Mark, Author at Expat Expressions

Slow Travel Finds Sardines on the Beach in Crucita

by Mark | Jan 30, 2013 | All-Time Favorites, Deep In It

Early October, another beautiful morning at our tranquil Ecuadorian beach house. But our view of the consistently blue Pacific had changed. Large barcos lined the horizon while small fishing boats dashed out, docked, and returned overloaded with mounds of shiny sardines. We had been warned that our "California beach of the 1950s" would become a commercial fish-cleaning zone — but it happened fast, it was complete, and we were shocked.

During our three-month slow travel in Ecuador, we rented a beach house in Crucita for five weeks. It wasn't long before we found ourselves at the center of an intense local dispute pitting the sardine industry against advocates fighting to end the practice of processing fish on the beach. The shacks serve as pre-packaging plants for the giant canneries in Manta across the bay.

Crucita has a beautiful shallow bay. During the ten months of sardine fishing, the large barcos that follow the Humboldt Current just off the Ecuadorian coast use the bay for safety and to station themselves. We counted up to fourteen one day.

The sardines are fished at night; it's best when moonlight exposes the shallow-swimming, silvery schools to the nets. The Humboldt also teems with larger fish — Manta, whose lights can be seen at night across the bay, is the tuna capital of the world.

The central fight revolves around a historical and supposedly illegal practice: cleaning and chopping the sardines on the beach. At daylight, locally owned small boats go out to the barcos, collect the catch, and bring it to shore.

Crucita is one of the last fishing villages that allows the chop shacks on the beach. The open-air, thatched-roof, wooden-pole shacks are roughly 40 feet long and 30 feet wide. Inside, several tables — each about five feet wide, with wood planks running the full 30-foot width — serve as work surfaces. Each shack can have dozens of people working on both sides. One of those chop shacks was directly in front of our house.

Since Crucita is one of the last communities to allow the practice, sardines are also trucked in from nearby fishing villages — 30 to 40 sheds in all. The cleaned fish are then trucked to the major canneries in Manta, about 40 miles away. Those facilities include U.S. companies like Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea, though those two process tuna; other canneries specialize in sardines.

The fight to end this practice has escalated. The local government council allows it to continue, and the canneries benefit by receiving cheaply cleaned fish. The chop-and-clean shacks are a cash business. That helps explain why they remain.

The workers on the beach aren't paid the wages they'd earn in a processing plant, nor do they receive the social security benefits they're legally entitled to. At high tide, the crews stand in water. Children are working. Add the unsanitary conditions and lack of refrigeration, and those nutritionally rich sardines we buy don't sound so appetizing.

The advocates believe the practice is illegal under Ecuadorian law and that the child labor has to end. They believe most of the workers are on their side — they would benefit from moving the operation off the beach to legitimate sites with better pay and conditions. But there is also a strict hierarchy among the sardine crews that tightly enforces the status quo.

Shortly after the season resumed in October, we watched the beach transform into a bloody mess of fish guts flowing to the ocean, truck oil staining the sand. The chop-and-clean shacks had been documented extensively. They remained in active operation.

Whether President Correa was aware of the beach pre-processing operations was unclear. The advocates were working hard to reach local and regional officials and the newspapers, operating on the assumption that exposing the practice on a beautiful Ecuadorian beach would force public outrage and change.

Ecuador was changing fast. Correa carried 60–70% approval ratings and was fighting entrenched interests on multiple fronts — but local councils are powerful, and new laws can get choked before they breathe. The lack of action here may have been a case of choosing one's battles.

The development was remarkable to witness: roads built everywhere, mandatory schooling implemented alongside child labor laws, a minimum wage, and social security. Before Correa, Ecuador had changed governments so often there was no stability. Now the country was in the grip of massive social, political, and economic change. Correa, worth noting, held a PhD in economics from an American university.

The organization responsible for fishing regulations is CEIPA. They were, or should have been, aware of the chop shacks after this article. Yet the shacks remained.

On my runs along the beach I kept passing a truck where three or four men vigorously loaded it with sand, then watched it drive toward town. They were selling the sand for mixing concrete for local construction projects.

This story unfolded in bits and pieces during our stay, each new detail adding to the image — across the bay, where the canneries were, Bumblebee, Chicken of the Sea, the boardrooms had a nice view.

Slow Travel #59, A Birthday to Remember

by Mark | Jan 5, 2013 | All-Time Favorites, Deep In It

On November 17, 2012, I turned 59. It was a beautiful morning in Cuenca, Ecuador. We had a simple breakfast, then around ten took the 25-cent bus ride to el Centro. The city was bustling as we walked through the flower market, along the cathedral and down to the Tomebamba River.

