Enchanted Morning (March 22, 2007)

This morning was a morning to remember. Maybe it was waking up in the tiny Andean town of Chuncílan to catch the 3am bus or, once aboard, its dim red interior lighting creating a mesmerizingly tranquil ambiance, or the Latino love songs blaring from its speakers, or the hologram revealing Jesus from one angle and the Virgin Mary from the other tastefully taped over its dysfunctional television or the fact that this day happily marks my two months of traveling in South America... but whatever the reason, I was wide-eyed, bushy-tailed and feeling painfully romantic about the world at large. It was as though my love affair with this planet, with traveling, with sitting still and watching a foreign world go by, was brand new again.

According to national economists, Thursday´s mark the day of one of Ecuador´s most important indigenous markets in the village of Saquisili. Thus, even at 3am, market goers of all ages were awaiting on the roadside around ever dark corner. Given my intensely romantic feelings toward the world, the sight of ancient looking indigenous ladies waiting by the roadside with bags of oranges and a sheep was about enough raw, real beauty to wet my eyes. Simply put, it was a morning worth the cost of the flight itself.

The especially early hour meant trading the feeling of eminent death by way of plunging into a soft, fluffy, fogginess, for that of plunging into a deep, dark, abyss. As to be expected, the darkness certainly didn´t stop of driver from forging onward with such haste that the words "He does this everyday" became my mantra as I awaited the sunrise.