JOE’S FUN RUINED AGAIN!

Also almost every night, like I said, I’ll have a couple of beers and laughs at The Surf Shack - then head out to the local discos which line the beach. Thatched roof huts with lights. I drink, dance and flirt with the beautiful 20- something chicas. 

 A fantasy life.

 It’s like reliving your youth - only this time the way you wanted to - in a real paradise! All this goes on for about another week -  this great free, breezy, attitude.

 Until ‘the phone call’.

 That ended that.

 I call my parents one day, but mostly talk to my mother since my father is heading out to go shopping at Food Town. Now, I love my mother to death, I really do - but she has this way of really making me feel guilty - like nobody else. She can get really kind of resentful, and I know she does have a point.

 I mean, she is, like, 62 years old, and she’s still busting her ass working - that’s true - and I’m down here on the beach, drinking and dancing. More or less on my parent’s dime, essentially. 

And I’m 43 years old.

 I get it. But after that call, man - it’s, like, I’m flooded with feelings of guilt, regrets and frantic emotions.

 Flooded.

    I’ve always felt guilty. Pretty much ever since I can remember - and here we go again. I always feel wrong, somehow - and it’s like I can never do enough. 

Shit!

 Why didn’t I just teach English, or something, in the first place, man? Make a little money… then I wouldn’t be in this situation, y’know?

 Fuckin’ exhausting!

 I gotta get outta here man… gotta get outta here!

 I shuffle over to this little cafe, order a plate of Corvina al vapor (steamed fish) with some rice, and a bottle of Pilsener - and sit down to sort out my emotions. I’m in the middle of taking a bite out of my corvina, when all of a sudden, guess who walks in?

 Chachapuma Quispe - that indigenous guy I met recently at Rio Muchacho.

 What?! I thought he left to go back to the Amazon a long time ago!

 Anyway, he catches my eye, waves a greeting, orders a Pilsener - and comes over to my table to chat. We get into this heavy conversation, I’m telling him about what I’m going through, and somehow - an hour later - he’s convinced me to go down to the Amazon with him! Even though I had already made plans to go back to Bospas Farm and work with Piet.

 Fuck it!

 I’m going.

 This was originally my intention when I first arrived in Ecuador. To go to the Amazon. This is my chance!