Choose Adventure

Safely Navigating the Challenges of Third World Travel

Travel Log- “Escape from Ecuador”
Travel Log- “Escape from Ecuador” 600 360 Greg Ellifritz

This is the third and final installment writing about my recent adventures and misadventures in Ecuador.  Before reading this article, get up to speed by reading Part One (Guayaquil) and Part Two (Montañita).

 

My Health Issues

 

After seven days in Ecuador, I woke up in my hotel bed soaked in sweat and feeling delirious.  I took my temperature.  It was 103.5 degrees.  I felt like shit.  Bad headache.  Horrible back pains and body aches. No energy.

 

I immediately thought “Covid.”  But then I started running through the symptom lists in my head.  They were inconsistent with a Covid-19 infection.  Besides, I had been vaccinated.  I had no coughing, no loss of taste or smell, no runny nose, no sneezing.  It’s difficult to diagnose oneself with a respiratory virus when one has zero respiratory symptoms.

 

Hmmm…

 

I had spent some extra time in the previous few days walking on the beach and in the nearby jungle.  I had half a dozen mosquito bites on my legs.  High fever and mosquito bites in a tropical environment makes me think of Malaria or another mosquito-borne virus like Dengue Fever, Chickungunya, or Zika.  I never thought I’d be saying this, but I was hoping for something mild like Dengue or Zika rather than dealing with Covid-19 in a developing country.

 

I actually caught malaria in Colombia back in 2012 (despite being on anti-malaria prophylaxis). What I was feeling in Ecuador didn’t match up with the symptoms I had when I was diagnosed with malaria.  The malaria risk was so low in the area that I was staying, I didn’t even pack my normal anti-malaria meds.

 

Since I was vaccinated against Covid-19 (J&J vaccine taken in April, 2021) and I had no respiratory symptoms, it couldn’t be Covid.  Probably some random jungle virus delivered from  a mosquito bite.  No problem.  I’ll rest up, stay hydrated, and be over it in a couple days.  I popped some Tylenol.  The fever dropped back to normal and my body aches were gone.  Cool.  I can manage this.

 

I continued my regular daily writing and activity.  I generally felt low energy.  The fever was constant (peaking at 104 degrees), but responded to Tylenol.  I had a horrible headache and had little appetite.  These symptoms continued for a couple of days.  After almost three days, I suddenly lost my sense of taste.  Now I was starting to think about Covid-19 being the likely cause of my illness despite being fully vaccinated.

 

As I am interested in keeping myself healthy, and given the fact that I teach austere medical training classes all over the country, I was fairy well informed about Covid-19.  I understood the current medical protocols for treating the virus and I also had read a lot about “alternative” Covid-19 treatments as well.

 

I knew about the I-MASK + Prototocols for using Ivermectin as both a prophylaxis and as a treatment modality for Covid-19.  From previous third world travels, I knew that taking Ivermectin didn’t cause any problems for me.  During all my previous pandemic travels, I had followed the I-MASK prophylaxis protocols and took a weekly dose of Ivermectin as a cheap insurance policy.

 

The studies about the drug were small in patient numbers, but showed potential.  I knew Ivermectin wouldn’t harm me.  It may help me avoid catching the virus.  That made it an easy choice for me to use during my travels.  I had been taking the weekly Ivermectin prophylaxis dose when I got sick.

I had packed a separate I-MASK+ bag of drugs just in case I got sick in a foreign country.  I dug them out of my med kit and began taking them.  The dosing protocols actually changed slightly while I was sick.  I was operating off of the earlier recommendations.  I immediately started taking Ivermectin daily at the .4 mg/kg of bodyweight ratio.  I also added supplemental zinc, quercetin, aspirin, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, and melatonin.

 

Worsening Symptoms

 

After a couple days with no relief, I started experiencing some serious shortness of breath.  I had a pulse oximeter in my kit and began checking my oxygen saturations when I found myself out of breath.  Pulse oxygen concentration in healthy individuals is usually between 95% and 100%.  Patients running under 90% are generally candidates for hospitalization.  There is even more danger when concentrations drop below 86%.

 

When I first started feeling short of breath, I checked my pulse ox and it was 92%.  That was from the seated position with no exertion.  As soon as I got up and started moving around, the pulse ox plummeted to 73%.  That wasn’t a good sign.  I needed some help.

 

Fingertip pulse oximeter

 

The town where I was staying had no hospital or clinic.  It didn’t even have a practicing physician.  There was a tiny general medical clinic in the next town over, but it had very poor reviews.  The closest real hospital was about 90 minutes away.  The better hospitals were in Guayaquil, about three hours away.

 

Ecuador had some serious problems handling Covid patients a few months ago.  In Guayaquil, the bodies of Covid-19 casualties were literally dumped in the street.  I did some quick calculations.  About 30% of the Covid-19 patients who were admitted into the hospital in Ecuador died.  I really wanted to avoid Ecuadorian hospitals.

 

I also wasn’t sure about Ecuador’s quarantine laws.  I could get a Covid-19 test in the next town over, but I didn’t know the implications of doing so.  I was seriously worried that if I tested positive, I would be taken into custody and forced to quarantine in a sub-par Ecuadorian hospital.  I didn’t want that.  I would rather ride out the illness in my own hotel room than be forced into a quarantine hospital for in indeterminate time period.

 

I stayed in my room and hoped that my I-MASK+ drugs would carry me through.  They didn’t.  After a couple more days, my pulse ox was continuing to decline.  I had difficulty breathing whenever I so much as rose to a standing position.  Things weren’t going well and I needed some medical help.  I didn’t trust any of the local “help” I was likely to get.  I was completely on my own without any friends or family in the country I was visiting.

 

I began communicating with Roland Rivero, a friend who is both a SWAT doctor and an emergency room physician back in Ohio.  Rowland quickly disabused me of the notion that I had some minor tropical fever.  He recognized the Covid symptoms immediately and gave me some drug information.  Rowland instructed me to go to the pharmacy and get both oral corticosteroids (Dexamethasone 6 mg/day) and a steroid inhaler (budesonide).

 

Fortunately, there were a couple of pharmacies in town. I hit them up and was able to buy both the inhaler and the steroid pills.  It’s nice when the developing world doesn’t require a doctor’s prescription to buy drugs.  I walked unto the pharmacy and told them what I needed.  I walked out with a bag of pills and two inhalers.  It cost me $27.00 US.

 

I kept up with my I-MASK+ drug protocol, but added the steroids and the inhaler.

 

The Escape Decision

 

I figured I’d be OK in a couple days.  After all, I had been fully vaccinated .  Medical authorities stated that 99.5% of vaccinated individuals had “minor” symptoms if they ever caught the virus at all.  Either I’m really unique or the numbers our doctors and politicians are using are seriously skewed.

 

My “minor” symptoms just kept getting worse.  During the next couple days my resting oxygen concentrations were dropping to around 85%.  On exertion, they plummeted to below 70%.  I began coughing up blood.   Even on the drugs, I was in bad shape.  I wanted to ride it out.  Rowland convinced me of the serious nature of my condition and further convinced me to fly home to seek better medical care.

 

My previous plan was to ride everything out and fly back home once I was no longer contagious.  My difficulty breathing altered that plan.  I needed to get home to some real medical care before I died in Ecuador.  It was time to change my flight and go home early.  I changed my flight and planned to move to a bigger city for a day in case my symptoms worsened and I needed immediate local medical attention.

 

The problem now was the fact that I needed a negative Covid-19 test to get back in the country.  How could I do that when I was likely still suffering from Covid-19?  I booked a test from a lab in the next town over.  The lab staff stated that they would send a nurse to administer the test at my hotel.  I struggled to get down to the hotel registration area.  A taxi pulled up carrying a nurse wearing full PPE and carrying a plastic tackle box.

