Montañita, Baños, &Quito, Ecuador

Fri 12/18 - Montañita, Ecuador

Arrive Montañita. Go to hostel. Bob Marley Lumineers young kid hippy jams. Immediately regret the hostel I picked. Meet a bunch of Americans. Go to beach. Young attractive foreign people selling whatever shit they could make/find = beach life. Do something. Eat something. Drink something. Meet some dude from Chile. I drink most of his bottle of $4 rum. Introduces me to his friends. Have no fucking clue what they are talking about because Chilean slang. Meet boring girl. Go to the beach. I try to jump a wall to a $25 club. Chilean disappears. I’m left with boring girl. I leave boring girl. Go to a club that had sublime red hot chile peppers oasis cover band earlier. Now just regular shitty dance music. Find Chilean dude again. Tries to explain how to get girls. “You just go up to them and spin them and then dance with them.” Tries. Doesn’t work. Tries again. Doesn’t work. I’m exhausted but become fascinated in an anthropological way. Take back seat of club to watch. After hours of studying their culture, dance, and technique in summary - douche tan muscle beach dudes get the girls. Pass out.

Sat 12/19

Wake at noon. Days in beach towns if you don’t surf there is nothing to do but “chill.” Try to appreciate young hippy bros. Do something. Eat something. Drink something. Meet a Wicker Park hipster who started his own tour company here. Meet girl from US who is tall blonde and pretty funny. Everyone goes out. “Cocktail Alley” is exactly what it sounds like. I drink a handful of $2 Mojitos outside surrounded by a million tables selling cocktails. I get taken buy Wicker Park hipster to some shady guy to buy coke for the first time in my life because I’m in the most renowned beach party town, and I’m a piece of shit. I share coke with tall blonde and her not-as-attractive friend. Get just the most blasted. We lost all of our friends. We go to some “rock” bar. Spilling drinks. Enter some English guy. We all go to the beach to swim nude. I’m fucked up but not too fucked up to realize leaving all my shit on the beach at night is a bad idea. So as I’m swimming I’m switching between watching everything important I own and naked girls. Dark figures passing by on beach but none are stopping. Return to shit. Walk back to hostel. Check my pockets. Mine and the blonde who was keeping her cell phone in my pants are gone. My money is gone (but my wallet is still there, which was admittedly, pretty cool). Blonde is freeeaaaking the fuck out. I’m drunk and on coke. She is thinking what is she going to do. I’m thinking about my brand new cell and also how this girl is now definitely not going to have sex with me now. Return to hostel bar. Cut scene. I literally cannot remember about three hours… but it definitely involved drinking. Return scene. Me and blonde are walking alone through empty streets at dawn. Find sexy surfer guy. Go to his place to smoke pot. I smoke a bunch of pot. She leaves sexy surfer guy and goes back to hostel with me. We are fucked up out of our minds while holding each other. Her head is on my shoulder. We are the last ones awake sitting together close on bench. Her shitty not-so-attractive fucking friend is comes out of the door with “YOU NEED TO GO TO BED NOW.” She stumbles up the steps. I sigh. Pass out.

Sun 12/20

Wake up 2:30pm past check out. Asshole is charging me for an extra night even though I got my phone stolen and since I got my phone stolen I obviously had to pound cocktails until 8am. Just the worst brain dead fuck all hungover all day. I hate Montañita. Meet some very sweet nice cute blonde German girl. Go out and eat with her. She is leaving on a bus in an hour. I buy the last bus ticket and cheer that I’m getting the fuck out of this town. Bus back to Guayaquil. Pizza hut. Overnight bus to Baños.

Mon 12/21 - Baños, Ecuador

Wake up 3am. Freezing fucking bus. Shorts flip flops t-shirt only. No sleep. Arrive Baños 5:30am. Sleep on concrete ledge at hostel. Buy $6 shoes. Rent bike. Attempt a 21km waterfall ride that “is very clear you won’t get lost.” Get lost. Ride 7km up an accidental mountain. Find waterfall route. Riddled with waterfalls. Final waterfall is fucking huge and crazy and you can walk under it. Pick up truck ride back to town with hot Swiss couple. Try to figure out how to hit on a couple. Get their number. Return to hostel. Can’t figure out how to Whatsapp their number. Check my back ups of my photos. Picture of the mother fucker who stole my phone, his wife, his kids, and his fucking nativity scene that he shot with a fucking stolen phone is all uploaded. Send photo to blonde to hunt for him. Meet a twenty one year old couple. We go out drinking with other people from hostel. Get loaded on street. I’m just talking all the shit to the couple making fun of them for being twenty one. Twenty one year old kid tells me he is in school for engineering and that I’m almost thirty and grow weed. Twenty One wins. I teach them slaps and slap the shit out of his twenty one year old girlfriend. I win (nah). Pass out.

