Last Ecuadorian Days (Vilcabamba, Ecuador)

I am counting down my last days here in Ecuador, it has been almost three months since my arrival to Quito back at the end of November. Unfortunatley my tourist visa runs out after 90 days and the immigration officer jotted down February 27, 2012 on my passport. Didn´t he realize it´s a leap year? I would have loved two more days in this magnificent country, two more days in the lovely town of Vilcambamba where I have just returned to this morning after an over night bus and a 10 hour layover in the city of Guayaquil.  2.5 hours after arriving, Leticia and I headed straight to the meditation centre to get in on the noon sitting... ahhhh... serenity once more.

Let me rewind a week or so though.  So my last day of work at the Secret Garden was on the 15th February. And of course, we had another despedida (goodbye party) but this time for me and Leticia. It often seemed like the volunteers partied way harder than the guests.  We partied so hard there that I can´t even recall at this moment what we did for the despedia, but I do know that Leticia bailed and went to bed early.  Oh, now I remember, we drank and went out to the clubs, well a few clubs and ended up dancing. It wasn´t too extravagent.  The next day after our last free cooked breakfast from our friend Janeth, Leticia and I went out to buy a few goodbye gifts.  As well, we got our commission money from our boss, which was a nice surprise for me.  We had a goodbye lunch that our spanish teacher prepared for us, I had my last spanish class in which my teacher almost made me cry due to her personalized conversations that we often had. There´s nothing better than having a spanish class when it´s combined with just talking freely about life.  And then four of us went to our apartment and packed our bags. As we packed, our fellow volunteer Steph sat on one of the beds and watched us and chatted with us to get in a last few precious moments.  I urged a few to make me secret goodbye videos that I will watch when I return home, and in return I wrote in people´s journals, as if it was the last day of high school.  Eventually the moment came, in which the four of us volunteers who had planned to go to the beach together had to say goodbye to the rest.  It was especially hard to leave behind Romana, the fifth of our group that had all volunteered together the longest. She is still there putting in a few more weeks of work.  Hugs and kisses were had, and a couple tears welled up in my eyes as they have conditioned themselves to do in the last six months of my travels.  Romana walked us down the 5 flights of stairs to see wave us one last goodbye as we drove away in the taxi.  

So, on the 16th of Februrary, exactly 6 months after I left home, and after 6 weeks of working in Quito, I moved on.  This time around, as in comparison to the past, it wasn´t so hard to move on, simply because I wasn´t leaving behind all of my friends.  The four of us, Toni, Marie, Leticia and myself headed off to Puerto Lopez, a small beach town on the pacific coast to celebrate Carnaval.  Carnaval is a huge celebration throughout Latin America and Pto Lopez had it´s own festivities. After a 12 hour overnight bus we arrived with a few hostel mishaps, but eventually found our way to the beach to soak up some much needed sun rays that were lacking in the cold city of Quito.  We all nearly burned the first day, but it was worth it!  And so we just spent 5 nights there, having water fights, throwing water balloons from our balcony onto innocent pedestrians, getting sprayed with mousse on the streets by young kids, dancing in large ballroom like halls with sand on the ground and live Emcee´s entertaining all the Ecuatoriano´s on vacation and the few gringos, eating typical lunches and dinners and barely surviving from our free continental breakfast that included 2 pieces of bread, and walking along the overly crowded beaches, taking photos of the local fishermen and families.  We did a couple sidetrips to the party beach town of Montanita and to the ´mini galapagos island´ or the cheap man´s version of it at least, called Isla de la Plata.  

The four of us had fun, we partied once more, we parted together for the last time. To us, it was more like a vacation, the vibe in the air from Carnaval was lively and reeked of holiday spirit. We had left the big city together for a getaway it seemed. And at the end, yesterday, we all got the same bus to Guayaquil and then had to take seperate buses. We had one last lunch and we shared our favorite memories of one another (my idea of course).  We hugged once more and parted ways.... 

Toni, Marie, Leticia and Dean... Missing Romana :-( 

And so now, it´s just Leticia and myself. My pal eversince Colombia who reconnected with me in Quito. We kid around like we´re an old married couple, but really we get a long quite well. I´m happy to have a constant friend in my travels. I´m in a much different headspace than when I was last here in Vilcabamba. My two hours of meditation today were much clearer than before, I feel refreshed. I feel excited to be in this town that is so familiar to me.  And as we travel from the beach, to the other beach and to here, we bump into past guests that we served at the Secret Garden, calling them out by name.  One I bumped into today, Gunther, said to me, ´I´m in Vilcabamba because you recommended I come here´.  It felt nice to share this special little town with others. Everyone should get a taste of this sacred valley.  Everyone should get a taste of Ecuador and all of it´s ups and downs.