Mancora, Peru & Guayaquil, Ecuador

Sat 12/12

Shit sleep. Wake six to kids scream playing all over my seat. Arrive Mancora, Peru. $2.50 omelet with coffee and fresh squeezed strawberry juice shake thing. Just figured I'd "find a hostel when I get there" which has never once been a good idea. No internet café. No wifi. Walked around forever. Finally found the most bro party hostel. Chilled in hammock by pool. Walked to beach. Brought headband ear plug crazy contraption for ear so maaaybe I could surf. Almost came off in first wave. I’m fucked forever. Return hostel. Night. Beach has five clubs in a row all blasting different music at beach. Great if you want to listen to two different techno and reggaeton songs at the same time. Fall off something in the dark trying to take a drink piss. Hand is bleeding everywhere. Ruin shirt.

Meet German dude. German dude and I meet some girls. Talk to girl. Girl doesn't speak English whatsoever. I talk to girl for hours. Seems like I’m killin’ it in my shitty Spanish. Seems like I’m killin’ it with this girl. She lives here. I might have found one of twelve locals. Drinks. Drinking. Touching. Head kissing. Four thirty in the morning. The “Well all of a sudden I got to go” Peruvian fade. I say "do you have a contact?" She says "no but meet me here at 10pm tomorrow" I call total bull shit and say nah. She leaves. I'm so not even upset anymore. Pass out.

Sun 12/13

Wake up. All of the power in all of Mancora is out. Generators everywhere. No one is phased by this. I think about this and the night before. That girl probably literally doesn't have a working phone and literally wanted to meet on the dock at 10pm. My only chance to ever experience 50's style romance with someone who doesn't even speak my language. I am dumb. Sit at pool. Walk around. Accidently get drunk. Little beach towns there is literally nothing to do except get drunk by some body of water.

Go to eat. BBQ with raw fish and limes in their mouth for three dollars. Oblige. Sit down on beach shores and listen to crashing waves near sunset. Kids playing and some dogs chillin'. Store owning sitting in front of their businesses watching the ocean swell occasionally waving menus at passers by. Dudes BBQing sitting around and chatting with me. They're from here. They surf and eat fresh fish and fuck tourists. I totally get it. At this moment of tranquil clairvoyance a cat sits down next to me and waits patiently for my fish. This cat, looks EXACTLY like the cat I fed a fish to in Croatia at a moment when I was by the Adriatic Sea for the first time breathless from the sunny sheen of it's crystal water (the pictures in my instragram I'll fucking prove it it's the same cat). I feed the cat the bones of my fish. Cat eats the fish and vanishes. I swear to fuck if I'm inland and I see the same dog Cusquena from Machu Picchu I'm going to believe in god or krishna or crystals or some shit.

Night comes. Hang with same German dude. Tells me he slept with the totally gorgeous model hostel employee. I’m so tired of nice hot dudes with moves. Tells me about second biggest Carnival in Colombia which is happening when I get there. Went to website. If you want to be horribly offended click the “how to meet woman” tab on the Barranquilla Carnival site. German guy has coke. I say “welp” and do coke. Bar games. Challenge some Ecuadorian girl at ping pong. Get her and everyone into gambling. Go to beach and dance with this Ecuadorian. She is not attractive. Her friend and some dude go to their room to bang. Me and this girl wait on a bench cuddled up. I am so reluctant. She tells me how she noticed me all day and how cute she thought I was. I am drunk and on coke. We go back to her room and cuddle but she doesn’t want to have sex because her roommate is there. Half of me is so totally fine with this. All of me is drunk and on coke. Manage to pass out.

Mon 12/14

Wake up a few hours later. Crawl out of their room. Try to sleep. No sleep. Debate on weather I take an overnight bus to Ecuador or an 8am bus. Decide on early morning bus and not to buy a hostel room because - “well I’ll just figure it out.” Waste another day by poolside. Night comes. See girl and her roommate. Talk to cute friend. Drink and talk with dude bartender who is in love with the Flatliners. I talk to dude bartender forever. Dude bartender gets off work and has guitar and a bottle of rum. I follow him like he is a piper.

Bunch of people with us, including girls from last night. Walk a ways. Play on beach. Wasted from rum. Completely dehydrated. I come very, very close to deciding that drinking ocean water is a good idea. Turns out someone has water. Bartender dude makes someone film him and I playing a flatliners song because I promise I’ll get it to them so they can see and, I don’t know, have this kid play in their band or something? Cute friend of not cute girl is being particularly nice and cute with me. I know this is never going to work because she is with her best friend who is ugly and clearly in love with me. Hot girl falls for Flatliner dude. I’m so tired of nice hot guys with moves. I am officially fuck wasted. We all go back to their place 5am. Two beds beside each other and four wasted people. I, of course, try to instigate an orgy. This, of course, doesn’t work. We both fool around with our other counterparts for a while. 7:30am comes around and I’m walking around the room naked yelling shit I can’t remember. I take a shower, put my clothes on, yell “Hasta Lasagna,” and slam the door behind me.