Tues 12/22 - Quito, Ecuador

I’m leaving Baños. But I made a vow to myself to swim in a river in every country I visited. I’m only going to Quito and then Colombia so I have to find river in Baños. Walk to hot spring because hot spring has a waterfall next to it and thus a river. Right? No waterfall dumps directly into a drainage ditch or something. Hot spring is just a bunch of old lobster Germans. Walk to main river. Gigantic canyon to white water rapids. Try to walk to river. Almost fall off cliff after tripping in cow shit. Can’t get to river. Sit defeated by giant canyon bridge. Some dude does the most beautiful slow drawn out back flip ever off bridge and then is caught by bungee swing and sent flying through the air. Depart Baños.

Arrive Quito late at huge confusing bus terminal. Some girl flags me down. Has no idea what is going on. I have no idea what is going on. We become friends. Figure out taxi. Figure out a hostel. Beautiful downtown. Plaster houses and cobblestone streets. Hostel has pretty view of lit city and shadowed mountain backdrop from patio. Pass out.

Wed 12/23

Most boring free walking tour ever in morning. Like a shitty half reading of a Wikipedia page. Switch hostel from historic center to party center. Check into worst named hostel Vibes Hostel. Manager girl is from South of Boston. We immediately start talking loud annoying bullshit. Meet a bunch of great semi-bros at hostel all traveling solo. Eat dank burrito. Keep hearing of “Ladies Night.” Fast forward to “Ladies Night.”

Start drinking in my hostel, which has a ladies night. Get Molly’s (Boston’s) dress so I can drink free cocktails. Ladies night at this huge bar called Bungalow is described to me as: woman drink for free from 8-10p. Dudes line up outside and peek through windows and (as I imagine) buck and hump the gate before it opens at 10p. The hostel owner told me how totally surreal it is to be the first guy in the bar. “For a moment you’re the only dude surrounded by hundreds of hot drunk woman all checking you out.” Boston told me “It’s where you go to get laid.”

Arrive Ladies Night. Packed club of about five hundred people. Yes - lots of ladies. I go upstairs for drinking and dancing and smoking. Sequence of events: dancing with hot French Spanish girl. Doesn’t know English. I can’t hold a conversation, especially drunk at a club. No bueno. Gross hostel owner is hitting on cute girl from hostel. She’s literally reaching to me for help. Save cute hostel girl (later the hostel owner referred to this as “the competition” - guh). Leave to bathroom to return to cute hostel girl to find very cute nerd chic girl just standing by the wall staring at nothing. I unconsciously drunk stop and say, “hola.” She says, “hola.” I say “como estas?” She says, “bien.” She says in Spanish “do you want to sit down?” I say, “okay.” Within thirty seconds of sitting down she is, no shit, driving her tongue down my throat and gnawing on my lip. I’m half laughing and waiting for her to Peruvian fade. She is trying to push me horizontal onto a bar bench. I’m touching her boobs in front of a room full of people and still waiting for her to up and leave. She is coming very close to ripping the lip off of my face when suddenly her friend storms into the room crazy eyed shouting and, no shit, grabs her by the hair and drags her off of me and out the door all in about five seconds. I never see her again. Go to tell the story to dude from my hostel. Not very attractive girl is eye fucking me across bar. I oblige, but walk over to her hot friend and talk to her first who shakes her head and points back at her not very attractive friend. I talk to her friend outside over a cigarette and she is sweet. Some nerd chic Dutch girl comes over and stands next to me drawing my posture towards her like a well placed magnet. I hang with her until bar close make out on the street for a while bring her back to my hostel sneak into an empty room and crazy rip clothes off drunk bang. Ooool’ trustful Europeans.

Thurs 12/24

Wake up a few hours later to her grinding her shit up on my shit. Still drunk bang. Everyone is climbing to the top of a mountain next to the city today. I sort of kick her out immediately after and climb into my own bed and wait with a hoodie over my head. Boston hostel manager comes in and say “What the fuck your roommates said you just went to be fifteen minutes ago and you’re drunk you are not coming on the hike” to which I said “Uhhhhhhhh.” They depart I pass out again. Wake up. Hostel owner is sitting on couch trying to get nudes from someone. I sit around all day fixing technology.

That night we had a potluck Christmas dinner. People from around the world made mostly dishes from their home country. I made mini burritos because everyone knows burritos are the best food in the United States. We held hands and made up a secular grace and the hostel owner made a bunch of Jesus jokes and offended some Peruvian guy. The food was very good and I brought a bottle of scotch because no one drinks whiskey in South America and got everyone grandad drunk. The sweet German Girl from Montanita messaged me and said “Merry Christmas” to which I handed off the phone to everyone at the table to pass around and hit on her as best as they good (my favorite reply to something was “you think I’m a virgin???”) After we went to a club and I tried to hit on Boston some but we were both completely exhausted from hiking or drinking banging the night before. It was a very truly Merry Christmas.