 

The nurse pulled out the Covid testing swabs out of her tackle box and jammed them up my nostrils right in the hotel lobby.  She took down my information.  I paid her $35 cash.  She stated that I would have my results delivered via the WhatsApp application on my phone within 90 minutes.

 

Sure enough, an hour later I got my test results via WhatsApp.  Of course I was positive for Covid-19.  Now what do I do?  It was a choice of risking my life staying in Ecuador or engaging in some fraudulent activities and flying home to get better medical care.  I didn’t want to spread the virus, but I didn’t want to die in Ecuador either.  It was a tough decision.  All I knew is that with my steady deterioration, I needed advanced medical care somewhere or I would most certainly be dead within a couple days.

 

Feeling crappy as the hotel cat comforts me while I wait for my Covid test

 

You wonder why I didn’t just go to a hospital in Ecuador?  Have you ever been inside a hospital in the developing world?  Especially one that is completely overcrowded with Covid-19 patients?  No thanks.  If you want to read about third world medical treatment, read this Facebook account of catching Covid-19 in St. Lucia.  The author is a friend of some people most of you know in the tactical community.

 

Let’s talk a little about the negative Covid-19 test needed to get back into the USA…

 

As I wrote in the previous articles, I’ve traveled quite a bit during the pandemic.  On every trip, I’ve dutifully taken and passed my Covid test to get back home.  Other folks haven’t been quite so conscientious.

 

When I was living in Mexico earlier in the year, I met an actual medical doctor who would straight up falsify a letter with your negative Covid-19 test results for $150.

 

When I spent time in the Dominican Republic in February, the hospital staff giving me my Covid test commented that ZERO tourists ever end up with a positive test.  Under Dominican law,  if tourists test positive, the government has to pay for their quarantine.  The government doesn’t want to do that.  Thereby all tourists surprisingly get a passing Covid test to get home.  The hospital staff just laughed at how preposterous the entire system was.

 

In Costa Rica, the lab doing the Covid tests offered to date the tests whenever we wanted them.  It was all about the money.  For $100 you got a negative test dated whenever you wanted it to be dated.

 

I may be a bit jaded, but these experiences didn’t make me think that the USA’s requirement for a negative Covid-19 test on entry was all that valuable.  I wasn’t trying to fake my test results and still found lots of folks willing to work with me to make my  results look however I wanted them to look.  I determined that the Covid-19 testing requirement getting back into the USA was less than useless.  People who had the virus could get in effortlessly.  That analysis set the tone for my options on this trip.

 

There are two ways one could get back into the USA.

 

The easiest solution is that one could have a negative Covid test within three days of one’s flight.

 

Or, one could have a positive Covid test and a letter from a doctor explaining that you had recovered from Covid-19 and were no longer contagious (many people test positive for up to three months after recovering from the virus).

 

These documents are examined by the airline ticketing staff as you check into your flight.  In my experience, they don’t scrutinize such documents deeply.  If you have something looking vaguely official, they will accept it.

 

So how would one board a USA-bound flight if one were suffering from Covid-19?  Let me count the ways:

 

  • One could bribe a testing lab for a clean test
  • One could bribe the examining official for a pass despite a positive test result
  • One could pay someone else to take the test for himself
  • One could take an email denoting a positive result and change it to a negative result with Photoshop or a word processing program
  • One could fake a letter from a local English-speaking doctor stating that one was recovered from Covid-19

 

As an admission to one of these tactics might be a crime, I’m not going to tell you how I got on board the flight, but it wasn’t difficult.  The documents were the least of my worries getting out of the country.

 

The Escape Process

 

The problem wasn’t the documentation.  The problem was that I was deathly ill and didn’t want to be forced into an Ecuadorian quarantine hospital.

 

As I was the only person staying at my hotel, I was worried that word would get back to the manager about my positive test.  I immediately checked out of that hotel and booked a taxi back to Guayaquil.  That put me in the same city as the airport and gave me some medical support should I need it before I left.

 

I changed my flight.  I booked a business class seat home.  On all my connections I chose a single seat aisle along the window.  That kept me as far apart from people as I could possibly be on the airplane.  The business class booking also allowed me to hang out in the airline lounges between flights.  In the lounges, I was able to find isolated places far away from other people to minimize my chance of spreading the virus.

 

The flight home was 13 hours including three connections.    The challenge would be navigating all that while I couldn’t breathe and was running an oxygen saturation of less than 80%.  I knew if I made it to Miami, I’d be OK.  The problem was that Florida had far more Covid-19 cases than Ohio.  My hospital care in Miami wouldn’t likely be as good as I would get if I could make it all the way home to Columbus.  Columbus was the goal, but if I was dying, I’d get medical attention in one of my connecting cities.

 

The first step was appearing well enough to board the plane in Ecuador and making it through their customs and immigration checks without triggering medical intervention.

 

I got up in the morning and took every drug in my med bag.  My goal was to minimize all my symptoms in order to make me appear healthy.  I also wanted to eliminate my coughing, sneezing, and nasal secretions in order to reduce the chance that I might infect someone else.

 

I took:

Dexamethasone (steroid)

Budesonide inhaler (steroid)

Tylenol Cold and Flu (cough suppressant, fever reducer, antihistamine, decongestant)

Advil (for body aches)

Loperimide (for diarrhea)

Modafanil (a prescription cognitive enhancer to fight the Covid-19 “brain fog.”)

Caffeine (more mental alertness)

 

I breezed through the Covid test document exam, luggage check, and immigration.  I made it through security and set up at my gate as far away from other people as I could get.  I boarded my plane last and passed out until I landed in Miami.

 

Upon landing, I checked my pulse ox.  I was running in the low 80% saturation.  That wasn’t good.  I had to look well enough to get through USA immigration and security again.  Fortunately, I had Global Entry.  I went through the expedited line and handed my printout to the border patrol officer.  He asked “Where are you coming from?”  I replied “Ecuador.”  He said “Welcome home” and waved me through.

 

I cleared security, rechecked my bag, and waited in the lounge until my next flight boarded.  I was hurting.  I slept again on the flight.

 

As I was disembarking the plane, I collapsed.  I fell to the ground right at the end of the jet bridge and was unconscious a couple seconds.  My oxygen was at 70% and I couldn’t breathe.  A couple people helped me to my feet.  I played it off like I had lost my balance and quickly found a chair.  I rested until my oxygen levels rose and then I found my way to the gate.  My phone step counter said I had walked more than three miles already that day.  That was too much with only 70% oxygen saturation.

 

I finally made it to Columbus, got my bag, and drove home.  I packed a quick overnight pack and drove to the closest hospital emergency room.

 

 

The Hospital

 

I walked into the hospital ER.  There were no other patients ahead of me.  I explained to the nurse that I had tested positive for Covid-19 and was having difficulty breathing.  She checked my oxygen and found that it was 77%.  They immediately admitted me and gave me six liters of oxygen via nasal cannula.  That helped.  Within a few minutes, my oxygen levels were floating around the 88% level.

 

I was lucky.  There were no signs of organ damage, embolisms, or blood clots.  If I could get my lungs working again, I would be OK.

 

 

They took CAT scans of my lungs.  The doctor showed me the films.  It was staggering.  The CAT scans looked like both of my lungs were completely filled with broken glass.  The diagnosis was double Covid-19 pneumonia.  I would need steroids, anti-virals, and oxygen until my lungs healed up and started working again.  Fortunately, I responded to the nasal oxygen and didn’t need to be intubated.

 

I had an excellent infectious disease specialist working on my case.  She quickly set some goals for me in order to be released while simultaneously developing a plan if I were to take a turn for the worse.  It was going to take some time for my lungs to heal.

