There is a floating border between the Andean and coastal regions of Ecuador. This border hung heavy in the air until it attached itself to me and my fellow travelers crossing through it. Humidity, the invisible border that manifests itself under your arms, on the back of your neck, and affixes you to the back of your seat. Off went our fleece jackets, the first layer of many to be removed. By the end of our typical six-hour bus ride from the chilly lushness of Cuenca, reminding me of Portland in the fall without the rain, to the swimmingly muggy Ecuadorian coastal shipping giant of a town, Guayaquil, I was left wearing my denims and a T-shirt which quickly began melding with the bus’s seat back.

Passing an increasingly arid landscape, we entertained the remaining hours with smiles forming our lips and prophesies of things to come pouring out of them. At the Guayaquil bus station we retrieved our bags from the belly of the bus, checked them for what was no longer there: a CD player, camera, underwear; each of us had involuntarily donated a belonging or two to the Ecuadorian people at some time during our three month life as travelers. Shouldering our hiking backpacks, we shuffled ourselves off amongst the teeming breathing mêlée of people at the station. Passing an army of vendors who posted guards at their entrances brandishing weapons that rivaled those of the actual army, muzzles pointed into the crowds and fingers on the trigger, we bought our next bus tickets that would take us west to the fishing town of La Libertad, then North to the fishing potpourri of Puerto Lopez.

After a three-hour baptism in our sweat from the dusty humidity that choked our pores, we gathered our sun-starched bags, creased the pages in our reading books, and ambled down the staging stations of the departing buses. Amid the flecking red and green paints that protected the buses’ frames stood numbers tattooed to their facades. Numbers hidden behind smoky plastics were deciphered through squinted eyes through the dust and sunlight. “Oye, gringito,” came the cry from one of the many bus promoters. Much like prizefighters, each bus employed its own walking mouth that served to talk hype and rope in the walking wallets. Dusty second-hand clothes, sun-seared pink skins, unkempt hair, and novel odors, may have proven to be badges of destitution back in the US, but any down-on-your-luck cliché, coupled with an American accent walking through an industrial bus depot just south of the equator, always procured the assumption of disposable funds.

Politely shunning the offers for passage at “muy cheap” prices, as a traveler soon learns the etiquette of doing, we continued our slogging march down the gangplank like terminal. An emotionless face with money folded in half and threaded between fingers produced a semblance of greenback claws waiting to make change and take your fare. In an effort to dam the floods of inflation, the Ecuadorian government, the IMF, and the United States have dollarized the nation, trading in their namesake Sucre for the foreign greenback. We turned in our tickets for what was promised to be no more than a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour (sang the chorus).

A few hours later I found myself riding astride the inside engine cover at the front of an Ecuadorian bus praying that the third time it broke down would actually be the last, although not really caring whether it was or not. I found it amazing how many things a bus driver could repair with a Swiss Army knife, an oily rag, and a few threats to the Gods.

Traveling along the hot blacktop, with our luggage staggered throughout the bus, some of it stashed on the roof, some beneath our feet, and others beneath our butts to act as supplemental shocks for those the bus lacked, we were exposed to some of the most spectacular coastal scenery available to travelers. Breaking up our ride were the small substance based towns of Palmar, Ayangue, Valdivia, Manglaralto, Montanita, Olon, and finally, Alandaluz. Occasionally we would stop, allowing people to circulate through the doors of the bus, some people on, some people off. Very likely our new riders would be fare-less, hoping to earn their passage and their livings by walking the length of the bus shouting out what various objects, foods, or drinks they were selling to the local and foreign travelers. I saw a cornucopia of goods sold or traded in the cylinder of that bus. Toothbrushes, bottled water, whole watermelons, coconuts, and roasted “cuy” (guinea pig) were a few products among the many.

At Alandaluz our rear-ends were granted a then undeterminable respite as we unbound ourselves from the cramped quarters of the coastal bus, shook the tonic and repeating beats of the merengue bus serenades out of our ears, and shouldered our bags after the bus driver’s one man search party was able to identify them beneath the tonnage of other travel satchels.

