From Jersey to Quito

This is not a tale of heroic feats, nor daring exploits, nor a story of great will, valor, or bravery. Firstly, forgive me if my english is not so good, it´s just that I´ve become so accustomed to the local dialect, that being the dialect of Español as they say here in Ecuador, its just that my mind is like a sponge, a dirty rotten sponge that absorbs the dirt, that being language, of most everything around me. Moving onward, we are but two simple gringos from a far away land, a chaotic land made of concrete, metal, and glass fueled by coffee and oil and driven by the will to succeed. It was in one of these abodes of concrete, metal, and glass that I first conceived of this grand journey along the west coast of South America, from Quito, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile in a mere three months. I was sitting at my desk along the dusty corridors of Archive Management with a stack of paper perhaps thirty feet high and twelve inches in diameter, carefully fact-checking Case Report Forms and organizing them for Data Management, when it occured to me that there might be something else to life besides Case Report Forms and fact-checking, mainly women and adventure, but mainly adventure and sometimes women. And so, just like that, in moment of affirmation I looked up some ticket prices and put in my two weeks notice with the managers in our clinical trial division.

¨What will you do?¨ they asked.

¨I will go to South America,¨ I answered.

¨And what about work, how will you pay for your trip?¨

¨I will go to South America,¨ I answered.

¨Aren´t you afraid? What about the insurgents, earthquakes, anacondas and malaria?

¨I will go to South America,¨ I said.


So, quite quickly I enlisted my younger brother Dan as a possible traveling partner and between the two of us, while drinking sweet mate with hint of orange spice, we conjured a plan that would fit our budget and allow for many adventures along the way, always improvising in the course of our journey, but destined to make reach our goal. Dan would depart me in Cusco, Peru just after hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu, heading back to the United States, while I would continue south into Bolivia and Chile for six more weeks, or semanas as they call them.

For two weeks I sat still and waited patiently for the our time to arrive, the moment of departure from the Philadelphia Airport, where we would take a three hour flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, then onward to Bogota, Columbia (where guerillas might be waiting to kidnap us for ransom as my father explicated quite well), then onward again to Quito, Ecuador where our journey would commence. Day by day I sat organized paper, filing and fact-checking, sifting and sorting, till one day I didn´t have to work anymore and there was great rejoicing. My two weeks were up and I had managed to save sufficient funds for the excursion. Great Job Tim! You´ve done it.

That week, the week before our depature, I spent many hours organizing my things and purchasing the necessary implements for survival in a foreign land, such as head lamps and rain jackets, bathing suits and flash lights, compasses and swiss army knives. Fuck! Who knows what´s bizarre creatures or situations we´re bound to encounter. I think I may overthought the whole preperation thing, since as far as I could think, which isn´t very far, we might not need any of these things unless under dire circumstances, which surely would come about through my own stupidy or lack of foresight. But, that was the plan, the plan being to expect the best, but prepare for the worst. Soon enough, the day arrived and our mother drove the both of us to the airport, hauling our massive backpacks in tow, at precisely six o´clock in the morning to board our flight at 10:10am to Florida.

Since the flight went so well there´s not so much to tell, only in dire situations to great tales arise, and aside from few bumps in the air there was certainly nothing dire about it. Arrived in Quito late that night, or perhaps early the next morning around 1am, and made contact with a young woman running a hostel down off Amazonas. Quickly bargained for a reasonable rate, hopped in the back of a cab and rode our way onto the first leg of our journey. Quito is a huge city and we weren´t quite ready to navigate it in all of its entirety, we spent sometime walking about the Old Town and admiring the Colonial Architecture, hiking up El Panecillo (a Huge statue of the Virgen Mary), then hanging around the Mariscal, or Gringolandia as they are apt to say, where gringos can feel at home in the presence of tacos and pizza, dollar beers and pretty white women from all over the the World of Gringos (or the Northern Hemisphere as some are apt to call it.) We felt especially at home here, surrounded by our brethren, able to communicate in our normal dialect, and eat food not covered in parasites. Not that Ecuadorian food is unclean by any means, its just that its dirty, very very dirty.


Three days later we hopped on a bus to Banos, a three or four hour ride south from Quito, which felt especially much longer because of all the stopping and starting, all of the detours in and out of small little mountain villages, and the continous rampage of vendors constantly boarding the bus in the high hope of making a few cents by selling you some oranges, some chicken and rice. or fried plantains and boiled yucca. Banos was a breath of fresh air, a small mountain town on the edge of the jungle, much more suitable to naviagation and offering cheap rooms and plenty of activities to engage the body, mind and spirit. The term Banos refers to the baths or hot springs at the base of the mountainside. People come from all over Ecuador and perhaps all over the world just to relax in these super heated pools, especially elderly fat man wearing skimpy bikinis, which I found rather hilarous, but hey, that´s just me.

We are currently in Banos and there´s much more to tell of our journey, our epic feats and lofty meditations. But this I leave for my next entry, as we our on our way to Riobamba tomorrow morning to sort out this whole love affair with a sweet Ecuadorian woman named Veronica. And with this I leave you, ¨YESTERDAY, I JUMPED OFF A FUCKING BRIDGE!!!¨ Seriously!