Jambelí, Ecuador

From the border, we made our way to Machala, the first large city across the border in Ecuador. On the bus ride there, an Ecuadorian man sat next to me. This prompted some fear at first. Here I was, a young, obviously foreign girl, sitting without a seat partner (we were an odd number of people), an object for robbery or sexual conversation. But, this man turned out to be very nice. He told me a little bit about his life and gave me some safety hints for Machala. There was only one moment of discomfort when he started to ask me if I was single: although the man had to be at least 50 years old, as a single, foreign female, I still represent an opportunity for him to marry and have access to more money and opportunity. I steered the conversation away from the topic, and he didn't return to ask me again.

A note that I would love to investigate more: there are a mountain of bananas in this region of Ecuador. On the sides of the roads are dense banana fields for miles and miles. In Machala, I spotted signs for Dole and Del Monte, and I have no doubts that more US companies are involved in the trade. I would love to know their role, policies, and impact on the lives and farmers, the land, and the economy in the region. A basic search on the internet pointed me to some history, current activism, and the banana growers union.

Once in Machala, we rode a city bus to the port, and then rode a boat to the island of Jambelí. A large, barely populated island off the coast of Machala, Jambelí represents a popular day beach trip for Ecuadorians, but an almost unknown spot for foreign tourists.

People on this island are very poor - they run hostels, restaurants and small stores, but their houses have whole families stuffed into small rooms with barely more than the essentials. Although there was a small charge to enter the island that supposedly went to upkeep of the beach, the sand was full of trash and the water dirty (not that we didn't have a great time anyway). 

Apart from the beach, the other main industry on the island is shrimp farming. We asked a local man to drive us around the island in boat a little bit, and he brought us to a shrimp farm tucked away in the mangroves of the island. I don't think that this shrimp farm had ever had Ecuadorian visitors, let alone foreign ones. Happily, one of the workers, whom we nicknamed Bubba Gump, showed us around the farm. 

The farm was extremely isolated - only 9 people lived and worked there, and although they made occasional trips to the populated part of the island, most of their lives centered around this one farm. The whole shrimping process was fascinating. Bubba Gump told us about their world markets, of which one of the fastest growing is China, where they buy small, young shrimp. He also chronicled their competition with laboratory shrimp, which can be grown faster, cheaper, and with less labor. Although this particular shrimp farm was still making money harvesting shrimp outside of a laboratory, I worry that in 10 years this farm won't exist, pushed out by competition from less natural ways of production.

Apart from the shrimp farm, most of our time in Jambelí was spent relaxing on the beach.

After a day and a half of calm and relaxation, we made our way back to Machala in boat, took a public bus the plaza de armas, walked to the bus station and bought a ticket to Piura, a ride of about 6 hours. It was a gamble - from Piura, we would still need to purchase a ticket to Lima, but there are no buses that run directly from Machala to Lima. We arrived in Piura at what seemed to be a deserted, rather dangerous bus station. After a moment of real discomfort, we were informed us that the bus stations to buy a ticket to Lima were about 10 minutes away by taxi. We arrived at the second station, and bought the 5 of the last 6 tickets for a bus to Lima. Phew! We made it back safely, although quite dirty and a sunburned, at about five o'clock in the morning after 25 or so hours of travel.