Enrichment Voyage, Part 11: Scenes From a Park With 300 Iguanas

If you're just joining the voyage, you can catch up on the previous Enrichment Voyage posts over here. Or, if you prefer, you can also start from the top and read all the stories, oldest to newest, in one long post.

Well hello there. 

Location: Guayaquil, Ecuador
Today's telling detail: Those sinister eyes. Just look at them.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a tourist who enters across a park filled with 300 iguanas will ignore the signs saying "DO NOT TOUCH THE ANIMALS."

Officially, the park in the center of Guayaquil is called Parque Seminario. Officially, the main attractions are the statue of Simon Bolivar; the well-maintained stone paths and manicured lawns of refined urban parks everywhere; the large historic gazebo that host concerts by a municipal police band (every afternoon, I'm told). Officially, you're not supposed to touch the iguanas.

Hahahahaha. Right. To all of that.

Pretty much everyone seems to call it "Iguana Park." They're everywhere. They're the real stars here. And they're what brings in all the gawkers--both locals and tourists.

You can't really tell from this photo, but this tree is FULL of iguanas.
You are strongly advised not to stand directly below it.

Our taxi driver, Christian, had wanted to take us to the local history museum, across the street from the park, but we were disappointed to learn it was closed.

Kind of disappointed. Soooort of.

Okay, honestly, not really.

I mean, dude: 300 iguanas.

Christian looked on as we snapped our photos. All day, during our extended drum hunt and our later quest for lunch--during which we rebuffed his suggestions of international chains and their slick local knockoffs, because we didn't particularly want pizza and burgers but something just a tad more authentic and traditional--he kept offering us that most desired of travel compliments: "You're not like most tourists." Our egos soared.

In the park, though, he's openly laughing at us as we pose. "Now you are real tourists!"

We know. It's true. We can't help it. Sometimes, you have to embrace the goofiness of travel, the tacky tourist moments.

In case I haven't mentioned it: 300 iguanas.

And the thing about 300 iguanas is that the scene sounds cool until you consider the up-close realities, like the fact that holy crap those things are freaky. It turns out that as with all animals, there's a certain distance at which an iguana suddenly goes from interesting to terrifying--you cross what one might call the "Oh, HELL NO! Threshold." This distance varies widely by animal.

A Sampling of Oh, HELL, NO! Thresholds

• Tiger: 68 yards
• Dragonfly: 8 inches
• Giant squid: 2 miles
• Goldfish: 0 Goldfish are harmless. Don't you dare ruin that for me by pointing out examples of ravenous, blood-sucking goldfish; I'll be over here with my fingers in my ears, LALALALA.

For iguanas, the distance is about two or three feet. From afar--even, like, ten feet away--they look regal and intriguing, always standing there, posing with their chins up, like a bald eagle or Christian Bale. At two to three feet, you start to feel your eyes get very wide and your sphincter loosens. You have sudden insights, like, Damn, those things look like dinosaurs. And I forget, was "Jurassic Park" a documentary? How fast, precisely, can they lunge? My buddy Ralph is standing next to me--if I push him in front of me, will they go after him instead? He's wearing zip-off nylon khaki pants, so he's basically asking for it, anyway.

Unfortunately, I had no nylon-khaki-wearing friend named Ralph along to protect me as I approached this scrum of iguanas:

Keep an eye on that cheeky critter directly under my butt.
This will become important very, very shortly.

As I started to squat--and just as the Oh, HELL, NO Threshold was kicking in--a woman in an official uniform yelled something at me.

I assumed she was shooing me away--but, no, she was offering to take the photo for me. I handed over my camera. "Kneel down," she commanded, in Spanish.

I knelt. Carefully.

"It's okay to touch them," the woman said, grinning.

Oh, hell, no. 

But she was waiting for me to lower my hand. And, really: I couldn't pass up the opportunity for officially-sanctioned--make that officially-mandated--iguana-petting. Very, very gentle iguana-petting. It had to be done.

As I was posing, I heard a voice behind me. "Dude, do NOT back up. And the second that photo's done, STAND THE HELL UP, nice and slow--there's one that's about to chomp on your butt."

I ignored the "nice and slow" part.

