Traveling in Ecuador during unrest: My personal experience
Ecuador is a very special country located in the center of the planet on the equator where the northern and southern hemispheres meet. It is a paradise where you can experience all of the climates and seasons in one day. But it's also a country that's experiencing a period of political and social strife.
I'm not an expert about what's going on in Ecuador right now, but I do know that it's a dangerous place where anything can happen at any time. In the short week that I've been here, I've experienced a shooting where somebody died. I've narrowly escaped political protests and roadblocks. And just a couple days ago, I heard about two more shootings, 10 or 15 minute walk down the beach here.
So, it's been a very emotional and difficult week. And I actually wasn't going to make a news about it at all because locals, friends, family members, everyone has warned me not to make a news about it, but I really felt like I wanted to speak out. And I'm not going to include any names or identifying features of any of the places that I've been, but I'll just tell you what happened and also how it's affected my perspective of travel, especially as a solo female traveler, and also some ways that you can stay safe when you are traveling.
So, what happened? Well, I was just in Costa Rica last week dealing with a banking situation and then I came to Ecuador for a music event where I was going to be playing. And I also decided to make it a tour to kind of go around Ecuador, play in different venues, and also to make a news about the best places to live in Ecuador because it's always been a place that's very beautiful, very affordable, low cost of living, good healthcare.
And so I thought I would film in popular places like Quanka and Keo and Montanita and other places to make a news for you. I did start but I decided not to make that news because I really don't think that it's the safest place to voluntarily move and live and retire right now.
At first, I didn't think that way because I went to Quanka first, which is a really beautiful, fairly safe, as far as I know, town in the mountains here in Ecuador. It has a really nice climate. It's very laid-back, very tranquil, and that was my first impression of Ecuador. Everything went well there. I was there for two or three days, and then I flew to Keito for a music performance, and that's where things went south.
I was at a bar with some friends and really didn't feel very safe. Like, it felt like the energy was off. I didn't have a good intuitive feeling about being there. Yeah. This was a couple hours after I got to the airport and suddenly there was a shooting at the entrance of the venue where a security guard was shot multiple times and unfortunately didn't survive.
This was obviously terrifying. I've actually talked about my sister's experience narrowly escaping gun violence in the United States. So, it's not something that is specific to Ecuador. The world's a very dangerous place right now. And even the week that I left the US for Costa Rica and to come here was the week of the Charlie Kirk shooting, which was also the same day as a school shooting, which was the same week as another school shooting.
So, you know, the US, Latin America, many countries around the world are experiencing tough times right now. I don't know comparatively how it is compared to before because it seems like with the news and internet and social media, we hear a lot about things that maybe weren't as much in the news before. And also being here in Ecuador, there's a lot of things that happen that don't get out into the news.
So yeah, it's a really tough time in general, I think, for humanity and planet Earth. But that's a story for another day. I just wanted to focus on what happened here and what are the lessons that I've learned from this.
I think I'm still a little bit in shock from what happened in the shooting. And again, I don't want to get into too many details that could identify the place, but from what I've read online about shootings in other places around Ecuador, a lot of it has been drug-related, cartel related, as well as in Mexico.
Actually, this week I read in the news that two singers, artists from Colombia were killed in Mexico City in a neighborhood that I've been to before and I've walked around before. Apparently, they were on their way to the gym and never came back. So, you know, it's just scary times.
This was the first time that I've been in such close proximity to gun violence, that I've seen a person get shot with a gun and on the ground and you know they eventually died. I feel I haven't really been around guns much in my life. You know, never been to a firing range or anything like that.
And I think the severity of the situation, like the power that is in a weapon, is just very unnerving and it could have been so much worse. So, of course I feel for the victim's family and that has been on my mind a lot, especially how I walked in and said hello to him and walked through, but I feel like I didn't really see him. He let us in through the door and I was like, “Hola, gracias.”
But I feel bad that I didn't really see him, and then he was dead a few minutes later. So, it's really scary to think about how if this would have happened 5 or 10 minutes earlier then I would have been standing right there. And I don't know if the gunman was watching my friends and I as we walked in through the door. I don't know how close he was. I don't know if he saw us. I don't know why he decided to do this. I don't know why he killed this person.
All I know is that I was very close to that. And I'm very grateful that he decided to leave without causing more harm to the people, the innocent people that were there, bystanders.
And since this happened, since I've read more stories about things that have happened in Ecuador, I see that other people haven't been so lucky. So, I do feel like it was a really close call. And I'm really grateful that nothing happened to me or my friends, but I also feel horrible for this man and his family and all the other people who've been affected by violence in Ecuador and also all around the world.
I know what it's like to have a family member that's suffering from PTSD from other situations. And yeah, I don't know yet. It's only been a few days, so I don't know exactly how I'll be affected by this in the long term, but it really helped to go home, go back to the Airbnb, talk with my friends, and we just stayed up all night talking.
Then I went straight to the airport, changed my flight. I was going to stay in Keito for a couple days, but I just decided to leave and go to a different corner of the country on the beach. My family was like, “Why didn't you leave the country?” And I don't know, it felt like I didn't want to make that decision in the moment out of fear.
I wanted to go somewhere else that I thought was safe and sleep and rest and think about what happened and then decide what I wanted to do.
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