Caption, ¨The Ecuadorian that posted this poster is definitely not getting enough sex. He has the time and desire to not only think of it but design it, print it, find the glue, walk out and locate a place to post it. I can almost see him patting himself on the back for a job well done.¨
I spent the last week in a joyous surfer town (you can infer why the town was joyous) called Montañita. After having spent 4 days in the sleepy coupled-out surfer town of Canoa it was a welcome change. Canoa is great if you are single and your idea of a good time is to hang out with 6 couples. Upon arriving to Montañita you feel like you are walking down the streets of a backpacker party haven in Thailand where there is a sparkle in the air that anything can happen without the slightest effort and hangovers do not exist. All you need to do is sit back, enjoy and the good times that naturally come. If you are having fun then other people that also want to have fun magically appear. 
Caption, The American guy flexing his abs in this photo said to me, ¨Damn, if you get laid with those swim trunks it will be a miracle,´ and I said, ¨If I don´t it will be a miracle. These are hot.¨ Although in general he is right. In Ecuador they think ´irony´ is something you do to get wrinkles out of shirts.
Caption,¨Listen buddy, have you ever heard of too much flair?¨
Montañita is not complicated- two streets and a beach. You should know everyone in the town within 24 hours and sure enough we had piled together a hodge podge of solo travelers into a surrogate family with the common bond of English. And man was it nice. At night during the weekdays you have one of one places to choose from to go out. That´s good, keep it easy. I ended up relaxing in Montañita for 9 days and with that holiday within a holiday from biking it gave life and ladies a chance to catch up with me. While always being on the move it is hard to let life live sometimes and this was a delightful change. An American couple had a joint and I was able to take a vacation within a vacation within a vacation and life became a whole lot more real. I wandered the sparkly beach and the dusty streets with childlike curiosity. Then it hit me, with the perspective change that only pot brings, what a crazy motherfuqing bike trip not only I have done but am actually doing. What in god´s name am I doing? and I shrunk and the world got big enough to swallow me whole. The next minute I was skipping along the beach enjoying how damn amazing life is and how happy I am to be alive while hugging, then giving a nice kiss, to a lava rock.
Unfortunately for us humans, we cannot sniff each others asses to see who should couple up with who and so ensues a comical fumbling social dance of courting between the sexes. It was enjoyable watching people chasing their own tails and barking up the wrong tree. By the time Friday rolled along the idiotic humans finally figured things out and managed to, for better or for worse, couple up to enjoy the animal delights along with the dogs. It is amazing how alcohol brings out those instincts. It´s a shame we have been socially conditioned to suppress them until they build up, BUT there is that one person in a thousand that is brimming with life and their eyes glow with a childlike radiance. They somehow did not get the memo of how we are supposed to act and instead act as they feel, always.
The gringo boys roll their eyes when the cute gringo girls are talking and hooking up with the local ¨Artisanas¨ aka ¨the bracelet makers ¨ because guys can smell the sleaziness of these other guys that are with 7 girls 7 days a week. Some call it jealously, and to that I say, ¨Touché¨, because they are up to same antics as the gringo guys but just with little or no shame. It makes me laugh because I assume, although I have not confirmed it, that the gringo girls can smell the ´gringo hunter´ girls from a mile away and are repulsed by their sleaziness. So completes the circle of slime that is Montañita, a microcosm of the travel circuit and life in general.
When Sunday rolls around most of the men have released their wax darts they have had pent up traveling solo and the entire town suffers from a collective sigh of relief and glowing communal hang-over. The energy of the weekend has been spent and heads can been seen resting on table tops with half eaten plates of food and half drunk bottles of Gatorade.
I took a welcomed mental holiday from good judgment and allowed myself to be easily poached by a ¨gringo hunter¨ from Guayaquil, Ecuador. She was a perfectly pretty lady with curves in all the right places but shrunken down like a Shrink-a-Dink into a 12 year old sized body. Never has something felt so good and seemed so wrong. I mean she was beyond petite. On the plus side my penis looked like a sky scrapper in her little hands.
Caption, ¨Can you guess who is who?¨
I have been lucky enough to spend time with three Ecuadorian families, and let me say it has left me very confused. I know it is a small sample size and there could be a language barrier as well, but I have to share some of my wonderings. The most important rule I picked up is ALL things are taboo and secret relating to family.
The women will be the first to tell you about machismo-ism in Latin America. They claim to hate it and in the next breath I could swear they were bragging about being choked by their jealous boyfriends and husbands. Women pay for absolutely nothing when going out with the men. The trade-off is, if they are lucky enough to be allowed to go out with their lady friends without their men, their outfits are scrutinized to the button so no boobs are showing in typical insecure Latin male fashion. Meanwhile, in a good turn of faithfulness, the men who have two children and a wife are running off to the whore house at the first chance they get. It´s always that way. The one who is cheating is the most suspicious, and so goes the Latin romance circle of jealousy. A group of ladies around a table asked me, ¨Are you jealous?¨ and while I think it is impossible to be without any jealousy, the level their men attain shows a lack of confidence. They all shared glances with each other with raised eyebrows at this revolutionary idea.