Not having any concrete plans are how adventures are founded. In this case the foundation for the adventure of this stop had not yet been given time to dry. I watched the bus signal its release of us by means of a wave of dirt and sand coughed-up from its balding rubber wheels. Free again from the confines of human creations we crossed the sand speckled asphalt towards the slight waves of the Pacific Ocean.

Alandaluz could be considered much less than a town, but much more than a rest stop. It was a section of coastline a mile long and three-hundred yards wide. Its borders bled into the manicured trees that were systematically rooted throughout the compound of the town. The natural boundaries of the ocean kept the town from spreading West, but widely spaced and solitary natural wood and reed cabanas stood as come-what-may sentinels on the graying beach sand. Empty and inviting, the sand floors of these flora birthed huts remained virgin to the now dissipating heat of equatorial sun.

East of the town the yellow and white striped asphalt trail that had carried us here served to squelch the widening of the town, much as a firewall impedes a growing flame; containing it within boundaries that control its mesmerizing radiance without letting it explode into uncontrollable sparks and a super-saturation of heat. Gently sandwiched between the freestanding huts and the delineation of the road, towered and stretched a wooden and cement structure that blended modernity and nature into a cocoon. Two wood beams, that had an identical width to my waist-size, strongly raced up from a concrete foundation, and meet each other thirty feet from where their bases were planted, forming a giant upside-down “V.” Filling the upper half of the void between these two beams, was an interlacing of glass and framing that gave the on-looker the ability to see through the width of the structure to the rippling ocean on its other side.

Scruffy, tired, and astonished, we found our bodies, free of our will, leading us toward the lobby of this out-of-place resort, and into the waiting embrace of foam stuffed and upholstered wicker furniture. For a brief while, we hoped that the overstuffed embrace that held us in comfort would be inescapable. Our inquisitive nature, however, freed us from our self-inflicted and comfortable confines, and prompted us to discover the meaning behind this affluent retreat along a coastal highway in a third-world country.

We placed bets, wagered each other on what we had stumbled into. “A drug cartel,” I offered. Replies of smirks and “ah, come on” glances from my wagering companions was my reply. “A corrupt banker’s private home,” was a second guess from one of my companions. “Great thought,” we chided, knowing that most of the bankers that had robbed the country’s people blind in the last decade had long since flown to Japan, Spain, and our ever money welcoming country, the United States.

As a disunited whole we approached what appeared to be a desk clerk and queried him as to what this paradiso was. “Un hotel, senores,” replied the tanned Ecuadorian. The entirety of his five-foot stature radiating friendliness. “Quieren reservar un cuarto, senores?” “How much to reserve said room?” we replied, much less eloquently than just written. “Viente cada persona, cada noche, señores.” Twenty bucks a night! For all this?! Came our internal dialogues, relayed to each other by means of eye signals and slight gestures so as not to offend the man who had offered us a room. He must be outta his mind, we again thought as a collective whole. We couldn’t believe such a price was placed on this sort of establishment, sure it was nice, but was it twenty dollars a night nice? To an unaccustomed Ecuadorian traveler twenty dollars for private rooms with hot water, use of numerous hammocks, cabanas, and a mile stretch of lonely beach begging for footprints at the shorelines surprisingly chilly waters, is assuredly a steal. We however, were three months savvy. We already had our travel scars firmly affixed to our psyches and the learning processes had grown quickly over these wounds to educate us to our surroundings. Twenty cents in Ecuador would get you on a city bus, one dollar would buy you a three course meal, two dollars got you a ride in a taxi to anywhere within the city limits, and twenty dollars? Well, with twenty dollars one could travel for an extra few days. Our current funds dictated the length of our stay, thus supporting the fact that our trip was near an end, every few days were harder to give up than the meals we often missed to extend our trip. No sir, we would not pay twenty dollars tonight, nor the next. Yes, we would lounge in the hammocks stretched between two palm trees, and race along the sandy beach, with our toes digging into the finely grained sand, like the claws of the local golden retrievers we chased along the shore, but after our affair with this before unknown shrine to tranquility, we would wave down the next truck, push aside the parcels he was carrying in the bed, and lean into the wind, as we stood looking towards the road that led to the next town, with our backs to a sun that now set over the bronzing haven of Alandaluz.

-J. Daters