 

The doctors prescribed:

6mg/day Dexamethasone (10 days)

daily Remdesivir IV infusion (anti-viral)

daily Lovenox injection (to prevent blood clots)

a decongestant

a cough suppressant

B-vitamins and melatonin

 

As I entered the hospital on the 10th day after having symptoms, I wasn’t eligible for monoclonal antibody therapy.

 

I ended up spending six nights and seven days in the hospital until I could breathe well enough that I could be released.  I had excellent care in the hospital (Ohio Health Dublin Methodist) and want to thank Dr. Solaiman, as well as nurses Kerry, Alex, and Hanni for taking such good care of me while I was so sick.  I have absolutely no complaints about my hospital stay.  All the staff were incredibly caring and compassionate.  If I ever get sick again, I’m heading back to the same hospital.

 

As of today, I’ve been home for a week.  It’s been 24 days since my first symptoms.  I’m still using supplementary oxygen (two liters) when I sleep and occasionally during the day after periods of high exertion.  My numbers are gradually improving every day.  My pulse ox at rest without oxygen is running 92-94%.  When I exert myself, it drops to 84-86%.  Even the lightest gym workouts are exhausting.  I get out of breath after walking up a single flight of stairs.  With that said, I’ve been hitting light gym workouts every day since I was released from quarantine.  I walked three miles straight without oxygen over the weekend and was OK other than feeling slightly short of breath.  I’m feeling pretty good, but it will probably take a few more weeks until I get back to some semblance of “normal.”

 

Shockingly, I lost exactly 30  pounds of body weight during my ordeal.  The Covid-19 diet worked amazingly well!  As I regularly monitor body fat skin fold measurements, I had data on my skin folds and measurements from just before I left for Ecuador.  I repeated my measurements after I got home from the hospital.  Of the 30 pounds I lost, 26 of them were muscle.  Ouch.  It’s going to take a while to rebuild that amount of muscle mass.  I probably shouldn’t complain.  Being scrawny is a better alternative to being dead.

 

Final thoughts on Covid-19 Vaccines, Countermeasures, and Treatment

 

Below are my personal thoughts after surviving this ordeal.  I hate politics.  I distrust the government.  I am not a doctor.  Take my advice with a grain of salt.   I’m not going to debate anyone about my conclusions.  I won’t answer any inflammatory or political messages that some of you may send me after reading this.  This my own little N=1 experiment.  I’ll share my results in the hopes that they might help some of you in the future.  If you disagree with my approach, stop reading.  It’s that easy.  Life is too short to spend a minute arguing with strangers of the internet.

 

Fair warning.  Here we go.

 

According to the CDC, “The incubation period for COVID-19 is thought to extend to 14 days, with a median of 4-5 days from exposure to symptoms onset.”  My symptoms began on my seventh day in Ecuador.  While it’s possible I could have caught it at home, I think it’s probably more likely that I caught the bug in Ecuador.

 

Although they didn’t test for which variant I had, my docs seem to think that I was one of the early USA Lambda infections.  Lambda is more prevalent in South America than Delta.  Delta infections are also almost universally associated with respiratory issues.  I didn’t have any of those other than shortness of breath.  Lambda’s ability to infect the fully vaccinated makes sense in my condition as well.  It’s probably Lambda, but no one will ever know.

 

Given the time frame, I likely caught the virus in Ecuador.  Ecuador has a mandatory masking law in all public locations.  I adhered to that ruling without exception.  Before my viral symptoms, I wore a mask 100% of the time in all public locations except when I was eating or drinking.  I ate all my meals except the hotel breakfast outdoors.  I used a surgical mask rather than an N95.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about how effective (non-N-95) masks are at preventing acquisition of this virus.  I wore one every time I was in public and still caught the ‘Rona.

 

Lambda version. Image used under creative commons licensing and was created by Dave Pepler

 

I studied the Ivermectin research.  I was on the prophylactic dose when I got sick.  I bumped my ivermectin to the daily “high dose” regimen once I had my first symptoms.  I followed the I-MASK+ protocols for nine days.  The Ivermectin did absolutely nothing for me.  I won’t be taking it again.  Nor would I ever give you folks the advice to use it if you get really sick.

 

While some of the research write ups on Ivermectin look promising, we all have to keep things in perspective.  There have been formal ivermectin studies done on about 20,000 people across the globe.  Since the pandemic began, we’ve seen more than 210,000,000 worldwide cases.  Put things in perspective.  Even if the ivermectin study results look great, they really only cover a tiny fraction of a percentage of the world’s sick people.

 

I think it’s probably safe to say that ivermectin won’t hurt you (so long as you dose correctly). but it’s unlikely to help you either.  I have some friends with anecdotal personal experiences that make them very much in favor of using the I-MASK+ protocols on every patient.  I think the folks reporting that they suddenly “got better” after taking ivermectin probably had mild versions of the disease and would have likely gotten better quickly no matter what they had done.

 

I’ll reiterate my experience.  I took Ivermectin both as a preventative and as a treatment modality.  The ivermectin had no effect on my infection.  Despite taking it, my condition degraded steadily and I ended up in the hospital for a week.  I don’t want to burst your bubble, but if you are depending on ivermectin stockpiles to save your family. you may be very seriously disappointed.

 

With regard to my treatment in the hospital, I received the standard of care that is supported by the most rigorous scientific evidence developed thus far in this pandemic.  I probably got more than 100 messages during my ordeal instructing me to DEMAND that my doctors put me on some weird drug, herb, vitamin, or exercise protocol that may have been helpful for someone else.  It was incredibly frustrating.

 

People who have never even had the virus were writing, calling, and texting me with instructions for me to tell my doctors that I would be leaving if they didn’t provide me access to some weird-ass drug or treatment protocol.  Sure, I could check myself out of the hospital in protest that the docs won’t give me some experimental drug, but where would that get me?  I’m not going to threaten my doctors or try to leave the hospital when I can’t yet breathe on my own.   Some of you are absolutely ridiculous.

 

That’s not how this works, folks.  It’s like demanding my doctor give me a years’ worth of Percocet for a sprained ankle.  It’s  just not going to happen.  Although I value your desire to see me pull through this condition, giving me medical advice based on the YouTube conspiracy video you watched is not going to help me.  Please, if you haven’t suffered through this virus yourself, don’t think that you could possibly be in a position to guide a friend’s medical treatment based on the latest YouTube conspiracy video.

 

Just stop.  You aren’t helping.  Shut up and help your friend get better.  His/her doctors might know a bit more about the topic than you do even if you’ve done all your YouTube and Google “research.”

 

With regards to the vaccine, I’m still not sure what to think.

 

I wasn’t really worried about catching Covid-19.  I’ve traveled all over the world during the pandemic with nary a sniffle.  Before I retired, we handled all the Covid-19 dead bodies and dealt with sick folks without any PPE gear every day.  I even helped doing CPR on a Covid + victim and I didn’t get the virus.  I’m healthy and don’t generally get sick.  Covid didn’t scare me.

 

I got the vaccine because I thought it would eventually be mandatory for international travel.  I chose the J&J vaccine because it was the simplest to administer and the fewest side effects.

 

I’m tempted to think that the vaccines are almost useless.  I was fully vaccinated and ended up spending a week in the hospital!  It doesn’t make me think highly of the vaccines’ effectiveness.  I was one of those “breakthrough hospitalizations” that many news outlets claim is almost impossible.

 

Tempering my desire to think that vaccination is useless is the information I received when I was in the hospital.  I talked to all the doctors, nurses, phlebotomists, cleaning crews, and technical staff that came into my room.  I asked lots of questions.

 

Without exception, the medical staff said that I had made the right choice getting the vaccine.  Even though I had to stay in the hospital for a week, the docs and nurses were convinced that I would have been far worse off had I not been vaccinated.  I tend to think spending a week in the hospital is a bad outcome.  But if I compare that to spending several months in the hospital on a ventilator, it doesn’t seem so bad.