Tues 12/15

No need to wake up. I’m stumbling around town grumbling out loud shit hammered barking at people in spanish that is probably not spanish shit about if they have food and that I want it. I end up buying year old snack bars. My bus pulls up and it is actually a packed minivan. All I want is sleep. Out loud to the guy I say “WHAT THE FUCK.” I’m sleeping with my eyes open while my head is bouncing around between the plastic frame of the minivan window. An hour later I’m waiting on a bus station floor for an hour. An hour later I’m waiting in Ecuadorian customs for over an hour while bureaucrats are shouting at people about which unlabeled line they are supposed to be in line for. An hour later I’m on the bus and the bus is playing what I can only describe as reggaeton glitch bounce. Some hours later I’m in a shopping mall and everyone is using American dollars. I eat at pizza hut. I get a cab to my hostel. Drink for a bit with some Australians, one of which foot is bleeding everywhere because he chased a dude on a motorcycle who stole his bag and essentially tripped the actual motorcycle and got his bag back. This is my second favorite mugging story after a ninety pound Swiss girl told me some dude tried to steal her bag and was hitting her with a machete but she was on so much coke she managed to get her bag back. If I ever get mugged I have to fight back it’s now written here. Pass out.

Wed 12/16

Self described "nice bitch" hostel owner taking people downtown. Talk to girl from Buenos Aires on bus. She speaks shit English and I speak shit Spanish. Go to Iguana park - three hundred iguanas crawl around in a park. Go to Las Peñas - pretty pastel New Orleans looking house stacked on hill. Return to hostel. Hang in hammocks for a while with girl. Get my workout routine on. My bed is moved into a room with only two beds - me and Argentina. Nice bitch dude is playing god? Sit with Argentina in our room for a while. Cute happy shitty communication. $1.50 fish rice veggie beans. Buy beers for me and Argentine. Beers are twice as much as US prices. Argentine doesn’t want beers. I drink all the beers. Argentine is talking to sexy dark Italian. I'm the only one drunk. I just sit beside everyone talking Spanish for a while because I'm too busy being a total piece of shit to learn Spanish. Argentina seems totally disinterested. Go in room. Lay down in little beds side by side. No hope. Turn out lights.

Say anything. Think hard about what to say. I don't even remember what i said. Said something. Starts conversation. Tired already hangover turns to cute giddy switching languages shit again. Curled up teetering on edge of beds facing another. Cute giddy shit turns to the classic "ohhhh you have to show me your band!" and the me "oh no it’s not very good i'm so modest hee hee ha ha" bullshit. That turns into showing each other favorite youtube music videos. Word to the wise - remember a half dozen interesting videos followed by soft sweet romantic videos so your heads drift closer and closer together while you watch a tiny screen - seriously - this has, pathetically enough, come in handy multiple times now. That turns into a totally pathetic pillow fight on HER game moves list, to which I literally roll my eyes. That turns into me straddling her in my underwear and sticking my tongue down her throat while she is trying to talk. This turns into me moving the beds together which turns into 80% humidity Ecuadorian heat sweat banging where you try to grab onto anything but your hands keep sliding off so you have to use your nails to grip (sooo tight) which goes for a while which turns into me really really struggling to figure out how to say in Spanish "I can probably keep fucking you until you cum but if you're not going to cum I'll just cum because this might not be fun for you anymore but I have no idea because we don't speak the same language but you're going to keep moaning anyway whether you enjoy or if you want me to cum." Which I did not figure out how to say. Pass out in a sweaty naked pile.

this be the only picture of I have of her

Thurs 12/17

Wake up. She is leaving to same place I am going, but I'm staying because I have a prearranged tinder date with the most gorgeous girl (dirt bag). Walk around area with headphones in. Neighborhoods strewn with parks tied together with alleys of tropical plants and knotted power lines. Very pretty. Arrive hostel. Pass out. Wake up a few hours later. Have to meet this girl like right now. Run and jump into taxi in flipflops.

Meet downtown. She is a photographer film maker jujitsu something something something. Semi-interesting conversations. Go to bars. She drinks slow. I am drink lapping her. She is telling me about video games she likes. This is, it turns out, a total turn off and I lose attention about four words in. She is asking me about me band. I say "no I'm so modest barf barf barf." We go to a club of about eight people. She says she's done drinking. I keep drink. I start dancing to new Ricky Martin jams, which are significantly better than his old jams. She is homophobic while talking shit about machismo bros. I buy more beers and push them her way. She tells me she has to work in a few hours. She tells me she lives like ten miles away with her parents. Guh. She drinks more beer. She dances with me. She takes off her glasses,and really, now, in video game nerd chic fashion, she is totally gorgeous, with some crazy body under nerd work clothes. We get taxi together. I lay it on thick in taxi with zero directions to go. Doesn't get much further than holding hands. I still have a huge problem in situations like this if I should play pushy asshole bro because the woman unaware of her own self-worth expects the dude to be a pushy asshole bro and make all the moves (I was told this by some pretty smart basic girl in Turkey (and then I tried (and then it still didn't work))) or if I should stick to my feminist instincts and be respectful and equal and let our two totally different worlds of culture and ethics drift by in a shitty dud of a story. Feminism wins at 60%. Depart. Boooooring.

There's a note on my hostel door that says "Garrett! Call this number or knock REALLY loud." Calling doesn't work. Knocking doesn't work. I'm half drunk and scale wall into second floor window. Feel pretty cool about it, probably because I'm half drunk. Nice bitch hostel owner is sleeping in my room and is worried about me. Really cute. We try to smoke weed but no papers. I stay up too late. Pass out.