About Friends

"You don't have to go. I know, you know, you know. But if you gotta go, safe travels." --Peter and the Wolf, from Linda Feldman's Ecuador Mix, given to me the night before my departure.

Someone wrote me and said he's beginning to think my entire trip is about llamas and volcanoes. Well, he actually wasn't that far off the mark. I have spent nearly the entirety of my past 11 weeks in the northern and central sierra, Ecuador's Andes--host to llamas and volcanoes aplenty.

I have been living and working between 6,000 and 12,000 feet. My shoulders and face have freckled in the equatorial sun, but my legs have been ensconsed in rubber boots and knee high socks, and at night I am wrapped in wool and alpaca. Blankets, sweaters, scarves, the lot of them. Sometimes, all of them. But now, that is about to change. Sort of.

On Monday, Linda arrives from New York. Though we will spend about a week overall in the mountains, our shared goal is the beach. First, I am forcing her to ride some white water on a raft in one of Ecuador's many rivers. I am also taking her to both The Tungurahua Tea Room and to Misi Wasi so she, too, can experience llamas and volcanoes. But we are both looking forward to shedding clothes and swatting mosquitoes while lounging in the sun, eating fresh catch cevche from a triciclero beachside, and drinking tropical batidos--milkshakes of banana, coconut and pineapple, mango--adorned with a salad of fruits on the rim for breakfast, and sipping capirhiñas at sunset...or earlier. Who can wait for sunset?

The last time I visited Ecuador, in 2005, I went to the beach in July. Our summer, their winter. I searched for sun during my week, even forcing the two girls I was with to follow my hairbrained idea of leaving one beach in the south to go to one ABOVE the equator, where I rationalized it was still another hemisphere, and thus, another season. Um, I was wrong. Our search was fruitless. We only got stuck in a road strike and spent a full day on busses trying to work our way around it. We ended up in Atacames, but still "suffered" only warm, cloudy days, and one insanely reckless whale-watching excursion that involved shoddy lifejackets and a speedboat "captained" by a barefoot teenager balancing on the bow and shouting "Mira! Mira! Siga! Siga!" as we tore through the Pacific like modern day harpooners "hunting" humpbacks. But now, the end of December is approaching High Season for sun, surf (surfers!) and sand. So I will be liberally applying sunscreen hoping to lessen, with caution, the blinding white glare of my scabby and bruised lower body.

I am overwhelmed with excitement and gratitude as I anxiously await Linda's arrival. The fact that she has made the financial investment to come here and visit me is a most amazing Christmas gift. She is also acting as my "mule," carting down here a new stock of supplies (books, babywipes, SPF, saline solution, etc...) to replenish my waning stash. My parents have mailed her part of this carepack and I am immensely grateful to them as well, for hunting up an Argentina guide book and an electric voltage converter for my trips south after Ecuador. Linda is bearing this burden and bringing me all of this in her bulging pack. She's also taken time out of her life to search out some much desired books I've been wanting on Permaculture and South American politics. I am so constantly reminded of how blessed I am to have such incredible friends and family.

Perhaps most crucial is that Linda will be here with me when I move from the 12th into the 13th week of traveling, marking the longest period I've ever dared to be away from home. Having one of my absolute best friends by my side as I maneuver this odd, momentous, life-hump, is more that I ever could have hoped for.

As I was planning this trip for much of last year, she would joke about coming to visit, as many of my friends did. But she really meant it! And she has found a way to make it happen. I know it is damn near impossible for most people to find the money and the time to make such a trip, and really, my time here isn't about just going to the beach with my friends from home. But this--Linda coming--this is special for both of us. She will be my Christmas angel, my Hannukah blessing, my New Year's wish. I will get to watch her as she wonders at this little country that has captured my heart and astonished my imagination. She will be my companion, my girl talk, my co-conspirator, my dance partner, my sunscreen slatherer, my lookout, my wingwoman, my family. No llama can do all of that. I hope to be all of that for her, too.

I am so thankful, not only for her coming, but for her in general. At 23 this will be her first trip to the "3rd World". She will be stepping outside of her comfort zone, outside of the rectilineal 'hood in Brooklyn that we are both in love with, but that we also both need to leave now and again. She is daring to embrace discomfort and unanswerable questions and I am so proud of her, and so thrilled to be her witness.

We have had a frenzied and fabulous and somewhat tumultuous friendship that has changed both of us in unforseen and confusing ways in just 2 years. All of this makes her coming even more incredible and deepens my love for and gratitude towards her. We keep on figuring out how to love and trust each other even though we can both be difficult in our own ways. We have tested each other's capacity for patience and forgiveness. I think Linda may have taught me more about "relationships" than any boyfriend ever has.

When we moved in together in the summer of last year, friends of ours, unbeknownst to us, made bets--with real money!--as to how long it would last. Like a Hollywood wedding, or as though our lives and our friendship were some sort of joke. We did make it the whole year, but I think sometimes we survived out of defiance to each other, ourselves, and our wagering friends. And we were both a bit relieved--yet sad--when that year was over. Our friends, I believe, were relieved, too. They got to stop listening to us complain! But our survival and definace has bonded us in a way I can't say I have with any other human being on earth. There were dismal moments during that year of co-habitation when I couldn't imagine we'd even remain friends, let alone that she'd be spending a whollop of money on airfare and her whole 2 weeks of yearly vacation time to come backpack around Ecuador with me.

I have written and spoken about the blessings that come from the challenge of travelling alone, but man oh man, it is an amazing gift, something to cherish beyond description, to create memories in a foreign place with a friend from home. Meeting new people, strangers, and travelling with them is phenomenal, but to know there is someone from your "real life" who will actually see some of what you've seen, with whom you can re-live those days you spent together in a world other than your own, someone who "gets it" when you describe a bus ride or a view, and someone with whom you, and no one else, can share those memories--it is far more special than I have words for here at this time.

Bienvenidos, Linda. Mi linda Linda. Y gracias, por el pasado y el futuro. Viaje con cuidado. Te amo.