About four or five years after getting back from Korea, I was itching to go somewhere new. I was by then seriously yoked in a perfectly ordinary bank job which demanded little of my brain but took much of my soul. I was bored. And I decided, after much ruminating, that I wanted to travel again and that I would teach English again. But not Korea. I had a wonderful time in Korea. And it was tempting to return. I had left a number of friends there that I wanted to see.

But I wanted something new, that was the driving force wasn’t it? Of course the demand, the money and the security were in Asia, in Korea and in Japan. Still, I thought South America. I picked the country I knew the least about. Ecuador. It was going to be hot. Which I was looking forward to. And I wanted to learn how to speak Spanish. I taught myself some serviceable Spanish from a CD-Rom and I had a few Spanish friends. I applied for a job with a school in Guayaquil. And it looked promising, and rather than wait for an official answer, I bought a return ticket. Yes, that was a little impatient. But I figured I could get a job there if I had too, even if that school had turned me down.

Less than a week before I flew, I found out that I didn’t get that job. But still I went. I didn’t have an awful lot in my pocket when I got on the plane. There was a stop-over in Newark. I revisited the place where my suitcase exploded on my way to Korea five years earlier. Here I was on a plane. I had better luggage but much less money. I also didn’t entirely know where I was going. No one was meeting me at the airport. I didn’t have a job. I reckoned that I had enough money to last me for about three weeks if I could find a reasonably cheap hotel. I was going to land at night. Like 8 pm or something. I wouldn’t worry about finding a cheap hotel for a day or so.

Because of the job I thought I might get I was flying into Guayaquil rather than Quito. At Newark when I boarded the new plane, I was sitting beside a Spanish fellow. I introduced myself. His name was Javier. He lived in Guayaguil. When I told him what I was doing he was very impressed and complimented my cahones. Within a few minutes it was clear he couldn’t recommend a school but he was being picked up by his father and he’d be happy to drive me to a hotel.

Just before we landed he looked at me uncommonly shyly and asked if I would do him a favor. He handed me his passport. He asked me if I could hold it until we cleared the airport. “But won’t you need it?” I asked trying not to sound alarmed. “I live here. No. I won’t need it.” So what do you do? He was my age, perhaps younger, and he had been kind to me and he seemed harmless and if his father was picking me up, he must live here. And so far he was the only person I knew in Ecuador. I couldn’t very well say no. It was before 2001. I suppose if it had been after, I wouldn’t have. Not because I thought he was a terrorist but because you just wouldn’t take those kinds of risks. Of course it was odd. Of course it was suspicious. But what could I do? I didn’t even know where the hotels were. I took it and held it up and said where should I put it? He nodded at my crotch. So I slipped it down my pants. “I’m going to have to wash that off,” he said. Did it occur to me that he might be setting me up? That he might go to a security guard and whisper and come over and arrest me? Yes. But why would he do that? Besides it was his passport. He’d be implicating himself. So I went through customs and walked into Ecuador with a stranger’s passport tucked in my underwear.

And my suspicious new friend, Javier of Guayaquil, Ecuador was true to his word. After smoking in the airport, we went outside and I gave him back his passport and we found his father. Javier introduced me to his father who didn’t speak English. They took me first to their home. There were Catholic alters and crosses everywhere. Javier unloaded his luggage. I said goodnight and thank you to Javier’s father and then Javier and I got back in the car.

“It’s early, no? I know a place. Let’s go get some drinks. And maybe some girls, hm?” And then he picked up a few friends.

I’m tired. I don’t have a job. I have enough money for about three weeks. I’ve already committed a crime, I suppose, entering the country. I only know one person. Who seems a little shady. Everything important to me is packed up in this car. What do you do?

So we went for drinks. I had no bearings. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know which way south or north was. I just knew that I was on a new continent, in a new country, and my only friend wanted to get drunk or laid or both. So we went drinking. He had kept his promise. Beer was cheap. The girls, similarly. It wasn’t the best opportunity for finding a job, or finding my bearings, or even practicing my Spanish. People talked too fast and the music was too loud. I was popular, I presume, because I was white. I do remember that I spent the entire night trying to appear as if I weren’t nervous as fuck. My luggage was in his car, which I probably wouldn’t even recognize, parked on the side of a street for which I wouldn’t know the name.

It was perhaps 2 or 3 am when Javier finally conceded to finding me a hotel. He helped me check in. He wrote down his phone number for me and offered his hand, and when I took it to shake it, he hugged me, and he said, “Buenos noches.” And he looked me in the eyes in a way that was dangerous and said, “buena suerte.” And he left. With my key in my hand I picked up my two suitcases and my backpack and headed to my room.

I let myself in. The room was dark. I locked the door. I couldn’t find a light. I ran the walls with my hands in the dark and couldn’t discover a switch. I was wickedly tired. I dropped off my luggage in some dark corner. All the corners were dark. The air conditioning was powerfully high. It was freezing. I instantly had goosebumps. I found the toilet and lifted the lid in the dark and relieved myself. I found the bed by taking little steps in the dark and fell onto it. I was too tired to unpack, to find the light, to figure out how to turn down the air conditioning. I woke up to daylight curled into a fetal position and shaking in the violent cold.

Three days later when I left for Quito, I didn’t call Javier to say goodbye.

SS