BAD TIMES IN QUITO

Joe wakes up back in Quito, Ecuador - and it is not a pretty picture!

I do not want to get out of bed.

 It’s raining heavily.

 Chilly. Damp.

 I put the covers over my head, even though it’s around 11:30 AM. I just do not want to move from this position. Yeah, I’m not at Rio Muchacho anymore, as you’ve probably guessed by now.

 Back in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, the place I stayed in for one night when I first arrived here. Came back from Rio Muchacho a few days ago with my friend Kiriakos Katakos (how do you like that name?) after more than six and a half weeks there.

 It was just time to leave - everybody was leaving. These kinds of places are very transient like that. Oh well, guess it’s time I started exploring the rest of Ecuador, anyway. Kiriakos left to go back to Montreal yesterday evening though, and I just feel so alone in the big city.

    This city feels totally foreign to me. No trace of that community ambience I felt at Rio Muchacho or Bahia de Caraquez  and Canoa.

 Vanished into the ether, man.

 The anxiety and emptiness that I hoped had already been vanquished forever - has returned. This is not good. Confusion reigns. Summoning all my resolve, I sit upright in my bed, assuming a meditative posture. I reach for my Sony Discman on the night table and I begin to meditate.

 In April, on my 43rd birthday, in fact, at the dawn of my last nervous breakdown, I finally sprung for The Holosync Solution.

 The best way I can explain it ? 

    It’s a system of meditation CD’s based on precisely pitched carrier frequencies which affect the entropy (mind noise) coming at the brain. Basically rearranging what the mind can handle, as you become less prone to overwhelm. I know it sounds hokey - but it’s actually quite amazing - and after years of contemplating whether or not to purchase it - I finally took the plunge. I’ve been sitting to it every day for an hour since, even at Rio Muchacho - and  man, I consider this to be easily the best thing I have ever done.

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 I don’t want to go back to New York now - it’s like the Olympics there, man.

 Very clear winners. Very clear losers.

 You are acutely aware of what side you’re on, too.

 I can’t be like the Friends characters! 

 But that is what New York has become - populated by Friends characters.

    Despite my Holosync meditation, the longer I stay in Quito, the more anxious and confused I become. It’s always raining here. It’s always chilly and windy - and it’s not the most inviting place in the world, either. It’s intimidating to even walk around here because it’s so busy, and easy to get lost, too. I’m spending almost all my time in my room, except to go out for food and Pilsener, the Ecuadorian national beer which comes in liter bottles -  and I’m drinking way too much of that.

    The other bad thing about spending too much time alone in my room is that I have way too much time to think, brood and reminisce. I’m still meditating everyday, but apparently, I still have a long way to go. I think about how I’ve always been searching for meaning in everything I do, and how I always feel that I’ve failed - somehow. I figured this trip would cure that - bring meaning, peace of mind, adventure - if I survived, that is.