Trapped Between Protests

Last weekend, I got a little too close to the political protests of a Third World country. Ecuadorans are known for influencing their government without using violence, but it still is scary to be a foreigner trapped by protesters.

My wife, Tesha, and I had three friends visiting Ecuador, so we decided to rent a car and travel through the Amazon jungle and then to the coast. Our beach destination was Montañita, a small surfing town in southern Ecuador.

After staying a few nights in the jungle, then driving all day toward the coast, we ran into a road block about an hour from Montañita. The highway was blocked by a group of police officers who only would tell us the area of Ecuador where we were heading was blocked because of a “big problem.”

Determined to get to our surfing town, we found an alternate route that would cut off part of the highway and put us back on the road near Montañita. Our side route ended up being a one-lane dirt road that connected several tiny farming and ranching communities and was probably not under the description of roads suitable for our Kia Rio.

We were driving through pueblos of shacks made up of friendly people who did not own any cars to drive on the small “road” and who had never seen a foreigner. I think we became the talk of many towns as we constantly had to stop to try to ask if we still were going the right way. The people we met apparently had no idea they were so close to the beach.

Long story short, after about four hours of rocking through terrain that switched back and forth between dessert and tropical forest, we were thrilled to arrive at the main road only several miles south of Montañita. Our excited arrival, however, was put to a sudden stop when we came to a protest in the road.

Locals had blocked the road with tires, poles and junk which they had set on fire, and it was clear we were not getting through. We felt like we had almost completed the hardest race of our lives and then broken a leg just before the finish line. Another long story short, our determination led us essentially to sneak around the protest through some friendly neighbors’ farms on another tiny road that looked more like the track for the Millennium Force roller coaster at Cedar Point.

Finally, we arrived in Montañita and it was even better than we had hoped for. Unfortunately, one of the girls in our group had to get to the airport the next day, so Matt, the other guy in our group, and I left early the next morning to bring her to a town where she could catch a bus to the airport.

Leaving Montañita was our mistake.

At 6:30 on a gray, misty morning with a temperature that was neither warm nor cool, we set out in our rental car. This morning’s destination was a city called Jipijapa (that’s right, “hippy-hoppa”), a city north of Montañita that we picked because we were told there would be no road blocks. But 15 minutes into our ride, we came upon another road block.

We were done taking risky roads with our Kia, especially because of the misty rain, so I was ready to turn back and tell our friend she would just have to wait to fly out. We decided to talk to the protesters first. Fortunately for her, since it was so early in the morning, and the passionate rioters still were recovering from previous night’s riot festivities, we were able to bribe the protesters to let us through for $2. They moved a couple of tires out of the way and kindly let us pass.

Now I started getting worried. We were one of the only cars on the eerie road — not a good thing to be if you are a foreigner in an area where the police had apparently decided to look the other way. On top of that, we had just enough gas to get us to the next big town that still was half an hour away. We knew if we came across another roadblock and were not able to bribe our way through, we’d be trapped on a deserted road with no cell phone reception or contact with people who did not care to rob us.

Luckily, we made it to Jipijapa with no more road blocks.

Knowing we were likely to have more problems getting back through the road block, Matt and I prepared ourselves to be robbed. We left just enough in our wallets so it would make a thief content, while hiding the rest around the car and in our socks. Cameras and anything in the car that looked like it might be worth something were hidden where it would take a good search to find them. We picked one another’s brains with possible scenarios, trying to stay optimistic while being realistic.

With the music off, no more talking, and my hands shaking on the steering wheel, we slowly approached the protest. We pulled onto the side of the road, a safe distance away from the protest, to park the car and analyze our situation. Our fears were accurate. The riot had grown and there now were at least 60 men. Most of the junk in the road was on fire and, as we walked closer to the blockade, a large mob started cheering as they proudly laid a telephone pole across a bridge. It was about 10 o’clock and the place already reeked of alcohol. The only woman in site was the one who owned the local convenience store and was apparently supplying the protesters with all of their booze.

I started talking to some locals, who seemed only to be watching the protest. I explained to them my wife was in Montañita and I was just trying to return. They showed me a small, muddy road, only partly blocked by the protest, which is used to bring boats down to the beach.

