Friday, Oct 12, 2018
Non Eventful and Brilliant
It has been a pretty non-eventful week en mi casa. Part of this is due to weather. Let me get the weather report out of the way early….cloudy, drizzle, and rain since I returned. As a result I have chosen to stay mostly inside.
I did venture out to meet up with some friends for dinner a few nights ago. The food was delicious…thank you Terrye, and the company was fun too. Shawn and Teresa always have some good laughs to share with the group. I don’t usually go out much in the evening because, at least in my head, I perceive it will be a hassle getting a taxi or bus home. What I need to remember is that the connection makes it all worth it.
Taxi Taxi
The buses stop running through town around 8 pm. Until only recently when Olon opened its own taxi “station”, it could be very hit and miss to get a taxi home at night. Necessity is the mother of entrepreneurship…or something like that, however, and some of the locals would turn their own cars into taxis at night. That’s mostly how we survived getting home until the local taxi biz arrived.
So when I went out the other night I was pretty confident of snagging a taxi home because of the new taxis in Olon. After dinner I walked (and at this time it was more than a drizzle coming down) to the main road to catch a taxi. As I rounded the corner there was a whole line of taxis. Great, I thought.
I saw many people in the taxi building sitting in what I assumed to be a meeting. Walking over to the group I interrupted them as only gringos can expertly do. I said, “I need a taxi please.” A man who I assume was the jefe walked over to me and told me that the taxis were finished running for the night. Really? Uuugh.
Well I usually do try to be a polite gringo, so I said, “Está bien, no problema.” and walked to the side of the road to see if I could flag down a private taxi that might happen to pass by. My good manners were rewarded because around the curve came a bus! It was really too late to expect one but for whatever reason this one came through town and stopped for me. I was out of the rain in no time. Small blessings are nice.
Sand Between Toes
I finally went for a walk on the beach today. My first since returning here. The drizzle actually stopped and the temperature didn’t feel so “cold” (Yes I know, and I’m man enough to own I’m a cold weather whimp.) Anyway, despite the heavy clouds that persisted the walk was fantastic.
Walking in just board shorts I was warm and comfortable as my feet connected with the earth through the sand, and the pacific water lapped over top of them. This is why I live in Ecuador!
The awareness for me on my walk was how great I felt even without the sun shining. Don’t get me wrong, I choose to live in places where there is a high percentage of daily sunshine. Today though, in that moment, I was as peaceful and content as if the yellow sun was blazing overhead in a brilliant blue sky. In my mind that is exactly what I was seeing.
I was reflecting why I was able to feel this way, and I discovered it was the temperature. It made the difference. I have been on the beach when it is heavily overcast and a cool breeze is blowing off the ocean, and I don’t like it. Being warm made all the difference for me to see through the clouds and “find the sun”. My work continues until I can do this when I am cold too.
Hello Sunset
I did get to see a partial sunset since I have been back. I couldn’t believe it. The whole day was wet and miserable and about an hour before dark, the sun intermittently found its way from behind the clouds. It looked a fireball moving in front of and behind the horizontal weaves of solid, gray bands of cloud hung on a loom.
I was so excited when this began that I stopped what I was doing, made myself a cuba libre, and sat on the terrace in amazement. It has been months now since I have seen a sunset here.
Life is what you take time for.
Chau
My wife and I saw the sunset. Like you, we stopped what we were doing and sat on the steps to the beach and took pictures. We have been here since July 14th and this is the first sunset. On another subject, I remember you mentioned visiting a dermatologist. Do you feel comfortable giving his or her name and phone number? Does the doctor speak English? As usual Thanks for any help you can offer.. John Shepard
Hey John, happy you and your wife got to enjoy that sunset! It was beautiful after so many gray days. I don’t remember the doctors name. The doctor was female and at the Solca clinic in Santa Elena. I’ll see if I can get a name.
Thanks for reading.
Todd
“Life is what you take time for.” That is beyond true. There’s always so much to do. It’s both rewarding and important to stop and enjoy the little things.
I get the sense you and Jamie are pretty good at that. 🙂