The only time I have been in Ecuador was at the Quito Airport, on my way from Kingston to Lima, but from what I could see out of the airplane window, Quito looked like a neat little mountain city.Originally Posted by rjonsun
I had plenty of adventures in Colombia. Most of them were in cities and in beach towns, but I did make it back into the mountains behind Santa Marta. The guy I was dealing with had a nice Toyota FJ40 four wheel drive that we used to drive back into the mountains to a finca he owned.
I spent plenty of time in the Bolivian jungle outside of Santa Cruz, back when I was young enough to enjoy it. I suppose that could be considered the Amazon, since the Amazon basin is so huge. Lot of parrots and the occasional sloth.
One adventure was riding behind the younger brother of my Bolivian girlfriend on a 250cc Harley Davidson trail bike. It was an Italian made four-stroke bike that Harley sold under their brand. The bike was not set up for a passenger, but I was able to squeeze onto the back of driver's seat. With no passenger foot pegs, I had only the short section of bolt protruding past the nut of the rear axle to rest my feet on, which gave me a very precarious perch.
El Loco drove like a maniac through town, ignoring stop signs and nearly wiping out when he tried to squeeze between a stopped taxi and the curb just before the passenger opened the curbside door to exit. I knew that my fears of our wrecking were not misplaced, since both of his forearms, from pinkie finger to elbow, were one long scab from a recent accident. I am sure he is dead by now, the way he drove.
But he did take me out to see the Lomas de Arena sand dunes and lake out in the jungle. Back in the day, it was very difficult to get to the area and a trail bike was perfect, but with the bad trails and ruts, it was difficult for me to stay on the bike due to the lack of foot pegs. It put a hell of a strain on my groin muscles keeping my feet on the short sections of bolt.
He got lost a time or two and had to ask directions from peasants in shacks out in the boondocks, but eventually he found it. He parked the bike and we clambered up over the sand dune and then down to the edge of the lake. We smoked some hash and then took off our clothes and skinny dipped in the lake. We sat on our clothes by the edge of the lake and smoked some more hash while the sun dried us. Somewhere along the line, he got an erection and made a half hearted pass, but I don't swing that way, so we let it pass and did not mention it again.
Eventually we got dressed and walked back to where we had left the motorcycle. The bike would not start. It would have been a ***** to have to walk out of the jungle, so I was quite relieved when El Loco finally figured out that he had turned off the fuel petcock when he parked the bike and had forgotten to turn it back on before trying to kick start it. Blame it on the hashish.
We finally made it back to the house, owned and occupied by some extended family members of my girlfriend where I was to be staying while in town on this trip. I had purchased a bottle of Stolichnay vodka at the Lima Peru Duty Free store on my way to Santa Cruz and stashed it in the freezer section of the refrigerator at the house before heading out on the trip to the sand dunes. It was Cold War big time, back then, so the Stolichnay was a rare treat.
With ice cubes, some fresh lemons, and the cold vodka, it went down smoothly and we were thirsty after the long day on the trail. Sitting at the kitchen table we managed to polish off the entire bottle between the two of us in a couple of hours. I don't recall using it, but there must have been some stimulant use during the vodka drinking, because even after the bottle became a dead soldier, we were both fairly sentient and completely mobile. I was about ready to turn in for the night when there was a good deal of excited conversation in Spanish, little of which I followed, but it was not hard to figure out that there was some heat from somewhere or just a good deal of paranoia and I and my package were suddenly persona non grata in the house where I was supposed to be staying. My package and I were relocated to a nearby seedy hotel. My room was on the second floor and looked out over the road at a large forbidding prison. All night the lugubrious sounds of moans, groans, and the occasional whistle drifted across the street as I lay awake on my sagging mattress imagining what life would be like being locked up there.
But the sun came up eventually without the dreaded knock at the door. I got some breakfast and around noon I was transported to more comfortable digs at the local Holiday Inn.
I am too old for adventures like that now. Now my idea of an adventure is going to out to a nice steakhouse with friends and family and having a couple of drinks and a nice steak.