We made our way to the Broken Bridge, where we enjoyed the music, bought some snack foods and sat by the river.

It was a decision point: a movie and dinner at Joe's Secret Garden, rated the number one restaurant in Cuenca, or a bus excursion to el Agave, a Mexican restaurant located about 30 km south of town that we had heard about in Spanish class.

Mexican food won out, so we hailed a cab to the always busy Terminal Terrestre. We were looking for the Girón, Yunquilla, or Tarqui bus — all headed south on the Pan American Highway. According to our Spanish teacher, one of them would take us to mile marker #17 and el Agave. We exited the terminal, dropped ten cents in the turnstile and walked among the thirty or so buses searching for the outgoing ones. The Girón bus was obscure but we found it.

The man handling ticketing was at the bus door, where we got into a discussion about mile marker #17, trying to establish that we wanted to be dropped off there. Our Spanish failed us — we tried everything including drawing a picture of a sign with #17 on it. Nothing. All three of us grew frustrated, but we got on the bus anyway because we were certain it was going in the right direction.

We knew the restaurant was near Tarqui, a small village south of Cuenca. As we sensed we were getting close, the ticket man came up and said in rather clear Spanish to get off at the next stop. We weren't sure we were in Tarqui but hoped our Spanish would be understood by someone else. We paid our $3 and slipped off the bus.

We asked at an outdoor restaurant near the bus stop, and the woman seemed to recognize comida Mexicana and pointed up the road. Her son, a young man in his twenties, was working hard to strike up a conversation. As I worked my best Spanish on the woman, I turned around to find he had encouraged Betsy to dance. The radio blared and a small crowd clapped. It was time to move on. We had confirmed we were in Tarqui; still no one knew about the mile markers. We started walking.

It wasn't long before we flagged down the next bus. Similar translation issues for the next couple of kilometers, though this driver seemed to know the restaurant. He was turning at the next intersection and directed us off the bus, pointing up the road. We got off and started walking again.

Then we spotted mile marker #15 — plain as day. Unbelievable. We noticed the curb was painted in 20-meter increments: 15-200, 16-220, and so on. When we found the stake for mile marker #16, our confidence soared. We kept walking.

The scenery made it worthwhile. Views of cow and crop-dotted fields against a wall of mountains, as idyllic as they come. Near marker 16-380 we stopped at a small store. The woman knew immediately when Betsy said comida Mexicana. She pointed toward mile marker #17. Our pace quickened and soon enough, hungry from our efforts, we arrived at el Agave, mile marker #17-420.

We walked into the homey, rustic restaurant and sat at one of the large wood tables. Time for a cerveza and our first Mexican meal in a long time. It was 4 p.m. It had cost $4.50 in bus fare and taken four hours to go 30 km.

The owner's young daughter approached and spoke in perfect English with a bright smile. She was in 11th grade, found the math in her Ecuadorian school more difficult than her previous school in New York State. The family had moved four years ago, and while she missed her friends, she liked living in Ecuador. She took our order — fajitas and a taco plate.

During the meal, her mother and father came to the table. He was Ecuadorian, she was Mexican. They liked their simple lifestyle and talked proudly about the new home they were building behind the restaurant. There were cows and a horse in the field, chickens in the yard, a garden ready to be planted. They seemed content. It was a perfect meal.

When it was time to leave, we were directed up the hill to a family member who made cheese, yogurt, and cheesecake. The store was simple inside. Our mission was two slices of birthday cheesecake.

We started back down the hill to flag the next bus to Cuenca. At marker #17-220, an older jeep-style truck pulled off the road. The man introduced himself as Leo, a member of the restaurant family. Somehow our story of walking so far for dinner had reached him. He offered us a ride to the next bus stop. Slightly skeptical — we hadn't met him in the restaurant — we got in, squeezing together on the front seat.

Leo spoke good English. He had lived in New York State, worked construction, bought and restored houses, and at the height of the housing boom had a crew working for him. He spoke of his wife and thirteen-year-old son still living in the U.S.

We weren't far down the road when Leo asked if we'd like to ride into the mountains. We paused a second — was going up in the mountains in a new acquaintance's beat-up Jeep sane? The answer, on a birthday, was yes. For the next hour Leo crept up steep mountain roads through several small villages. There were beautiful vistas of the valley below. At one point we were looking down on an approaching cloud bank. Cuenca sits at 8,400 feet; Leo estimated we'd reached about 11,000. As we drove he honked or waved at everyone he passed, which seemed to be everyone. We came eventually to a small farmhouse his father owned, in the family for decades — corn and fava beans, his father now in his eighties, long since moved away. Leo asked if we'd like to see inside but darkness was closing in and we passed. Leo said, "Next time."