 

Every single staff member I talked to stated that the people who were vaccinated in the hospital were doing much better than those who had not been vaccinated.  I have a good “bullshit detector.”  I can tell if the medical staff has been ordered to parrot the “company line.”  I did not get that impression here.  All the doctors, nurses, and techs were incredibly candid.  They seemed honest and helpful.

 

When every single one of those folks who have been treating Covid patients for 18+ months tells me that the vaccinated people have fewer problems than the un-vaccinated people, I tend to pay attention.  The nurses told me some absolute horror stories.  There were two 19-year old unvaccinated guys in the room next to me.  Both were on ventilators when I arrived.  Both were still on ventilators without any improvement when I left.  It’s scary stuff.

 

I don’t care if you get vaccinated or not.  I was pretty ambivalent about the whole issue until I ended up in the hospital.  My experiences thus far have made me decide to seek a booster shot when my natural/vaccine immunity starts to fade.

 

Thanks for indulging my stories about this crazy virus.  As I said before, I have no desire to debate anything about my experience with any of you.  I hope you found the information I provided to be useful.  I pray that you all are able to stay healthy and avoid this nasty affliction.

 

 

Travel Log Ecuador Part Two- Montañita
Travel Log Ecuador Part Two- Montañita 480 640 Greg Ellifritz

After spending a couple days in Guayaquil, I was off to a little hippie surf town called Montañita where I was going to spend the majority of my vacation.  I had originally planned on going by bus.

 

Long haul Latin American buses are usually fairly comfortable and the bus fares are really cheap.  The I started thinking about Covid-19 and the fact that I really didn’t want to spend four hours in a crowded bus during the pandemic.  Taxis are cheap (gasoline prices down there are a little over $2.00 a gallon).  I reconsidered my plans and took a private taxi for the three hour drive instead.

 

In Ecuador, the bathrooms at gas stations all have maps showing how close you are to your next public bathroom. I think it’s a great idea.

 

As I mentioned in the last installment, I had only been to Montañita once.  For a town with fewer than 4000 residents, it was really hopping during my previous visit.  Lots of surfers and tourists from across the planet in full-on party mode.  I had a really good time.

 

I think I made a good call on taking a taxi. This is the town bus station. I wish you could envision the muddy sidewalks, the smell of open sewage, and the packs of wild dogs in the area.
But the bus fare from Guayaquil was only $3.45!

 

As the taxi pulled up to the hotel where I was staying, I was shocked to see that the entire city was a ghost town.  Almost no one was out in the street.  I had booked a nice hotel on a cliff overlooking the city and the beach, just a short walk from all the bars, restaurants and parties.   It was a beautiful property.  I was the sole guest.  I literally had the entire hotel to myself.

 

View of Montañita  and the Pacific Ocean from my hotel on a cliff above the town

 

The desk clerk told me that with Covid-19 raging, few international tourists were as interested in traveling.  That fact completely wrecked the town’s economy.  He told me that the city got busier during the weekends when wealthy Ecuadorians come to the beach to play and party.  It was mid-week.  The town was completely dead.  It was a stunning contrast to my last visit.

 

High class living in rural Ecuador. My room was very nice, but this is one of the top five most expensive places in town. In a town full of hippies and surfers, there isn’t high demand for luxury.

 

I decided to go for a walk through town.  It was late afternoon on a Wednesday.  It’s a small town.  I walked all the major streets checking out the lay of the land and what was going on.  The walk took a little less than two hours to see the entire town.  I counted tourists I passed as I walked along.  The last time I was in Montañita, that would have been impossible.  There were thousands.  Not anymore.  I counted a grand total of  exactly 11 obvious Gringo tourists during the entirety of my walk.

 

Montañita is very different from Guayaquil in both culture and attitude.  Montañita was filled with independent thinkers, vagabonds, and surf bums.  Most people were not well off financially, especially since the pandemic began and the tourist numbers plummeted.  I did not see a single cop on patrol in the town during my stay there. In Guayaquil, I encountered cops every few minutes as I walked along the streets.  Zero cops in Montañita.

 

Hotel infinity pool overlooking the town

Even though Montañita had the same legal mask mandate as Guayaquil, in practice very few people in Montañita wore masks outside in public places.  Mask compliance dropped from around 95% in Guayaquil to probably closer than 20% in Montañita.  It was a noticeable difference.  No masks on the beach.  Only a few people wearing masks on the street.  Almost everyone carried masks and would don them when boarding public transportation or going inside, but the folks outside weren’t wearing them.

 

Besides the difference in mask wearing, the other difference was the widespread public drug use in Montañita.  Personal use quantities of marijuana are legal to possess in Ecuador.  I didn’t smell weed ever in Guayaquil.  In Montañita, lots of folks openly smoked in the street.  The odor of burning cannabis was never more than a few steps away.  On my walk, three different dudes offered to sell me cocaine.  It was a completely unique ecosystem.

 

The locals were hit hard by the pandemic.  Eighteen months without the tourists upon which their personal economy is based put a lot of folks in poor financial straits.  About half of the hostels were closed.  Maybe one third of the restaurants were shuttered.  The Spanish schools were all closed down.  No one was hawking surf lessons on the street.  The money was gone.

 

Each of these windows is a separate take away restaurant. None of them opened during my stay. Five years ago, this street would have been packed with thousands of people during dinner time.

 

Perhaps the most telling indicators of the problematic economy was the number of signs like the one below that translates into “showers for rent.”  Lots of locals were living in concrete block wall structures without roofs, electricity, or running water.  Businesses like this provided places for locals and tourists to take a cheap shower if their houses or accommodations lacked running water.

 

“Showers for rent”

Well, so much for taking Spanish lessons and surfing.  The town was deserted.  I was going to get a lot of my book writing done.

 

I quickly settled into a routine.  I would wake and eat a large late breakfast at the hotel.  I would write for my websites and post on social media for a couple hours.  After that, I would go for a 60-90 minute walk on the beach.  Back to the room.  Work on the book for a few hours until I got hungry for dinner.  Walk into town and eat.  Come back home and work on the book until I fell asleep.

 

With breakfasts like this, I didn’t need to eat lunch.
This one was called El Tigrillo. The only description was “ traditional Ecuadorian breakfast.”
Not disappointed. The mess on the right is hash browns mixed with onion, peppers, chorizo, and cheese.
Washed down with passion fruit juice and coffee.  It cost $6.50.

 

It wasn’t really a vacation, but it was a pleasant diversion of scenery and it allowed me to get a lot of my next book finished.  I enjoyed the hard work and the somewhat Spartan lifestyle.

 

In poorer countries, not everyone has a smart phone or internet at home. This is a cybercafe where people pay by the hour to rent a computer. They are usually packed with kids playing video games on the computers. I passed this one every day on my walk into town. It never had a customer.

 

As the weekend approached, the town started to fill.  My hotel registered a few more guests, mostly young couples or families from Guayaquil looking for a few days at the beach.  The streets started becoming more crowded with lots of partying teens and young adults.  Bigger dance clubs with pumping bass thumped until the early morning hours.  It still wasn’t quite the same as I remember, but the weekends livened up the town enough to keep the residents functioning during the slower week days until the high surfing season arrives.

 

I enjoyed the contrast.  I  liked both having the town to myself and talking to folks on the street during the busy weekend.  I was comfortable.  My book was coming along.  I was relaxed and enjoying my routine.  I had a couple more weeks to stay.  I was looking forward to getting my work done.

 

Then the wheels fell off.

 

I got sick.  Really sick.  Life threateningly sick in a town that didn’t have a doctor, hospital, or even a medical clinic.  It got ugly.  Stay tuned for the next installment “Escape from Ecuador” on Monday covering my illness and how I made it back to the USA while my body was trying to die.  It was a unique travel experience that I don’t ever want to experience again.