I slid down the muddy path in my sandals to check out the beach. Because the tide was all the way out, we’d be able to drive on the hard sand about a quarter mile down the beach and then go back up another boat-loading road to get back to the main road. It was surprisingly feasible. For $5, the locals would move a tire and a few big rocks out of the way for our small car to sneak through.

In the part of our minds that keeps us in check by asking, “Don’t you think this is a bad idea,” we knew essentially sneaking around a protest might not be very smart. But by now we felt pretty desperate. The other girls in our group would start worrying about us soon and we had no way of contacting them. And swimming to Montañita sounded a bit too exhausting. So we decided to go for it.

The locals casually parted the right side of the blockade and we inched forward, keeping a watch on all sides of the car to make sure we weren’t driving into a trap in which we would be forced to contribute our car to the fiery roadblock.

The mob seemed to be paying more attention to their newly placed telephone poll, but it only took one guy to catch a glimpse of us and say something along the lines of, “Hey, is that bright orange car trying to sneak through our protest?” All of a sudden all eyes were on us.

The mob, led by a few guys waving burning sticks and glass bottles, started a swift, amoeba-like movement toward the car. With all of the protesters in the area yelling various things at us, which we imagine were unfriendly things, I kicked the car into reverse and started our awkwardly slow getaway. Matt kept an eye on the front of our car, while I maneuvered through bystanders behind the car.

Luckily, the mob didn’t seem too interested once we showed we were leaving and we were able to quickly turn the car around and get out of there.

We drove away defeated. Our new goal was to at least make contact with the girls, and we couldn’t figure out any way to do that besides somehow getting to Montañita. The girls expected us to be back two hours ago, and we figured they’d start panicking soon.

Parking the car, walking around the protest, and hitchhiking to Montañita was out because we couldn’t risk leaving our rental car in a protest area. Our next option was to pick one of the many fishing villages to the north and try to rent a boat to take us to Montañita.

The town we chose is called Salango. Although we had never been to Salango, I felt comfortably familiar with it because of a book I read, “The Voyage of the Manteño,” about an American’s re-creation of an ancient balsa raft journey from Salango, Ecuador, to central Mexico.

From the book's description, we’d be able to find friendly people, anxious to help with anything concerning the sea. Sure enough, that’s what we found.

Alejandro, a man with a boating company, would rent us a boat we could take on an hour ride to Montañita. Once we got near the surf of Montañita, we’d anchor the boat outside of the waves’ break zone and I’d swim to shore and find the girls. We hadn’t decided whether we’d bring the girls and our bags with us and leave Montañita, or just let them know that we hadn’t been kidnapped.

Before we left for our sea voyage, we decided to eat lunch at a restaurant owned by Alejandro’s brother. Over lunch, I brought up the book and the conversation became fascinating. The brothers wore proud looks on their faces as they described the day when they helped the author push the 60-foot balsa raft from the sand, past the surf. One of their family members was even one of the main characters who sailed on the raft. As they talked, the story — which I had read on the beaches of Malibu, Calif., to feel more in the setting — came to life in its real beach town.

Then, in our one moment of luck all day, my cell phone rang. We picked up just enough reception to receive a call from Tesha, let her know we were OK, and decide they would stay in Montañita and we’d stay in Salango for however long until the protest was over. We hung out for the afternoon, making friends, sharing stories and deciding maybe that area of Ecuador isn’t so bad after all.

Our new plan was to return to the road block around midnight that night, when, with some luck, there would be few enough protesters for us to bribe our way back through. If there still was a large crowd, we’d stay the night in Salango. We decided to check out the road block about an hour before sunset to see whether things were getting better or worse. So, with some advice from our new friends and a little bit of praying, we nervously drove back to the protest zone.

Our dramatic story suddenly lost its drama. As we drove past the area of the block, there was hardly even a sign of a riot beside the burn marks in the road and four bitter, old men sitting on the bridge. I really thought I was dreaming and refused to give Matt a we-made-it high-five for the next 15 minutes, until we were parked in Montañita.

We parked our car, changed into our bathing suits and sprinted into the ocean where the girls were surfing. After a romantic kiss in the waves, I borrowed Tesha’s board and caught a victory wave.

As I paddled out for a second wave, I got stung by a jellyfish all over my shoulder and neck. After all we’d been through, a sting was not going to be enough to put a stop to surfing the last minutes of the end of our stressful day.

I think if that jellyfish knew all I’d been through that day, he wouldn’t have stung me.

-Pete