Coming back down the mountain he offered to drive us all the way to Cuenca. He enjoyed the conversation, he said, and appreciated the chance to practice his English. We talked about the community's fight against a Canadian gold mine expanding into the next valley, feared to contaminate the river and water supply. We talked about the contrast between Ecuador and the U.S. — families here still living in close proximity, the pace slower, the striving less intense. We thought about our own dispersed family, connected by Skype and email, months between visits.

Leo said he owned 80 dairy cows and worked odd construction jobs. Many of the large mountainside homes were owned by U.S. expats who provided some work for him.

Then he told us what had happened four years earlier, at the height of his business in New York. A state trooper stopped him and asked him to prove his citizenship. He had paid an attorney $10,000 to secure legal residency, but the attorney had stolen the money. Lacking papers, he was taken into custody and deported. He said he wasn't bitter. He thought the trooper may have exceeded his jurisdiction. But you could hear in it how much being forced from his family and his work had cost him.

It was dark as we re-entered Cuenca. Leo dropped us near our apartment. I had wanted to invite him up — have a birthday drink, keep talking. I didn't. That thought has stayed with me. I still wonder what makes us cautious where others are open, what we protect ourselves from by not asking a stranger in.

Thanksgiving 2012, Ecuador, Cuenca, Cajas, Guayaquil

by Mark | Dec 11, 2012 | Deep In It

Ours was a nontraditional Thanksgiving. After three months of slow travel in Ecuador, we prepared for a full day of travel and exploration and completed it with a remarkable dinner. We were scurrying around by 6:30 a.m. in our Cuenca, Ecuador apartment, where we had lived for the past five weeks, as we finished packing for the next road. The plan was to take a cab to the bus station (Terminal Terrestre) at 10, then a four-hour bus ride to Guayaquil, spend the night and then fly to Panama the next afternoon.

We spent five weeks in our Cuenca apartment, three months in Ecuador.

The cab arrived on time at 10 am. We were on the bus to Guayaquil by 10:30. About 30 km outside Cuenca we entered Parque Nacional Cajas (Cajas National Park). The highest point of the park is 4,450 meters (14,600 feet), and the park is filled with jagged landscapes and deep valleys. The park's 200-some glacial lakes and lagoons provide about 60 percent of the drinking water for Cuenca. Mountainous views into deep valleys laced with small villages delighted us as we followed the switchbacks between and around the peaks.

Finally, the road leveled out, tropical vegetation everywhere as we made our way to sea level outside Guayaquil pronounced: [ɡwaʝaˈkil]), the largest and most populous city in Ecuador, with around 3.5 million people, and the nation's main port. Guayaquil is located on the western bank of the Guayas River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Guayaquil. From the modern Guayaquil bus terminal, we grabbed a cab to our downtown hotel. It was mid-afternoon, and the outside temperature had gone from the Cuenca constant 70 degrees to close to 90. We pulled out the shorts and light shirts and struck out to explore the busy city heading toward the Guayas river. Along the way, we saw the beautiful Metropolitan Cathedral of Guayaquil...

We wandered across the street to the park, a gathering place for adults and children filled with well manicured trees, flowers and tropical plants. About a city block wide, on this day the place was teeming. We noticed a crowd with cameras poised so we moved in for a closer look. It was a bit of a shock. Iguanas were walking around everywhere. People, children included, were surrounded. It was all a person could do to avoid stepping on their long tails. Some children were leery and needed parental reassuring, but for the most part it was zoo.

Okay, we didn't expect that and finally left the park mumbling about the Iguanas, the children's faces and reactions, and the comedy of it all. Having enjoyed some outstanding colonial architecture in Cuenca, we found Guayaquil impressive in size and scope with churches and historical buildings, but structures like this were more dispersed, it took some hunting to find them. A few blocks away we landed on the Malecón 2000 (boardwalk), considered to be a model of urban renewal and declared a healthy public space by the Pan-American Organization of Health (POH) and the World Health Organization (WHO). We walked the 2.5 km boardwalk with views of several historical monuments, museums, gardens, fountains, shopping malls, restaurants, bars, and food courts.