 

One of the streets where I often ate dinner outside. Pretty, but no other customers during the week.

 

Travel Log Ecuador- Part One (Guayaquil)
Travel Log Ecuador- Part One (Guayaquil) 480 640 Greg Ellifritz

I recently returned from a 16-day trip to Ecuador.  As most of you reading this will probably never make it to this gorgeous country, I thought I’d write about some of my travel adventures there.

 

Why Ecuador?

 

I had originally planned a trip to Rwanda and Uganda to see the mountain guerillas in their native habitat and to visit a local school that a friend’s charity had funded.  Covid-19 screwed that up.  Africa had some substantial travel restrictions and lots of curfews.  I didn’t really think trekking through the mountain rain forest while wearing a mask would be a fun trip.  I decided to postpone that trip until next year when it might be a little easier to travel in Africa.  Besides that, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to end up in a Rwandan hospital should I have caught Covid-19.

 

After cancelling that trip, I was left with a few weeks open when I didn’t have any classes to teach.  I still wanted to go somewhere.  I wanted  to visit a place with pleasant weather, without hurricanes or excessively high temperatures, reasonable Covid restrictions, and some fun things to do.

 

My normal summer vacation destination has been Peru.  I’ve spent four summer trips in Peru (winter there), but Peru still requires a two week quarantine for incoming travelers.  That put it out of consideration.  I thought Ecuador might be perfect.  It wasn’t an exceptionally long flight.  No quarantine required with a negative Covid test or evidence of vaccination (I had both, just to be sure).  No curfews.  Pleasant weather.  Lots of fun outdoor activities.  What’s not to like?

 

Surprise volcanic eruption viewed from my hotel during my Ecuador vacation in 2006. That added a bit of spice to the trip.

 

I had been to Ecuador twice before.  In 2006, I took a three-week guided trip through the entire country.  It was one of the most fun vacations I have ever experienced.  I returned in 2013 for a trip to the Galapagos.  That was an amazing trip as well.  I was certain to have another good time in a country I had previously enjoyed so much.

 

Hanging with nursing sea lion and mom in the Galapagos

 

I decided to base my current trip in Montanita.

 

Montanita is a hippie beach surf town.  It has a serious party vibe and seems similar to a lot of the island beach towns where I stayed while traveling in Thailand.  I had only visited the town once before, but found it fun, full of interesting people from all around the world, and although small, filled with engaging outdoor activities.

 

My plan was to take a few weeks in Montanita to knock out my next book, take some Spanish lessons, and do a little surfing.  I find that if I isolate myself in a foreign country, I can get a lot more writing work done than when I’m home with an unthinkable number of distractions.  It wouldn’t be a bad escape.  Write a few hours a day.  Hang out on the beach.  Eat some good food.  Do some outdoor exploration.  Who couldn’t get behind that idea?

 

To get to Montanita, I flew into Guayaquil.  I had never been there.  It had the reputation of being both the largest and most dangerous city in Ecuador.  I wanted to spend a couple days checking it out before taking a bus to Montanita.

 

Pandemic travel is a bit of a challenge right now.  This was my sixth international trip since the Covid-19 pandemic began.  I felt like I had a pretty good handle on how to survive  travel during these difficult times.

 

During the pandemic I visited Mexico twice (once for six weeks).  I visited Brazil during the height of the deaths from the “Brazilian Variant” over New Years.  Beyond that, I spent a couple weeks each in both Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic earlier this year.

 

On my first pandemic travel trip to Mexico a year ago, flights were virtually empty.  Hotels were operating at 30% capacity.  There were almost no tourists.  It’s very different now.  Airports and planes are packed.  The airlines and airports don’t have the staff to adequately handle the traveler demand.  Half of the stores and restaurants in all the airports are still closed.  People are grumpy because they have to wear masks.  There’s no beverage or meal service on planes outside of first class.  To be honest, travel is a bit miserable and I’m hoping it will improve sometime soon.

 

The flight to Guayaquil was completely full and delayed.  It landed after 1:00 am.  When we got into the airport, before going through customs, all the passengers were ushered into a big room and given a number. We waited until our number was called and then sat down to an interview with a nurse who was wearing full PPE including N95 mask, gown, glasses, a face shield, and nitrile gloves.

 

Passengers had to fill out a health form and show results of their negative Covid tests/vaccination record. No one can enter the country without being vaccinated or a having a negative test. The nurses asked some health questions and then walked us through a screening thermometer before we could enter the rest of the airport.

 

I got my bag and headed outside for the taxi queue. It was fairly short and I got a cab within a few minutes.  My hotel was about five miles from the airport.  I researched cab fares before I arrived.  It’s required by law that all Ecuadorian taxi drivers use their meters.  After dark the taxi prices go up.

 

According to my research, the meter fare to my hotel would be around $4.00 (Ecuador uses the US Dollar for currency).   As I mentioned in my book, more tourists are screwed over by taxi scams than any other fraudulent activity in most countries.  I pay close attention to taxi fares, but I’m also not a tightwad.

 

Shameless self promotion. Buy my book to read a whole chapter on dealing with foreign taxi issues.

 

I got in the taxi and told the driver my destination.  He started rolling without the meter.  Here we go.  Scam alert.

 

I asked him in Spanish how much the ride would cost.  He replied “$5.00.”  OK.  Fair enough.  This is where I veer away from most travel experts who would demand that the driver put on the meter to save a dollar.  I tend to tip taxi drivers well.  If I had a $4.00 meter fare, I’d certainly give the guy $5.00 or more after the tip.  Why bitch when he quotes you a fare that you were going to pay him anyway?  It’s a completely avoidable conflict.  Who needs drama over $1.00?

 

I said “excellente” and enjoyed the ride.  The taxi driver was happy he was making a couple extra bucks and became a wonderful tour guide, pointing out all kinds of cool locations between the airport and my hotel.  I gave him $8.00 when we arrived and he was elated.

 

Be smart about these minor financial deals.  A couple extra dollars to you means virtually nothing.  It means a lot to a taxi driver trying to make it in a struggling pandemic economy.  I’d much rather pay a couple more dollars in order to have an enjoyable experience while simultaneously doing what I can to help the locals make it through a tough time.  If you have a little extra cash,  I think paying for good service as more of an investment than an extortion attempt.

 

Check in to the hotel was quick and easy.  I got to the room, showered, and hit the bed a little after 3:00 am.

 

Guayaquil is a river town and my hotel was right on the river walk (Malecon).  This is the view from my hotel window. It was overcast and not many people were walking around. The Ecuadorians are near their highest peak of Covid infections and lots of people are scared. Their infection rate is less than the USA, but is still quite bad.  Not many people are moving around outside.

 

 

In April and May, Guayaquil had a serious Covid-19 crisis.  Hospitals and morgues were overflowing.  Bodies were being dumped in the street. It was an incredibly ugly scene.  The city government instituted lockdowns and mandatory masking requirements.  Since then things have been steadily improving.

 

The residents still remember what it was like a few short months ago and were very strict about trying to avoid the spread of the disease.  While positive cases are increasing, the Ecuadorians have started to figure out better treatment options and are no longer throwing dead bodies into the gutter.

 

The mask issue was interesting down there.  Masks are required in every public location (including outside).  It’s a mandatory $60 fine to be caught in public without a mask (except while eating or drinking).  I would estimate that 95% of citizens I saw out on the street were masked.  There were a few folks walking around without face coverings.  Strangely enough, those folks attracted little attention.  The police didn’t stop and harass them.  The masked people they passed didn’t give the mask-less folks any dirty looks.  Everyone was remarkably chill about the issue.

