It is common wisdom here and a source of bragging rights for all Ecuadorians that their country, a country most close in size to the U.S. state of Colorado, is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet. Just to provide you with some trivial information, Wikianswers tells me, “Colorado is the 8th largest state with 103,729 square miles [and] Ecuador measures 98,985 square miles.” As you might imagine, at its size, Ecuador is not a very big industrial nation, which means that it relies on limited resources for national income. One of these resources is the export of fruits and roses, although the income generation and dependability (shelf life) of those products is sometimes iffy, another product, unfortunately, is oil, which is leading to the deforestation of the Amazon (a topic I address in another blog to come) and, finally, one of the most important national products of Ecuador is a service, tourism.
If you ask any Ecuadorian what the most amazing thing about their country is, they’ll be very quick to tell you (or boast) that the tiny country of Ecuador has three incredible landscapes that very few countries possess: coastal, mountainous and jungle. The bragging rights provided by these three natural landscapes are the base for the entire tourism industry of Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government, past and present, has not been unwise in its exploiting of this natural resource. The former tourism campaign was decent, with its catchy slogan, “La vida en estado puro” (Life in its pure state), but Rafael Correa (current president of Ecuador) hit a grand slam with his investment in the new Ecuadorian Ministry of Tourism, “Ama la vida” (Love Life), simple, but great!
So, why does any of this matter, am I working for the ministry of Ecuadorian tourism? I can assure you, as my bank account reflects, that I am not on the Correa Ama la vida payroll, but I would like to promote some tourism in this blog. It’s not my intention to solely promote Ecuador, but its triple threat landscape provides me with an argument that I think my readers will be unable to deny.
It might not be convenient (or maybe it won’t meet your expectations) for you as the reader, but for me, the writer, it’s much more simple if I cut out a lot of the “anti-travel abroad” protests that I’ve heard over the years and narrow them down to the three most common: fear, egocentrism and money. One of the most typical things I hear from people in the U.S., when I talk to them about traveling abroad, is their proclamation of fear of the unknown. After that, I also get the very egocentric question, “Why leave the states when we have it all here?” Lastly, I usually get some sort of decree about the extreme state of poverty that the would-be-traveler is, supposedly, currently in. I know this seems formulaic; after all three arguments fit conveniently into three main points of the body of an essay, but let’s take a look at each one of these arguments individually.
FEAR, this is most definitely one of the most powerful drivers behind a lot of our actions, isn’t it? When people in the states think of traveling abroad, they tend to get a very nervous and worry a lot about a little. “I can’t speak the language!”, “Rules, transportation, stores, bathrooms, etc. will be very different there!”, “What about converting money?”, “What if I get lost?”, “What about the out-of-control drug war?”, and “Aren’t things dangerous ‘over there’?”, are just a few of the worries I have heard. If you let fear rule your life, you may never do anything nor experience anything new. Most of these doubts or worries are completely irrational anyway. “Is it dangerous over there?”, it’s dangerous everywhere! The U.S. may be one of the most dangerous countries in the world, especially if you look at the murder and other crime rates, but that doesn’t seem to keep anyone from going to work or conducting their normal business. Those other things are just problems that you must learn to get over, they’re part of the experience. If you don’t speak the language, you do the best you can, if you get lost, you work to get found, and you figure all of these things out.
The next claim I want to address is the idea that the U.S. somehow has everything and, therefore, there is no need to travel to any other country. This claim is certainly untrue. I cite my early statement about Ecuador, the country just slightly smaller than Colorado, with its’ coastal, mountainous and tropical jungle regions. Is this also true for the U.S.? Coasts, check, mountains, check, and tropical jungle, no check. Where is the tropical rainforest in the states? The simple answer is, there isn’t one (unless you count Puerto Rico as part of the states). The 50 states have pretty incredible and diverse landscapes, but they don’t have everything. There is a rainforest, in Washington State, but the US is not in a tropical region, so there are simply things that we don’t have. Keep in mind, as well, that the US is HUGE, so it’s pretty incredible to think that Ecuador, a little tiny country has many things that the United States do not.
Anyone who has read Darwin knows about all of the incredible species he discovered on the Galapagos Islands. Ever get a look at the Galapagos tortoise in its’ natural habitat? Another interesting trivia fact, there are around 888 bird species in the United States, Ecuador has 1,515. You may be saying to yourself, “The number of bird species is VERY trivial,” and, “What do I care about birds?”, but I’m simply using that as an example of the differences. The diversity of natural wildlife in Ecuador is simply astounding and unlike anything else I’ve seen in the states.
The differences don’t only exist in the flora and fauna. If you’ve been following my blog regularly, you will have also noticed much dissimilarity between Spanish colonial constructions in South America and those British (the ones that are left) of North America. I’ve visited many countries in Latin America and one very incredible thing about their architecture is that a lot of colonial constructions are still very much intact. I should not only argue for travel to South America. Keep in mind that the modern Americas are very young, I have yet to travel to Europe or Asia, but, there, we’re talking about nations that are thousands of years old.
The worst excuse I’ve ever heard for not traveling is, “I don’t have the money.” If you wait until you do have the money, you might never have the chance to do anything until you’re at the point where your body is no longer able to enjoy it. Given, there are, most definitely, situations that take economic priority to travel, but I would suggest that some creature comforts can be sacrificed to increase your quality of life through a travel experience. Find a way, plane tickets are expensive, but other things are cheap. I can eat a complete meal here in Ecuador for $2.50 usd! I think that we sometimes have the mentality that our material purchases will improve our quality of life. People have this idea that they need to spend all of their money on a home, a car, a stereo system, a television, etc., which leaves them without a dime to spend on travel. People work so hard to pay for all of their material possessions that they’re trapped into a job where they are given two weeks off a year. Two weeks off a year is hardly enough time to go anywhere and, when you’ve already bought into the idea of a capitalist’s paradise, the only kind of trip you’ll allow yourself to have at that point is one straight from a brochure, all expenses paid. The expenses are definitely paid, at the highest price possible.
So, you might be wondering how the theme for this blog came about. At the end of February and the beginning of March, I found myself sitting on a beach*, under a tent, sipping on a 40oz beer that I had just purchased for a dollar and staring out at the Pacific Ocean waves roll in. I had a revealing thought at that moment, “Here I am, on the beach with little money in my bank account (but plenty of beer), happy as hell, and there are many people that will never do anything like this.” It made me sad, so I wanted to write an entry to try to convince my readers to travel abroad. Come down and visit me if you want! I hope I haven’t sounded condescending (that was not my intention); I simply want to encourage you to improve your quality of life a little without material goods. Leaving home means a challenge, a cultural exchange; quite literally, it’s an “experience of a lifetime”, and you shouldn’t wait any longer.
*I actually traveled from the Amazon (Yachana), to the sierra, Quito, to the Coastal city of Manta, back to Quito and, finally, back to Yachana in a period of less than ten days. I was able to visit three very diverse landscapes in less than ten days, that’s one of the reasons this country is so amazing.
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