I later asked Chuck, the naturalist, if--you know, hypothetically, asking for friend--an iguana could've actually bitten off my finger.

"No," he said, face totally deadpan. "But it would make you wish it had."

So there’s a life lesson for you: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there’s not an iguana out to get you.

Enrichment Voyage, Part 10: The Thrill of the Drum Hunt

If you're just joining the voyage, you can catch up on the previous Enrichment Voyage posts over here. Or, if you prefer, you can also start from the top and read all the stories, oldest to newest, in one long post.

This transaction involves a guitar, not a drum.
But that's not really the point.

Today's location: Guayaquil, Ecuador
Today's telling detail: Christián's amused and frustrated yelling into his cell phone

It begins with the first person with whom Louis makes eye contact once he's off the boat. That's how his drum hunts always work. In this case, it's a customs official on the blacktop just off the gangway at the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador. And the official—a middle-aged man with owlish glasses and a chartreuse safety vest—is already on the task, talking on his cell phone, his tone all business. 

He snaps his phone shuts and turns to Louis. "The best place to find a drum is the Mercado Artesanal, in the middle of town. You can take a taxi there."

* * *

We need more information, so we ask another local standing nearby, one of the tour guides herding our fellow passengers into a white minibus. She says the same thing: Mercado Artesanal. 

"I like to triangulate," says Louis. Verifying the leads will keep us on track--we'll only be in town for a few hours, so we need accurate information. A third local at the pier says the same, so that settles it.

* * *

There are five of us along for the drum hunt; Louis Patler is our fearless leader. In his outfit of green t-shirt, khaki shorts, and running shoes, he doesn't look exactly conform to the fedora-and-machete stereotype of South American artifact hunters, although his attire is much far better suited for our specific type of fast-paced urban exploration. Louis is a social anthropologist and one of the speakers on the ship; his topics include "The Future of the Future" and—not really related to the rest of his lecturers--"Drum Hunting," a lecture he gave just a couple of days ago, while we were transiting the Panama Canal.

Louis's drum hunts are his introduction to a culture. Every culture has drums of some sort, he points out in the lecture, and each place typically has its own unique and traditional type. He has several drums on stage, all of which he's purchased on this very trip. He picks up a handsome, handmade wooden conga from Montego Bay, Jamaica, which he bought from a Rastafarian master drum-maker. It had been the guy's personal drum for years—the drum-hunting party had ended up at his house—and though Louis had admired the craftsmanship, he assured the charismatic drum-maker that, truly, he didn't need to buy it and take away this beautiful instrument that clearly had so much personal meaning. But the guy said, no, something told him it was time for a new owner. Louis should have the drum. Play it, cherish it. 

Louis has acquired dozens of drums over the course of his travels all over the world. But even though he loves drums, the real point of the hunt is not really to acquire an instrument but to see a new culture. It's an ice-breaker with strangers, it's the quest that serves as the framework for exploration, it's a way to see everyday life and meet people with similar interests. He puts the question to the audience: What's your quest? What do you want to find in each new culture? 

After the talk, I rush over to the lectern, all but elbowing people out of the way. I'd love to join him sometime, I tell him, trying hard to stay cool and suppress the eager, desperate, borderline petulant voice inside me: PLLEEEEEASE! TAKE ME WITH YOU THAT SOUNDS AWESOME LET'S GO RIGHT NOW.

* * *

There are no vans available for hire at the port of Guayaquil, evidently, only cars roughly the size of toasters. There are five passengers from the ship: Louis, me, Bill, Judith, and Suzanne. Not one of us is willing to miss this opportunity, so we cram into a tiny but well-kept sedan—Bill, Suzanne, and me in the back, Louis and Judity contorted precariously into the front as our driver, Christián, heads toward the market (which he, too, thinks is our best bet).

As we enter the market--a vast, modern warehouse space with warrens of shops selling clothing, bags, trinkets, and other merchandise--Louis instructs us in the fine art of seeking out the particular types of drums he wants, the older, more traditional ones. "I've learned to enter a shop and never look straight ahead," he says. Most people want the shinier, newer drums, so that's what the shopkeepers display most prominently. "I always look down low or up high." 