 

It seemed very different to the American response.  At the height of the masking requirements here in the USA, I saw lots of store employees and other citizens getting really spun up about someone not wearing a mask where required.  None of that in Ecuador.

 

Almost everyone was wearing a mask, but there seemed to be little judgement cast upon those who chose not to wear one.  The residents seem to view mask usage as a public responsibility, not a way to look down on or discriminate against others. Masks down there were viewed as a health issue rather than an excuse to “one up” someone else or to feel morally superior to another.  I much prefer to handle things this way than to deal with a bunch of rampaging “Karens” at home in the USA.

 

As I was a guest in their country, I wore my mask wherever required, even though I likely would have likely suffered no negative consequences should I have chosen not to wear it.  Remember, as a tourist, you are being judged by the locals.  Don’t be the “Ugly American.”

 

I may or may not have chosen my hotel because there was an Ecuadorian craft beer store around the corner.

 

I spent the next two days wandering around Guayaquil and taking in the sites.  It was a big city that almost reminded me of Miami.  The residents were sophisticated and well dressed.  Even though not many people were out congregating in public, the city had a good vibe for me.  I would definitely come back.

 

I walked all over town.  I took in the entire length of the Malecon along the river.  I ate some amazing food.  I wandered around through the slums to see how some of the less fortunate lived.  It was a fun experience.  I would definitely come back in the future.  It was a cosmopolitan city by South American standards and I had zero problems with crime or anything else while I was there.  Check out some of my photos below.

 

Lunch in a Guayaquil sidewalk cafe. Whitefish ceviche with onions, tomatoes, and avocado. Served with plantain chips and homemade salsa. Price with beer $8.00 US.

 

Guayaquil’s “teleferico” connecting the poor neighborhoods where locals live to the industrial areas where they work. It costs $2 and turns a 45 minute car ride into a 12-minute commute.  40,000 people a day use the system to get to work and back home.

 

One of Guayaquil’s low rent slum neighborhoods. I wandered around for a couple hours here and didn’t have any issues. It’s kind of like a Brazilian favela with more city services and fewer drug dealers carrying rifles.

 

 

City art murals in the street.

 

City art murals in the street.

 

As this is primarily a training and tactics blog, I get lots of questions from readers about the ability for residents to own guns and the policing/crime situation in foreign countries.  Guayaquil is a big city.  It has big city crime problems but has made dramatic improvements in the last decade.  In the tourist areas, there were cops on patrol everywhere.  They seemed fairly professional and friendly.

 

The cops had high quality uniforms.  They carried Glock 17s.  I saw lots of extended mag wells, rubber grip sleeves, and aftermarket sights.  That’s unusual in Latin America.  I never saw a cop with a long gun (also a bit unusual in South America).  The police did not wear body armor and didn’t carry much other than a gun and cuffs on their belts.  They always patrolled in pairs or small groups.  I never saw a cop alone.  The tourist areas where I spent most of my time seemed to be well protected.

 

There were a few armed security guards on patrol (usually carrying .38 revolvers), but the private security scene doesn’t seem to be as well utilized as compared to other South American countries I’ve visited.  You don’t see security guards carrying pistol grip shotguns outside every business like you may see in Peru, Brazil, or some Central American locations.

 

Bicycle tourist police patrolling the empty malecon

 

As for citizen’s gun rights in Ecuador, guns are easier to legally acquire than in many other South American countries.  Citizens and legal residents can apply for either weapons possession permits (to keep a gun for home protection) and/or concealed carry permits.  Residents with permits may own up to two guns no larger than .38 caliber.  Both permits require background checks, psych exams, ballistic samples, and a whole bunch of paperwork.  The process normally takes 30-60 days.

 

The CCW permit requires a documented “need” for carrying a gun in public.  They are generally only issued to business owners who are at a high risk for robbery.  From what I understand, only the rich business owners with a documented need for carrying the gun get the CCW permits.  Both permits must be re-authorized every five years at a cost of $20.

 

Pepper spray and electronic stun devices are legal.  Carrying knives for personal protection is generally illegal, but usually not enforced by the police as every rural Ecuadorian farmer carries a machete around with him all day long.  For more details on Ecuador’s weapons laws, check out Ecuador firearms laws and arms that are legal to carry and own in Ecuador.

 

My chosen personal protection devices for this trip.

 

As this article is getting too long for the TL;DR crowd, I’m going to cut it off here.  Check in tomorrow for Part Two detailing my experiences in Montanita.

 

I’ll put up a special Part Three edition on Monday.  Spoiler alert.  I caught Covid-19 in Ecuador even after being fully vaccinated.  Part three details my problems being sick in a tiny town with no doctors and hospitals as well as how I organized a James Bond-type escape plan to get home to the USA while my body was trying to die.  Fun stuff.  Stand by for the rest of the story.

South American Police Guns
South American Police Guns 660 440 Greg Ellifritz

I find it endlessly interesting to see the curious mixture of different guns foreign police departments carry.  I found this two-part series from the Firearms Blog covering the topic.

If you are interested in what the cops in South America carry, check out the articles.

 

Police Guns Of The World: South America – Part 1

 

Police Guns Of The World: South America – Part 2

 

Global Grenade Attacks
Global Grenade Attacks 659 402 Greg Ellifritz

Grenades are very popular weapons with terrorists and insurgents all over the planet.  Most of us Americans don’t have the best appreciation for the scale of damage they create.

 

I recently found these two highly informative articles on the topic.  They are definitely worth the time to read.

 

An Anatomy of a Grenade Attack: Global Trends

 

 

 

An Anatomy of a Grenade Attack: Case Study – Nairobi, Kenya

 

 

All travelers should be aware of the grenade threat and understand basic countermeasures.

 

 

 

Travel Log- Jordan
Travel Log- Jordan 720 960 Greg Ellifritz

*My Travel Log series describes various past travel adventures and provides perspective about living and traveling in different countries.  This particular segment covers a trip I took to Jordan in June of 2019.

 

I got back home last week after a whirlwind seven-day tour of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

 

That’s not on most people’s travel bucket list.  Why go to Jordan?

 

When my former girlfriend and I met, we both had independent travel goals.  My goal was to visit 50 countries before I turned 50 years old.  Her goal was to visit all seven continents before turning 40 years old.  In the six years we have been together we’ve traveled quite a bit.  We both accomplished our travel goals last year.

 

Still loving travel, we needed some new goals.  Lauren decided our new goal should be to see the new Seven Wonders of the Modern World.  One of those wonders is the lost city of Petra (located in Jordan).  That’s why we went there.

 

We had some fun adventures and really enjoyed our trip.  After every international trip, I write up a brief trip report discussing the country, the endemic criminal or terrorist strategies employed there, and a bit about the “gun culture” of the places I visit.  If you would like to see similar travel reports click HERE.  This is my latest installment.

 

We arrived in Amman a day before our trip was set to begin.  We spent the day walking around the city checking out several museums and the 1800 year-old  Roman Theater.

 

Roman Theater in Amman, Jordan.

 

Revolvers and daggers on display at the Jordanian Folklore Museum.

While out walking, one of the more stark reminders that someone is traveling in a majority Muslim country is the call to prayer that is broadcast via large speakers at every mosque.  The call to prayer happens five times a day.

 

If you haven’t experienced it, take a look at this 15-second video from the sundown call to prayer in Amman.  It’s disturbingly loud in many locations. We are walking along a road about a mile from the mosque emitting the call that you’ll hear below.


I always find the sounds to be ominous. They don’t seem to be friendly or inviting to me. When discussing it, Lauren brought up a good point. In every war movie made in the last 20 years we hear something similar to this call to prayer in the soundtrack right before the “bad guys” attack.

 

That may be negatively affecting my perception, but the sounds still give me chills every time I hear them.

