Ahhh, la ciudad
EcuadorI had planned on skipping Quito. After all, I already visited last year and despite having a few charms, I told myself that it’s just another big, messy Latin American city. I’m not a city guy. I feel more at home relaxing the countryside with my own thoughts, than in the mayhem of a concrete jungle. Quito isn’t exactly bike friendly either, perched on a mountain a thousand feet above its surrounding suburbs, with all inroads choked in traffic. Seemed like a place not meant for my bicycle and I.
Then my friend Keith from California texted me – “Any chance you’ll be in Quito between July 30 and August 2?” A classmate from Spanish school in Medellín, Rachel, posted an instagram story from Quito a few days before I got there. And a buddy from college sent an email to connect me with a Quiteño he knew from business school, Sebas.
Ok, Quito, I’ll give you a day – but I’m not biking up that mountain in traffic. I’m staying in the suburbs and cabbing into town.
I rode through the suburbs to my destination of Cumbayá on a rail trail lined with trees and peppered with joggers, dog walkers, and mountain bikers. I had forgotten the pleasantries of a manicured bike trail, purpose-built for recreation, only found in city suburbs.
Arriving in Cumbayá, the scene nearly blinded me after camping in the wilderness and biking through tiny pueblos all day. Sushi restaurants. Craft breweries. Sprawling malls. Lines around the block for nightclubs. The beauty I saw in that moment rivaled any mountainous landscape. I devoured a burger and several beers while listening to a grunge band play covers of the Cranberries. The bartenders and patrons spoke fluent English. For a moment, I thought I was back in San Francisco. Especially when I paid forty dollars for my tab. Smiling anyway, I realized that one day in Quito wouldn’t be enough.
But not just for the luxury of modern conveniences and indulgences. Hanging out with Keith and his girlfriend Jasmine overwhelmed me with the warm familiarity of friendship. I hadn’t seen a friend in South America from home since Liz left Medellín. I unleashed all the thoughts that had bottled up in my brain, and I devoured his updates about plans to sell his condo in Mammoth and live a more nomadic life with Jasmine.
Over coffee, Rachel, my friend from Medellín, inspired me with stories from the volunteer job she’d just finished at a wildlife reserve in the Amazon, and her upcoming plans to work at a research station in Antarctica. We traded stories about our fears and hopes leaving our jobs in America and the new mindsets of possibility we’ve acquired, until the late afternoon coffee ran into the evening and we both rushed off, late to meet other people.
Back in Cumbayá, Sebas, the Quiteño, and I drank craft beers to thumping electronic music in a warehouse. Sebas had a background similar to my own, working in finance and studying in the US. I felt refreshed and enthused to learn a bit about Ecuador from someone who thinks more like I do, compared to most of the people I meet on the trail. We yammered about Ecuadorian politics and global economics before grabbing portobello mushroom burgers at a food truck, and escaped the warehouse before tweens invaded it for a Saturday night rave.
The next day, I made an errand to the high end outdoor retailer Tattoo, which felt just like REI, to find the dry bag I needed for my sleeping bag, the new chain I needed for my bicycle, and the warm clothes I needed to prepare for more frigid nights in the páramo. Browsing aisle upon aisle of gear, panoramic outdoor photos covering the walls of the store, my excitement piqued to get out of the noise and fumes of the city and back into the wilderness. But for a few moments there, I felt right at home in the urban jungle of Quito.