We stumbled upon a free concert... The band had a big sound and the crowd enthusiastically supported them. But now it was getting dark and we were hungry. You can set your watch by sunrise and sunset in Ecuador, the days are 12 hours long all year long. By the time we hailed a taxi it was 7 p.m. It was a 30-minute ($4 dollar cab) ride across town to the Riveria restaurant, which had a reputation for great food. We stood outside looking at the menu, and the place was empty so we thought we had the wrong place. We balked at first and then decided to wade in. We were hardly seated when the crowd started to trickle in. By the time we finished ordering, the place was half full and by the end of our meal, there was a wait. We had a great Italian Thanksgiving meal. Luckily we didn't have an early flight. After this day we were thankful to stretch out in our hotel room, prepare some last minute itinerary stuff and relax, e.g. fall asleep. What a day! We arrived at the Guayquil airport the next day easily two hours ahead of our Copa flight to Panama. Our three months in Ecuador were quickly coming to a close and a new chapter a two-hour plane flight away.

Side Road Trip from Iguazú: San Ignacio

by Mark | Oct 22, 2012 | Deep In It

Naturally Amazing

We landed in Puerto Iguazú on Friday morning with a planned Saturday trip to the Iguazú Falls on Saturday but the forecast of rain changed that. After dinner on Friday we walked into the nearby bus station and booked an excursion to the Jesuit mission of San Ignacio Miní and the Wanda Mines. It is about a 3-4 hr ride to the mission and the mine is on the way.

Depending on the day of the week you book your bus from BaSa, this excursion is included in the price. The way we did it is basically backtracking south and an extra cost.

(This photo (left) has no reference to this post, the butterfly landed on a backpack at the park. The design is so amazing it deserves a place.)

Early on Saturday we waited outside our hotel for the bus to pick us up for our excursion. Less than 24 hrs earlier we had completed a 16 hr ride from BaSa. We fully expected the modern semi-luxurious bus to pick us up. The one with the big chairs that fold down into a sofa position. This was going to be another 8 hr ride there and back.

Instead, almost on time, a small commuter van with about 10 rows of seats arrives. Panic struck but we were able to all get on the ~~bus~~ van.

With better Spanish language skills we would have asked where "our" bus was but as it was, any questioning of that nature would have fallen on deaf ears. Our fate sealed we settled in for the ride.

The drivers were a team, and like a large portion of Argentina they had prepared themselves for the day in the van with a healthy supply of Yerbe Mate which they shared during the entire trip.

About 40 km down the road we arrived at the Wanda Mines.

We were provided an English speaking guide and taken down into the mines. I don't want to mislead here, this mine is of the "open pit" variety so most of the mineral deposits are found near the surface. You can view amethysts deposits on the surface in various shades. It quickly became apparent that one would need to study up on amethysts. From what we understood the deep purple colored stones are called "bishop" and have the most value. The guide told the story that the owner of the mine initially bought the land to grow yerba but discovered gems and even with the government policy on mineral rights, he is a rich man. The tour lasted about 45 minutes and then we were led into the gift shop. It was interesting but the main event was down the road.

A Mindful Seven Months of Slow Travel

by Mark | Sep 23, 2012 | All-Time Favorites, Deep In It

We spent February in Key West, Florida, a place full of history and interesting people. Then we left the country for arty San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In May we traveled to Baltimore to see our daughter Stacy receive her master's degree from Johns Hopkins. June in Boston gave us a month with both our daughters. Then on July 2 we jumped the Atlantic to Scotland for two wonderful weeks. In mid-July we boarded a ferry to cross the North Sea to Amsterdam. On August 17 we flew to Slovenia to meet up with our son. After this whirlwind seven months, Betsy and I are renting a house on the beach in Ecuador. Some days, in those first hazy moments after waking, we have to ask ourselves: Where are we today?

bizarre rock on the beach with small branches growing out of it

Rock Plant from Our Ecuadorian Beach

Our month in Key West was enough — we wouldn't change a thing, but it was time to go. It felt like we had stepped into a reality show with a cast of characters we won't forget. Joyce is one of a kind: a lifetime of ballet behind her in New York City, she moved to Key West and eventually fulfilled her dream of producing "The Nutcracker" with a Key West twist. An award-winning documentary, Underwater, the Making of the Key West Nutcracker, was made chronicling her herculean efforts. We rented a room in one of her beautiful homes in the historic district, enjoyed the warm weather, explored the island, spent time on the beach, and got to know Joyce, Carlos, and the rest of the Key West cast.

We lucked out in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Out of the vivid noise of Key West we settled into the tranquility of San Miguel and a pleasant routine. It now seems like San Miguel will provide the litmus test for places we could consider living outside the U.S. The city has near-perfect weather and a dynamic cultural scene. We enjoyed yoga and Spanish lessons, attended several plays, heard live music, and explored the art community and shops. We constantly met new people with interesting stories. San Miguel may not be for everyone — it may not be for us — but it is easy to see why some 10,000 expats call it home.