 

Interestingly enough, the Jordanian society (while 95% Islamic) is remarkably secular. Most of the residents seem to ignore the calls, going about their business as if the calls didn’t matter. When I was in Egypt, I found things were quite different. When the calls went out there, you could see people visibly moving towards the mosques or toward places where they could pray.

 

Not the same reaction in Jordan.  According to the guide we hired, the population of Jordan is increasingly becoming less religious.  The younger folks there are not embracing the Muslim faith in the same way their parents and grandparents did.  Jordan seems to be a country very tolerant of differing religions (unlike many other countries in the region).  I didn’t see any overt signs of discrimination directed to the five percent of the country who are Christians.

 

How would I know if a Jordanian is either Christian or Muslim?  In women, it’s very easy to tell.  The women who are walking around in public without a head scarf do not practice the Muslim faith.

 

Almost all the women here wear a head scarf (hijab) to conform to the Islamic standards of modesty.  I saw very few women wearing full black burqas.  According to our tour guide, the burqa is something that Jordanian women do not embrace.  Our guide said that the few women we saw wearing full burqas were Saudi tourists.

 

In addition to the hijab, almost every Jordanian woman we saw was rearing a sort of  dress or “house coat” over their clothes.  This garment is like a long jacket or dress that extends to the woman’s ankles.  It zips up the front and tends to be in a solid dark color with some embroidery or decoration around the cuffs and collar.  It almost looks like a longer version of the 1960s smoking jacket.

 

Women generally wear pants and a t-shirt and then cover those clothes with the “house coat” whenever in public.  Lauren made an interesting observation.  The dress looks like a house coat, but is only designed to promote modesty when outside of the home.  For lack of a better name, we started calling this piece of attire the “out-of-the-house coat.”  Almost every woman we saw in Jordan was wearing one.

 

This outer dress serves the purpose of completely obscuring the woman’s general body shape.  You really couldn’t tell if the woman was fat or slim, muscular or weak.  Almost every woman looked like they were wearing some type of an amorphous, loose fitting potato sack in dark colors.

 

It seemed obvious that most men on the street were not used to seeing “Western” females who aren’t wearing the popular housecoat dress.  Lauren dressed very modestly in jeans and a T-shirt on most days.  She wasn’t showing off any skin, but I caught a lot of the men we passed openly staring in a leering fashion as she walked by.

 

Unlike many of the countries in South and Central America, Jordanian men didn’t whistle, cat call, yell suggestive comments, or molest women dressing less modestly than the residents in their home country.  They just stared a lot.  We didn’t have any problems with the leering men, but they gave off an incredible air of desperation.

 

All of the Jordanian people with whom we interacted were universally friendly and incredibly willing to help in any way they could.  Tourists call Thailand the “land of smiles,” but I would say the Jordanians looked even more happy than the people I encountered in Thailand.

 

Besides the friendly locals, another advantage to traveling in Jordan is that most people speak at least passable English.  It made communications go far more smoothly than what I have experienced in many other countries that don’t use the same alphabet.  Jordan was a British protectorate from the end of WWI until a few years after WWII.  As they were protected by the British crown, the Jordanians embraced the English language for many years. The trend of learning both Arabic and English as a child has remained strong even after the Jordanian independence..

 

On day two we spent quite a bit of time touring the ruins of Jerash, the oldest Roman ruin site outside of Italy.  The city was occupied from Roman times until around 800 AD when it was destroyed by an earthquake.  The ruins were rediscovered in the early 1800s and have been slowly excavated by archeologists.  While only about 20% of the site has been excavated, it was a tremendous experience to walk on roads that were built in the time before Christ.

 

If you ever make it to Jordan, it’s worth the  drive to see the ruins.

 

Temple of Hercules in Jerash

 

Following Jaresh, we visited the Moorish Ajloun Castle.  The current castle contains only the bottom two floors of what once was a five-floor architectural wonder from the 12th century.  It was one of the few Muslim-held castles in the area that was never overrun by the Christian Crusaders.

 

Ajloun is a 12th century Moorish castle. It’s a fabulous piece of architectural design with multiple redundant mechanisms designed to repel a crusader attack.  It didn’t take very long to explore the castle, but both Lauren and I were glad we made the effort to see it.

 

Inside the Ajloun castle. The fortifications and view were impressive. It was amazingly cool inside despite the 100 degree desert heat.

 

The next day we woke up early to take a trip to Mt. Nebo.  Mt. Nebo was mentioned in the bible as the location where Moses first viewed the “Holy lands.”  It is also recorded as the area where he died.

 

Mt. Nebo provided a very pretty view of the Israeli territory around the city of Jericho.   On the top of the mountain, archeologists uncovered what was once a fifth-century Byzantine church.  The church floors were made up of stunning hand carved mosaic tiles.  They were found almost completely intact after having been abandoned for nearly 1500 years.  I can’t even describe the feeling of wonder that those ornate mosaic tiles created in my brain.

 

Stunning mosaic tile flooring at the church atop Mt. Nebo

 

Following Mt. Nebo, we drove down to the Dead Sea to spend dome time in the salt water.  The sea has so much salt that floating requires absolutely zero effort.  Floating easily was a really cool feeling for a dense guy like me who tends to quickly sink to the bottom of the pool as soon as I enter the water.

 

The only real downside is that the salt water will really irritate any cuts, abrasions, or razor burn anywhere on your body.  When I waded out into the sea, I quickly felt a previously unnoticed scratch on my hand.  The salt water irritated the cut for several hours, even after I got back on shore.  If you are visiting, I would suggest that you avoid shaving on the day of your swim.

 

Effortlessly floating in the Dead Sea.  the far shore across the water is Israel.

 

Following our dip in the water, we took the long drive down the length of the Dead Sea to Wadi Rum.  Wadi Rum is a Bedouin area that is far away from civilization.  The views of the shining stars and harsh desert landscapes are quite impressive.  We stayed the night in a Bedouin camp and then got up early to go for a sunrise 4X4 tour of the nearby desert.

Wadi Rum

I am the farthest thing possible from a morning person.  Despite my usual habit of sleeping in, the 0500 wake up call to go check out the sunrise didn’t seem so bad.  I really enjoyed watching the sun rise over the stillness of the desert early in the morning.

 

Sunrise over Wadi Rum

 

We then drove to the lost city of Petra.  We spent the day touring the ruins.  The city is so large that it would probably take a week to see everything.  We were there about 10 hours and walked the main road through the city.  We hiked to the highest peak (called the Monastery).  It was a 7.2 mile hike with more than 800 steps up the mountain and an equal number of steps down.

 

Did I mention that it was 97 degrees and there was virtually zero shade along the trail?  That trek kicked both of our asses, but we survived and saw some really cool things while doing so.

 

 

Petra Monastery

 

We spent one more day in Amman and then flew home.  Below is some additional commentary about our trip…

 

Food

As usual when we are traveling, we try to eat as much local food as possible.  For our first dinner in Amman, we went to a local restaurant and had a traditional Jordanian meal.    I had Jordan’s national dish (mansef, pictured above). It’s lamb that has been boiled in fermented yogurt. It was completely edible, but not my favorite.  I tried the dish twice when I was there.  It tasted OK each time.  I came to realize that I’m just really not a big fan of lamb meat in general.

 

Lauren had lamb and chicken kabobs (very good) and a vegetable plate.  Universally, the kabobs (meat on a stick) were amazing.  We also enjoyed the Babaganoush, the hummus, the shawerma, and the falafel that was incredibly cheap in every restaurant.  Before this trip, I wasn’t really up to speed on middle eastern food.  Now, I’m ready to try every little middle eastern hole in the wall I can find here at home.

 

Chicken, beef, and lamb kabobs

 

Check out the picture below of the restaurant menu to see what’s available if we really choose to get adventurous.  We chose not to consume the lamb brains or sheep testicles.

