The One Life-form who asks– Why?

Do you have a place to stay down there?

I reserved a room in a hostel for five nights.

Do you have any friends or family there?

Not yet.

😦

Now that it’s obvious I wasn’t bluffing about leaving the U.S., several people asked me, Why Ecuador? My first response– 

Is it ever in the news? Well, there you go.

But now it is in the news in connection with the latest US hostile takeover in Venezuela. More on that later. None of that was happening when I surfed the virtual planet for a place to retire. Even with the fresh challenges, Ecuador won the paradise award by a wide margin. Ecuador is handling the refugee influx without drama or hysterics. It’s a refreshing change for an X-Gringo.

The one certainty was, I wasn’t retiring in the U.S. Firstly, I couldn’t afford to retire here. I’d be working the rest of my life (I’d never do that to myself) or living with my kids (I’d never do that to them). Two, we’ve just recently laid bare just how corrupt the federal government is and what it portends for the forsaken 99.9% of residents. The .01% of remaining citizens are the government. Politicians are the cardboard cutouts the extremely wealthy work through. Billionaires! No logic. No compassion. They just run things. Three, the bombardment of media, entertainment and just plain noise of the ego-orgy in New Babylon cuts across the grain of who I am. 

Ecuador is divided in thirds vertically. The coastal planes, the Andes and rainforest/jungle. This was the first time Ecuador turned me on. You choose your climate by choosing one of the three. Coast– 80/70F and humid. Mountains– cooler, relative to the elevation. Low humidity. Jungle– irrelevant.

The punch line is, wherever you choose to live, it’s that temperature year 'round. On the equator there are no hurricanes, tornadoes or surprises, except a slight chance of an earthquake. Like the one they had yesterday. The only seasons are wet and dry. I chose a village at approximately 6000 ft. in a valley in the southern Andes. During the two weeks I was there it always got up to the mid 70s and at night I laid out on a lawn chair for hours wrapped in a blanket looking at the stars. It sprinkled once or twice but didn’t rain. I’m writing this in the middle of the rainy season (about 5 inches a month, if I know how to read a chart).

Surrounding Vilcabamba are three national forests. Some of the taxis in town are 4-wheel drive pickups. Enough said. Ecuador has the largest concentration of hummingbirds and number of orchid species and more species of birds than anywhere on earth. I'm going to need a telephoto lens. One of the studios I'll be working in is the cloud forest that lays like frosting at the tops of the mountains.

The whole country fits nicely inside Nevada so, traveling to other amazing places via autobus takes a few hours but the high-end tour buses are comfortable. Taking a group taxi to Loja - 25 miles north, costs $2. A bus trip to Cuenca - 250k through the mountain passes is about $8. You can also fly cross country for about $50 but only on a couple days per week.

⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥悪⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥⬥

The human natives are anything but restless. There may be a residue of Mayan spirit remaining that empowers them with a “knowing” that I don’t know how to put in words. They are life-smart. On the surface– they are kind, helpful and inclusive. There is a substantial gringo population that acts as the control group if you’re into observing and evaluating the mellowness of Ecuadorans scientifically. My experience so far is that nobody wants to bother anybody.