Back to the petite Ecuadorian girl and her family- Her sister was an older ex-Ecuadorian model who could have been mistaken for the petite girl´s mother. Her mind was so warped by years of people fawning over her beauty that she lives on a planet somewhere near Pluto cackling at jokes only she understands. The sister explains how she had a Rolodex of papers that men would give to her in hopes of a date. Due to the amount she would receive she would have to label them, ¨Tall, rich, ugly, businessman or ¨Short, poor, handsome, student.¨ Each weekend she would thumb through her options. Now her options are slimmer and she takes what she gets along with mounting self-esteem issues like obsessing over her giant butt, which it is not, and she requires a certain amount of boy attention at all times or she sulks in a corner. Her features are sharp and delicate, and those of an older model that has visited a surgeon to keep everything where it was 20 years ago. The eyes are large almonds with a heavy eyeliner that make them jump off her face. When the older sister takes a shot it is followed by over dramtic painful faces and a death-claw grip of my arm to hold herself steady. She turns to me, ¨I think the alcohol is going to make me puke, again.¨
¨Again? I say, confused since this is her first shot.
¨Oops, ssshhhhh, do not tell anybody,¨ she winks to me. Gotcha, she is a bulimic which makes sense. But then it gets better. The night after I rag-dolled the petite sister the older sister latches onto my arm and says in my ear, ¨Tonight I want to change men with my sister.¨
Hmmm, this is said to me while I am standing with the petite one on my arm. Next thing you know I am walking arm in arm with both girls down the main drag of the street and my gringo family is giving me eyeballs, like what did you do to that poor girl last night so the sister is hot on your ass right now? I have this look of utter confusion on my face mixed with pain from the nails of the older sister digging into my arm and occasional ass grabs. This chick is freaky.
¨What is your plan?¨ the guys in the group excitedly ask me when I have a moment alone since they are thinking sister on sister threesome action. I am thinking how am I going to ditch this older psycho.
¨My plan is to drink enough to pass out in the gutter so I do not need to make a decision,¨ was my only half-joking reply.
We were able to pawn her off on an unsuspecting dancer on the dance floor and the petite one and I made a dash for the exit. ¨So, what is up your sister?¨ was my very vague but probing question.
¨Oh, she is just joking.¨
Hmmm, not with the way her eyes were talking to me. Her eyes were showing me Kamasutra positions not yet invented and hysterical screams only heard from animals being killed on the plains of the Serengeti. I was scared yet intrigued. In the end I went with the sure bet and the right choice.
Around the lunch table with them the next day they invited me to Guayaquil to spend a day and night with them. I jumped at the chance and they were waiting for me at bus terminal in the center of Guayaquil. On the ride I attempted some small chat to get to know them and their city better.
¨So where are the nice neighborhoods?¨
¨Well, the poor people keep chasing the rich people around the city. We build one area away from them and then they move in and surround us, so we have to move again. This has happened three times now. Now we are in the North of the city. I do not have anything against the poor people, they are fine, but they rob us and make things dirty and dangerous.¨
¨Ok,¨ was my only reply. But I was more interested in this family because the sisters did not look related.
¨So how many brothers and sisters do you have?¨ I asked.
¨Hmmm, 7 I think. Wait, hmmm, yes, 7,¨ was the petite one´s response while exchanging confirming glances with the older sis. ¨You see, we have different mothers, but the same father.¨
Ok, that is normal. Nothing shocking there. ¨So how old is your father?¨
¨Hmmm, I am not sure. In his 70´s I think, right?¨ again confirming with the sister, ¨Yes, 70 something.¨
I am off put by the confusion. One of those things you should be able to figure out with a moments thought is how old your freakin parents are and how many siblings you have. That is something you only need to add up ONCE and then remember.
¨Where are we going now?¨ was my hopefully straightforward question.
¨To our brother´s house where we are staying,¨ since the older one lives in Miami (it would be a crime, so she says to tell her age, AND neither her nor her petite sister can say what she does for a living or for money, which is fine, but she has to understand that I will automatically assume the worst and that she is a prostitute until otherwise told so).
¨And your brother is how old and what does he do?¨
They of course do not know the age, 40 something, and he is a legal prosecutor for the state. Ok, finally we are getting somewhere.
The brother comes home late and I see him purposely ignore me on the way upstairs while we are all eating dinner. Strange, not even a hi to a new person that is staying in your house. Later when the petite one and I are relaxing with a movie in the guest room I notice that she is nervous. She locks one bolt of the door but is searching for the keys to lock the other bolt.
¨You worried someone is going to come in? You seem nervous,¨ was my half asleep question.
¨Well, you remember how I told you I was married to a French man for three years while I was living in France?¨
¨Yep.¨
¨Well, you see, in Latin families when you marry you are supposed to be married forever so only a few of my sisters know I am separated. My brother and my father do not know. My brother has the keys to this room so he will probably open the door at any time to check on me,¨ her emotionally twisted childlike face says.
¨Ah, am I in any danger here?¨ is my question, now being completely awake.
¨A little,¨ she shruggs. ¨But we can sleep in the maid´s quarters out back since she is off getting married at the moment.¨
Jesus christ. What is with the secrecy of these Latin families! You cannot say you are gay, your age, what you do, if you are separated, and you get choked and beaten daily. She replies to my unspoken question, ¨See, in Latin families we do not share and open up everything with strangers.¨
Ya, I am thinking, or family members for that matter. I guess the entire world is the same, but I grew up in a different environment so find this all quite foreign, literally.
Caption, ¨Check out the man in the boat.¨
