Bananas

Santa Isabel – Santa Rosa, Ecuador

Well, we finally found some flat ground. After probably a thousand miles of mountains, we were ready for it. And, I have to say, it was nice. 

Riding in the mountains you kind of forget what it’s like to not be constantly going up and down. It’s nice to go down hills, but in the mountains every ten minutes of descent are paid for with an hour or so of climbing. After a while the pattern gets kind of old.

So here we are. And, of course, everything has its compensations. The flatter ground at sea level comes with ankle-biting flies or no-see-ums, heat, and humidity, and a loss of the breathtaking scenery that you find in the mountains.

That’s okay for now. I’m sure we’ll eventually tire of the heat and humidity – but until then you can expect to read about some longer days biking along the coast . . .

Alright, that’s enough of that. 

Maybe it’s this oxygen rich air, but thinking about some political things today. 

Like bananas. 

As we descended we started seeing more and more of them. At first they were just scattered around in small plots along the road. And it seemed like every other house had huge piles of bananas and plantains for sale. As usual, we weren’t sure who they were going to sell them to. After all, pretty much every house had banana/plantains growing. Just can’t imagine selling that many to people driving – or biking – by . . .

Eventually, we put some thoughts together. I think Juan D – the youngest of the Palacio kids – had mentioned that the banana farmers don’t make much – it’s all the middle man. When you think about it this seems right. After all, the banana farmers can only sell so many bananas to people in Ecuador. If you can’t sell to people in far away places – like the U.S. – then you are going to get peanuts for your fruit. Better peanuts than nothing I guess . . . But that’s a tough life . . .

Once we were completely out of the mountains, we entered the land of banana plantations. Mile after mile of bananas. Only bananas. Complete monoculture. 

Crazy amount of resources goes into growing these things. They are watering the bananas like crazy. And each cluster of bananas has its own, personally applied, plastic garbage bag. We’re not sure what the bags are protecting against – maybe some type of insect? – but it is clear that Dole or whoever has concluded that it’s worth the cost to pay people to do this. I guess this is probably more true when the cost of labor is so low. If you gain 10 cents in more bananas but it only costs 5 cents to pay someone to put the garbage bag in place – because the going rate for labor in Ecuador is next to nothing – I guess you make enough to justify the work . . .

Which brings me to a question one of our readers asked a while back. Why are there so many Ecuadorians heading to the United States? We talked about this with Moni – the oldest of the Palacio kids – in Cuenca a little. Moni is a psychologist who has quite a few patients that live in the United States – most of them with no papers. A great use of tele-medicine. The patients don’t have much to pay, but the pay rates in Ecuador are much lower – so it works well for everyone.

She explained that you can make so much more money in the United States that it makes it really attractive for people from Ecuador to go there. She said this is not so true in Canada or Europe because it is not as easy to pay people under the table. News to me – but that is at least the perception of people from Ecuador. 

She also said that the people she works with are pretty nervous now. Makes sense I guess. They could be booted any time now . . .

I know this is dangerous territory, but after all this travel through Latin America and all of the Trump news I wanted to weigh in a little on the immigration question. I guess my feeling is that the Democrats have got to grow up a little and strike a middle ground here. 

No, we can’t just let people keep traveling to our country illegally. We can and should put a stop to that. It makes a mockery of our system and provides no incentive for people to go through the proper channels in the first place.  

At the same time, I absolutely think that the United States is better off keeping a steady stream of people from Latin American countries coming to our country. From what I can tell the people who show up on our doorstep are people who want to work hard and have a better future – just like the millions of immigrants who have come to America since our country began. 

So I say yes, let’s crack down on illegal immigrants. But, at the same time, let’s really crank up the quotas on legal immigration from these countries. 

As for the asylum arguments, I guess we’re not seeing a lot of political oppression that would cause people to fear for their lives. I’m sure it happens – and maybe in Venezuela in particular. We haven’t been there – so we don’t know. 

But even with Venezuela, my impression is that people are fleeing primarily because the economy is such a mess. I remember a waiter we had in Colombia a few weeks ago telling us that he “left Venezuela because [he] couldn’t feed [himself] on the salary [he] was getting there.” 

Will this please everyone? No. There are a few xenophobic people who truly want to close our borders altogether – especially to Latin Americans. There are also a few people who think we should basically allow everyone who shows up at the border into the country. But I think the Democrats have been losing a ton of people who just want a practical approach to having real borders. For them, at least Trump is taking the issue seriously. In my mind this is just one of many examples of where the Democrats need to be: quit with the “I can’t believe he’s doing this” stuff and start offering real don’t-be-afraid-to-offend-someone solutions . . .

Okay, that’s more than enough on the political front . . . 

A little more on the ride today. . . Was actually pretty interesting. We started still high enough in the mountains that it was still green and lush.

We pretty quickly descended into a desert-like area. Still mountainous – but kind of brown and dry – almost like Utah or Arizona.

Then we went through what amounts to a magic tunnel – and emerged on the other side to dense jungle. More humid and hot. But also much more alive. With birds chirping and insects buzzing. 

My sense is that the desert-y middle ground doesn’t get the precipitation that hits the jungle areas because the mountains of the jungle areas shield it from the rain – but it’s also not high enough for the clouds to get caught up like the higher terrain where we started the day.

And then a few other things . . .

We spent a long time today riding by the Rio Jubone. Tons of water. But super brown. Does not look at all inviting. Couldn’t find much on the trusty internet about it, but there was some mention of the rivers having problems because of the banana industry . . . Anyway, something to think about . . . Anyone have any ideas on that?

Vegetables.

Say what you want about eating local food, but it is pretty difficult to find fresh vegetables at restaurants in Latin America. Diana especially was feeling a little scurvy-like today. Upshot – we ended up at a Chinese restaurant. Not necessarily great Chinese – but at least there are fresh veggies like broccoli . . .

Tomorrow – Peru. 

Oh, and by the way, we have yet to encounter any of the bad things down here near the coast. That might just be luck – but we are feeling pretty good about it at this point . . .