Travel with other people and you bypass
the desire for companionship and go straight to place appreciation.
Travel solo and it's about the people
you meet and then the places.
These are some of the colorful folks
I've met so far. A few will end up in a book.
- A fellow who is dual USA and Ecuador citizen from Berkeley. Loves the Giants and Niner's and is endlessly tied up in Ecuadorian courts fighting lawsuits and eminent domain over some family owned land.
- A woman who visits countries long enough to learn greetings, good-byes, and ordering in a restaurant in the local language. She's up to 17 now.
- Another woman who is traveling to every UNESCO World Heritage site in the world. Quito and Cuenca included. She carries a bag of Legos and stays in a city four days to find an iconic building. She then reproduces the site with the Legos, photographs it and places it on her blog.
- An American man from Missouri and his companion from Nashville who got lost in the mountains driving from the coast to Cuenca and slept in their car on a dirt road in the Andes.
- An Ecuadorian restaurant owner who spent his youth and young adulthood illegally in New Jersey. Makes a hell of a Philly cheesesteak.
- Two shady looking guys. One with a New York accent and one with a soft Miami drawl. When I asked where they are from they both looked at the floor, hesitated then one told me Costa Rica and the other said Panama.
- Another restaurant owner who is from my home town – Sacramento.
- The “ugly American” candidate that I met at the Quito airport.
- The Ecuadorian woman who was wooed by the California county sheriff.
- The 72 year old widower whose daily stated goal is to seduce a woman into his bed for the night. The most poignant story so far and my heart ached for him.
There are more and more to come. Then
there is me.
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