Fri 12/25

Totally lazy day. Everyone just sat around smoking weed out of an apple and watching movies. Boston and I spent like nine hours talking shit on each other. It was like I was home. Merry Christmas.

Sat 12/26

Woke up ass early to climb that fucking mountain. Ordered a sandwich with no meat. Lady stared back at me completely blank for a solid five seconds either not understanding my shitty Spanish or not understanding who wouldn’t want ham with breakfast. Bus to mountain was throwing some old lady and her kid around who were both laughing about it (I like that). Ride cable car to top of first mountain. Two hour Nathaniel Rateliff and Junip five thousand meter no air hike. Top was freezing and engulfed in a cloud so couldn’t see anything. Slid down dirt shoot on feet down half the mountain which was super fun.

Back on bus. Sit next to punk rockers. I looked at the half crusty septum pierced girl next to me, smiled, took a deep breath, and for the first time in my life, I was finally the one able to say “...AAAAARRRRE YOU IN A BAND?” to which she turned and said “yes” and then I finally had the privilege of saying “...WHHAAAAT KIND OF MUSIC?” to which she said “punk rock” and then I got to say “...WHHEEERRRE ARE YOU FROM?” to which she said “Paris.” To which then I told her all about how I’m also in a punk rock band and we have played Paris to which she really didn’t give a fuck but was very nice and told me they just finished touring Colombia and it was the craziest tour they’ve ever been on.

Arrive hostel. Victory beer. Talk hours more shit to Boston. Tend to Tinder. I have been ditched three nights in a row. I make plans with all three assuming at least two if not all would ditch again. One ditched. The other two came out to meet me. I ask them where they are. It turns out they are literally at bars across the street from each other on the same intersection. I tell the one out with friends I’m sick and head out to meet the other.

Andrea. Super cute. Cheery. Think Joe’s x-girlfriend Amanda but metal instead of punk. By the way what’s with Amanda still listening to Minor Threat and the Misfits all the time, am I right? It always tells me on Spotify. So Andrea shows me here Viking metal back piece. We are both doing our best to speak each other's language. Grabbing my arms and leaning in real close right away. We finish the first good beer I’ve had in South America (craft shit is rare). Walk over to my hostel to drink beers I have. Boston is just infuriated I’m on a Tinder date instead of hanging out and talking endless shit with her. I have to explain to Andrea, like so many other people, that “Nigger” is not an acceptable thing to say around anyone from the United States. She tells me, like so many others, she doesn’t dislike black people, it’s just that they steal more. I don’t know how to explain how thinking like that perpetuates oppression and the plight of the African American in Spanish. Walk around. Make out for a while. Go to Bungalow - the ladies night club. Make out some more. I turn the corner for a second to ask for a cigarette and some other girl basically makes me kiss her. Walk back to the table. Laughing a ton. I’m totally falling for her. She tells me how much she likes me. I tell her how she is going to make me stay in Ecuador. We kiss more. Go upstairs in empty room. Make out a ton. Get kicked out of room. Bar close. Walk to street. I say in a gleeful confident what-could-go-wrong-now manner “so, what now?” to which she, in the fashion of the times, in the fashion of the country, in the fashion of the entire north western part of the enormous fucking continent of which every female got together and agreed “okay we will tell dudes how much we like them and smoosh our faces together with tongues but just remember as soon as it’s really fun and nice and happy - WALK AWAY FOREVER.” Everyone from my hostel is suddenly across the street watching her hailing a cab and staring at me. I shout “FUCK THIS COUNTRY.” I end up yelling about how I don’t get laid enough or something stupid in front of a dozen strangers. Pass out, grumbling.

Sun 12/27

Wake up a few hours later to catch a bus to a tiny waterfall town called Mindo. An hour and a half on two different buses one of which I think compressed my spine on a bump. Get to the terminal and it’s an after Christmas shit show. All the buses to Mindo are sold out. I say fuck it and go to the Colombia bound ticket window and get a ticket for a bus leaving in ten minutes. Meet some Australian couple going the same place. Get on bus with them. They are complaining about how hard and dirty everything is. If I were to give advice about traveling South America rule #1 would simply be: Don’t be a pussy. We get to border town and the girl is so afraid the taxi driver is going to kill her or someone is going to kidnap her or something. She is plump and light skinned with rosey cheeks with two huge bags on her back and front. She reminds me of a Christmas ham and I totally get why people would mug her. People should mug her. I want to mug her.

Get to bus terminal on border town. Sit on like ten cent per hour internet. Andrea has, no shit, changed her profile picture to a picture of me and her. Get on bus. I'm on bus right now. There's wifi here. I'm about to pass out.

her profile picture.