Ecuador - the start

Montañita, Ecuador, view from our home there.

We arrived in Ecuador, in a small village on the beach, called Montañita, which was totally fine the first three days. Then, no matter of the fact we were living a block away from the coast, where the sunsets were particularly beautiful, the village turned out to be too small and too spoiled - the amount of the neo-pseudo-quasi-hippies, perky surfers and annoying street sellers of whatever made me quickly tired. There was no space for walking without being incommodated, no space for thinking alone, no art, no possibilites for whatever I thought it could be meaningful to be done. 



We anyway had some good times there, meeting up old friends and partying with some new fellows.

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Anthony in the background, Cristin, Robin and Piero in the foreground.

It took us a month to realize that we are totally screwed up with money for Montañita never offered a relevant payment to Piero and I was keeping refusing to work, grew in depression and broke my spirit. It was the first place, country and town, which I didn't decide for on my own and here we go, I was so disappointed and afraid that am incapable to share travellings with anyone except me. Ecuador was where my mutual journey with Piero started. I was on the road again after an 8-monthed staying in Peru and there I was in that provincial place with several peasants, overcrowded streets with vendors and mobs of partying tourists.  

Then one day my mother said - "But it is so nice you are feeling this way. Imagine if you weren't that depressed, then nothing will rush you to change and move on." True. One should listen to his mother for mothers are to be listened to. 

I kissed Piero and said - You know what, darling, let's get out of here.

We decided Cuenca almost blindly. Never ever heard of its existence, we just saw some nice photos of the colonial historical center and bought a bus ticket less than 8 dollars for more than 8 houred trip. And we entered in a fairy-tale.

Lovely ambience, cheap life and a lot of opportunities for our idea to start working together.

We instantly liked it, rented the tiniest room in the town, whose view was saving us from claustrophobia, went straight ahead in the best bar for live music, made an audition, got contracted and had the time of 3 incomplete days to prepare a whole show.

A strict teacher I had. Piero is a loving man and a horrible workmate. Stricktly speaking, he is just pedantic but how I was prepared to be a singer on a stage so all of a sudden?! It was just an idea, just a game, if you ask me, as everything I recently do in my life and even if I expected to come true at lightning speed as it did, I definitely didn't expect it to be so difficult. Weeks after weeks we were working with only meal breaks, effecting more performancies in a city, we didn't have time to explore. I was happy again but I didn't remember the last time when I was crying so hard because of the process of learning. Notes, whole notes, half notes, repeating, breathing, entering in the right place. All was just too much. I was crying and singing nonstop for about two months.

Only in the end of our stay, when we reached an almost satisfactory level, Piero would take me out for a walk.

Where on the bank of the river we were relaxing in a marijuana stupidness...

And then back in the tiniest room to rehearse and back to the stage and back to sleep and back to rehearse and back to the stage and back to sleep and back to rehearse....

When we felt our time completed in Cuenca, checked the requirements for a visa extension in order to move in the capital to live for a while, got scared of them, checked the requirements for a Colombian visa, accepted them, put a yellow fever vaccination, survived, celebrated Baba Marta with a handmade martenichka and set off to Quito.

There we found out that Quito is even better than Cuenca with all this cultural and night life, huge parks, free European movies in order to promote them, with chic bars and restaurants ready to pay triple more than we were paid in Cuenca and with cost of life roughly the same as in Cuenca. We regreted a bit for issuing a Colombian visa so quickly and not making an effort to prolong the Ecuadorian one, then we remembered that there is no such a thing as a wrong decision, went to the Middle of the World, had a cool couchsurfing experience and got the bus to Colombia. I was always thinking that the land, which can produce Márquez and Shakira cannot be at all disappointing. So, three new months to go.