Ecuador´s Coastal Emerald

The mountains released us from Quito into the fingers of the jungle as our TransEsmereldas bus lumbered towards the Northwestern coastal town of Esmereldas. Through our fogged bus windows, we discovered another Ecuador: the blink of shanty towns wedged into the the kink of mountainsides, neon palates of clotheslines, trees of lavendar and pink, rope footbridges, women stretching over water basins working clothing into knots, scattered flocks of white birds thrown into flight like wedding rice. The sloppy mudslide of our Andean highway delivered us to a techicolor world at the base of jurassic mountains towering around us. We passed hollow skeletons of construction, shirtless futbol stars, towering piles of tires and bananas, children racing barefoot, tin roofs, and a series of dark green pipes that remind us that we were approaching the final belch of the PetroEcuador oil pipeline in Esmeredas. We followed a twisting river through the afternoon, out of the mountains and into dusk. There, in an exploration of voyerism, we peered into the outskirts of Esmereldas, skimming the surface of our next destination. Open doors and reed walls flashed the briefest of glimpses into intimate scenes - families of women dressed for the tropical night, clusters of teenage boys gathered around porch pooltables, stray dogs eating trash, stoops layered with lounging sillouettes.... all bathed in the same flouresent bare lightbulb.

Lonely Planet tactfully suggests to tourists to aviod the unaesthetic, dangerous coastal town of Esmereldas. Its true, Esmereldas seems to be a crumbling, dirty city upon first glance and the growing numbers of gangs continues burden the city. But as a towering billboard announces, "Si es posible cambiar Esmereldas... es su playa, mantengala limpia"... In a nut shell, its possible to change Esmereldas, its your beach, lets keep it clean. Beneath the grime and ever present nighttime threats of robbery, we found it impossible to resist the thriving Caribbean beats and flavors and movement and color.

Indeed Esmereldas is the emerald of Ecuador´s coastline, unforseen, unsolicited, and unassuming. Its known for its renowned seafood delights and has the highest concentration of AfroEcuadorians, which in conjunction with its radiant spectrum of tropical colors, it makes one feel closer to a Caribbean island than the Ecuadorian countryside just a few hours east.

Our original itinerary for Esmereldas states our weeklong objective as "to develop contacts in the community for future arts work. See a national arts festival. Make workshops happen... Venue:TBA." As with many of our plans here in Ecuador, we have been learning to be in the moment, of the moment. Half the time, plans are made day of and aside from our own rehearsals, nearly every event or meeting starts late, gets postponed or changes locations at least twice. We´ve been experiencing this spontaneous action planning first hand and thus the question marks throughout the Esmereldas section of my tattered itinerary quickly evaporated. We hit the coast running.

After meeting with the impressively multi-talented, retired basketball star turned socially active actor/director Victor Hugo, we had a more concrete roadmap through our time in Esmereldas. Victor ran the internationally renowned theatre company La Catunga and was more than eager to help us in our quest to create our Ecuador project. Not only did he help facilitate our time workshoping at Colegio Bella Arts, a high school for the arts, but also arranged time to work and exchange artistically with his theatre company.

After a week of sweltering humidity, impromtu marimba dancing, hot rainstorms, spanglish highschool theatre workshops, new friendships, sunburns and the most incredible coconut curried seafood, we reluctantly said our goodbyes and boarded TransEsmereldas to climb 13,000 feet to the next leg of our journey... Quilatoa in high Andes.