El Jardin and La Parroquia at Night

The pace quickened again as we traveled to Baltimore for Stacy's graduation from Johns Hopkins. Two weeks later we helped her move out of her apartment and were on the road to Boston.

Finding a sublet in Boston was a challenge, but we found one — a two-bedroom apartment at garden level (read: basement). It worked out fine. Stacy stayed with us while she searched for a place to live as she worked toward her PhD. We had planned a month in Boston with her and our daughter Kelly, who was about to begin her second year of her master's program. The month went too quickly.

Along the way, we had found an apartment in Amsterdam we could sublet starting in late July.

One of Many Beautiful Views on the Isle of Skye in Scotland

With a two-week gap between Boston and Amsterdam, we planned a trip to Scotland (and here, here and here). The first week we rented an apartment in Edinburgh and toured the city, then rented a car for a road trip through the country. We traveled some 1,000 miles, never staying two nights in the same place, and saw much of the Highlands. At the end we returned the car in Newcastle and caught an overnight cruise boat to Amsterdam.

River View Newcastle, England

The Amsterdam apartment worked out well — spacious and functional, with a nice park a block away. Just south of the city centre, it sat in a family neighborhood with local bars and restaurants. During the first weekend our son Donald and his girlfriend Neva visited from Berlin and we toured the city relentlessly. After they left our pace slackened and we cherry-picked what we wanted to explore. We even spent a couple of rare sunny days at the nearby beach.

View down a canal with boats, bikes and beautiful architecture of Amsterdam.

The Canals, Boats, Bikes and Architecture of Amsterdam

For me, Amsterdam is a model — a world-class city that embraces diversity and personal freedom. Rather than controlling personal behavior, it allows for individual expression of lifestyle choices. Given the strict moral and legal codes in wide swaths of the U.S. and the belief that enforcement gives us order, Amsterdam shows us another path. Compare any number of social indices against our most conservative cities — teenage pregnancy, high school graduation rates, alcoholism, drug addiction, crime — and the path is obvious. It was reaffirming to see the progressive model at work.

Then it was time for a long-planned rendezvous in Slovenia — a week with our son and his girlfriend Neva, who is from Kranj. We had talked about this trip since Berlin in 2010.

Plaza in Piran, Slovenia

It was a special week with extraordinary hosts, the Nahtigal family. We spent a day in historic Ljubljana, met family, and took an amazing three-day road trip. The centerpiece was Donald's 30th birthday, which we celebrated with him in the coastal city of Piran. We feasted on a seafood dinner, then stayed with a friend in the nearby port town of Koper, high in the hills overlooking the city. We were on the patio with the city lights as a backdrop until three in the morning. The next day we traveled through Triglav National Park, spent the night in a small village, and hiked along the coral-green Soča River.

All too soon we said our emotional parental goodbyes to Donald, not sure when we would meet again. From Ljubljana we caught a shuttle to Venice, then a flight to Barcelona with an eight-hour layover that allowed for minimal sleep in a nearby hotel. After a bastard flight from Barcelona to Rome to Miami to save a few hundred dollars, we landed in the States in time to find out our connecting flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador, had been canceled because of Hurricane Isaac.

View of Quito from Hill Top

Dazed, tired, and frustrated from two days of travel, we found a hotel, worked out a new flight schedule for the next day into Quito rather than Guayaquil — with the welcome twist of a two-day layover to see the city. Then a short flight to Guayaquil, an overnight hostel, and a bus to Montañita along the Ecuadorian coast to begin our planned extended stay on the ocean.

Two weeks later, having moved through several coastal villages — Bahía, Manta — we settled on a month on the beach in a fishing village north of Manta. The village has a few kiosk-type stores, a small pharmacy, a dozen or so restaurants. Dirt roads, wooden shacks or cement-block homes, some with windows and some without, dot the coast. Poverty and wealth, more or less, live side by side.

Along the Coast of Ecuador We Visited Several Fishing Villages

In seven months we have touched down in at least eight countries, lived in five apartments or houses, and passed through some 20 hotels or hostels, moving more or less gracefully from Key West to Ecuador.

Mindfulness has several closely linked definitions, but for us it involves a daily focus on the newness around us. There are few habits to rely on. It involves simple things — finding the correct light switch, locating the cupboard with the glasses, hunting for the silverware drawer — and more complicated ones, like orienting ourselves to new places and people. In our latest house in Ecuador, we struggle not to stumble over the two-inch step to the bathroom and to master the winding stone-tiled steps to the second floor. These challenges are constant and involve focusing on the moment. Hopefully we will reap the benefits mindfulness research claims.

For the past week we have had the stabilizing constant of the beautiful blue Pacific out our front door and from our balcony.