Now, if the words "Artisan Market" conjure images of, say, a woodworker hunched over a table, knife in one hand, intricately-carved piece of mahogany in the other, a pile of shavings growing below; or a weaver working at a loom, a brightly-colored blanket taking shape slowly but surely--well, if that's what you're thinking, you should probably give the Artisan Market in Guayaquil a pass. They have mass-made sweaters with ostensibly traditional patterns; they have mass-made maracas painted with the word "ECUADOR"; they have mass-made drums that are roughly the same general design as traditional drums, except they're much smaller and have your choice of such traditional motifs as Knockoff Sponge Bob or Bloblike Purple Thing With Teeth And A Tale--Oh, I Guess That's Possibly Barney.

There are bigger and better and less Barney-adorned drums, too, but they're all new. 

Christián is working the phone, calling everyone he knows who might have drum tips. And over and over, I see his face start to light up before he says, with a frustrated chuckle, “No, no! Estos son nuevos--el no los quiere. Solo viejo. Viejo, viejo!”  Those are new. This guy wants old.

* * *

On our second pass down one aisle of the market, we strike up conversation with a shopkeeper named Carlos. He looks a little bit like Mandy Patankin (Inigo Montoya) in “A Princess Bride.” Again, the same result: nuevo, sí; viejo, no. But Carlos is intrigued by these odd, inquisitive tourists, and he and Louis strike up a conversation, with Christián translating. Soon, Carlos is on his phone. He has a friend who he knows will have a drum. And the friend does. He's on the other side of the country, but he can get the drum to us next week.

There's a collective groan. We don't have a week. We only have a few hours. Christián shakes his head, laughing again. He's a professional but incredibly low-key guy, early thirties, wearing the professional-but-low-key guy's uniform of short-sleeved checked shirt and jeans. He's also clearly very amused by his atypical tourist charges. By this time, we've talked to nine different people, either in person or on the phone. Louis's record on one drum-hunt is twenty-one people before getting a drum; the minimum was two.

We linger in Carlos's shop, and after a time, he pulls out a small guitar from behind the counter and starts strumming it. He offers to sell it, and it seems like a joke, but Louis says, well, okay. It's a nice little instrument—and, hey, it's better than leaving empty-handed. Louis insists that Carlos play one last song on the guitar, a sort of blessing before it's passed on to the new owner, as the music fills this otherwise quiet corner of the Mercado Artesenal and we all grin goofily, a sense of collective accomplishment and kinship.

* * *

Christián is still working his phone, and as we leave the market, he has a new destination in mind. He's heard there's a musical instrument store not far from here.

The Ecko Music Store. You have to check all bags at the
front so, sadly, I have no photos of the scenes inside.

As it turns out, the Ecko Music store in central Guayaquil isn't that hard to find. It's a big store, two stories, both lined with broad windows showing off the wares to passersby: guitars, drums, keyboards, amps. There's also a giant disco ball that marks the corner entrance. It's probably four feet in diameter, big enough to serve as an exercise ball for, say, a Shih-Tzu, with several much smaller disco balls orbiting along the equator. The whole disco solar system is suspended from the broad overhang of a roof that caps the two-story building.

On the second floor, a twentysomething salesman wearing a hot-pink polo shirt--his store uniform--is showing off keyboards to a father and his young teenage son, a budding rock star in tight red pants, a black t-shirt, and canvas shoes. The kid is wearing playing Pachelbel's "Canon" (of course) and messing with the various buttons and knobs above the keys, testing out the effects and loops. The salesman pushes one button and suddenly the song sounds like a trumpet with a drum-and-bass beat, but the kid scowls and shakes his head, reverting back to the piano. As Louis investigates drums, Christián makes a slow, shy, self-conscious lap through the keyboard section, cautiously looking at each one and its price tag; the cheapest one is $1,060. His daughter plays the piano, he says.

Louis finds a traditional drum, well-made … and brand spanking new. But he decides that's all right. It's well-constructed, gives a great tone. He tells the salesman he'll take it.

Downstairs, as we head toward the exit, drum in hand, we stop for a moment to observe another scene unfolding. A group of nuns in flowing white habits is chatting intently with one of this slick young salesman, all of them carefully examining a sound mixing board. We watch the nuns gesture, explaining their sound-mixing needs, and then we head back to the street, drum in hand.