…in English.

Here’s the normal dose of pictures from the trip. I wasn’t entirely sure that it was safe to take out my camera in San Lorenzo and the other places that we visited other than the beach, but moreover, I just couldn’t bring myself to flash my fancy things to people who were living on so little. So, I have pictures of the beach and the house, but not a lot else. Hope you enjoy.