 

 

As a majority Muslim country, most restaurants did not serve alcohol.  In the week we spent in the country, only one restaurant we visited served beer.  I’m a big beer drinker and almost went into alcoholic withdrawals, but I managed to survive.  Most restaurants had some amazing fruit juices that we drank instead of alcohol.  We both liked the lemon/mint homemade juices the best.  They were very refreshing after engaging in physical effort all day in the hot desert.

 

Besides the juices, I also tried lots of non-alcoholic beers.  Check out the one below.  It tasted like Sprite, but had a malty beer aftertaste.  Very weird, but I still drank a few at one of our stops.

Popular non-alcoholic beer

 

Guns in Jordan

Lots of American gun owners erroneously believe that residents of other countries cannot own guns. That’s not true. There may be more hoops to jump through than in America, but many other countries allow firearms ownership.

 

I  stopped in a few gun shops in Amman. According to the gun store sales staff, Jordanians can own handguns, shotguns, and rimfire rifles. No magazine limits, caliber restrictions or barrel length restrictions on shotguns.

 

To purchase a gun, they must be 21 years old, Jordanian citizens, and pass a police background check. They are allowed to posses four total firearms, but may get more with a special collector’s permit.  People with valid gun licenses are not allowed to carry their weapons in public buildings, universities and other educational institutions, and during official and public occasions, conferences, meetings or demonstrations.  They can get an additional carry permit to carry in circumstances other than the ones listed above.

 

Gun stores had shotguns and rifles in stock. Handguns must be special ordered.

 

A stock Mossberg 500 12 gauge pump with riot and hunting barrel cost $750 US.

 

The gun store owner spoke good English and joked with me “In USA, it probably costs $150 and you can probably buy it at Target.” Not far off.

 

Winchester white box ball ammo in 9mm was $19 a box.

 

Weapons and escape tools I carried.

When traveling in most of the third world countries I visit, I usually carry a couple blades and some pepper spray.  I feel relatively free to do so, despite any local laws prohibiting the carry of weapons because I am reasonably confident that, should I get caught with an illegal weapon, I could bribe the cop to change his mind about arresting me.

 

Jordan’s police have a general reputation of being less corrupt than most.  There are also a lot of metal detectors in the country.  Every hotel, museum, and historical site required that visitors walk through a metal detector.  Many sites had bag X-rays as well.  Because I was going through so many detectors, I chose to keep my weaponry low profile.

 

I carried the following:

– A Ka-Bar LDK along with a handcuff key and handcuff shim attached to my rear pants belt loop.

– A Stone River Ceramic knife in a custom non-metallic custom sheath by Zulu Bravo Kydex

– My Fenix PD-35 flashlight as an impact weapon

– Oscar Delta GTFO wrist strap.  See it in action here below:


– Oscar Delta Technora Escape necklace.

 

In Jordan, I was less worried about street crime and more concerned with terrorist kidnapping attempts.  I made sure I had numerous counter-custody options available.  They turned out to be completely unnecessary.  I found Jordan to be a tremendously safe country and I probably didn’t need to be as prepared as I was,

 

Jordan weapons and counter-custody equipment

 

The Jordanian cops carried Caracal F pistols.  They were carried in cheap nylon belt holsters or local plastic Serpa knock off designs.  The cops only carried the pistol.  No cuffs, extra magazines, or less lethal weapons.  Some of the sources with whom I spoke told me that most of the cops carried empty guns.

 

Some of the local cops on guard at major tourist sites carried short barreled “Commando” style AR-15 rifles.  The guns were all immaculately clean and polished.  They had iron sights and no optics.  They also lacked a magazine.

 

The cops carrying the rifles didn’t even have  loaded magazines on their belt.  It seems like the majority of cops were carrying unloaded and useless weapons.  I did see one unit of the national police guarding the airport that was armed with HK MP-7 sub guns with what appeared to be loaded magazines.

 

Overall, I felt that the risk for crime in the country was very low.  We had no problems with either the police or the criminals while we were there.

 

Jordan was a great place to visit and I’m glad we went.  If you ever get a chance to visit the country, make sure you take advantage of it.  You’ll be glad you did.

 

 

Sunset over Amman. It is actually illegal in Jordan to paint your house/business any color other than white or tan.

 

 

All-Inclusive Wristbands
All-Inclusive Wristbands 480 640 Greg Ellifritz

If you’ve ever spent any time at all inclusive resorts in Mexico or the Caribbean, you’ll be familiar with the wristband issued to you at check in.  That lets the staff know you belong at the resort and what level of services you’ve paid for.

 

If you are staying on the resort, the wristband is no problem.  Everyone has one.  It’s only if you decide to go into the local town that you might have problems.

 

The locals see the wristband and they instantly know that you are a high dollar tourist.  The locals know which wristbands belong to which hotels.  They know if you are staying in a $500 a night property or a $150 a night property.  They will use that information to set the prices for any local goods you buy.

 

I’ve always preferred to take the wrist band off when going in to town.  I want at a chance of looking like a local, or at least someone who is living in town full time.  I’m less likely to be scammed that way.

 

I stayed last week in a hippie surf town in Ecuador.  It was a small place with only about 3500 residents.  Lots of the residents were burnt out surfers, mentally ill folks living on the beach, or heavy drug users.  The hotels used wristbands there to keep the riff raff off their property.

I used a simple but effective solution to deal with the wristband issue.  I cut the band and then used a small piece of Gorilla tape to refasten it whenever I was entering or leaving the hotel.  Once out in the town, I took it off and put it in my pocket so the locals wouldn’t know where I was staying.

 

Cut wristband with tape attached

 

Wristband looks intact while wearing it

 

 

Closer look at taped area

 

I would caution you to avoid using this tactic if the all inclusive charges a lot of money to replace your wristband.  In that case you might get a big bill when you check out.

 

If you are staying in a place like that, ask the staff at the front desk to temporarily remove your wristbands if you are going into town.  You may also ask them to put the band around your ankle instead.  If it is around our ankle, you can cover it up with a sock when off resort property.

 

Common Mexican Scam
Common Mexican Scam 777 437 Greg Ellifritz

Here is an article by an ex-pat retired American police officer currently living in Mexico.  He describes a common scam that is running rampant in the Cancun area.  Versions of this scam happen everywhere, often to foreign tourists.  It might be one of the most common scams seen worldwide.

 

Riviera Maya: Beware of This Scam

 

How do you stop it?  I like his advice:  “I immediately become suspicious of unsolicited help from strangers. That suspicion level grows exponentially if the person is trying to get me to accompany them to more isolated location, like a bathroom or a parking lot.”

Adding Data to a Local SIM Card in Latin America
Adding Data to a Local SIM Card in Latin America 640 480 Greg Ellifritz

Some of you travelers who are on a budget or are staying in a country for a long while might choose to use an unlocked smart phone and a local SM card for the most economical phone/text/data plan.  What do you do when your card runs out of minutes or data?

 

You need a refill or recharge.  Depending on the country, sometimes that involves logging on to your account and adding money.  In other places, you can buy extra minutes/data in the form of a scratch off lottery card.  You buy the card, call the number on it, and then enter the scratch off code.  You are all set.

 

If you are traveling in a larger city, you will usually find a phone store where you can do this easily.  Smaller towns may not have a phone store.  What do you do there?

 

Look for a corner store or a small grocery with the sign displaying the word “recargas” or “recarga aqui.”   It means “refills” or “recharges.”  That’s what you call the extra phone data in Latin America.

 

A store with a sign like this will hook you up.

 

Travel Log- Cuba
Travel Log- Cuba 620 505 Greg Ellifritz

*My Travel Log series describes various past travel adventures and provides perspective about living and traveling in different countries.  This particular segment covers a trip I took to Cuba in May of 2016.

 

 

I spent last week on a short vacation.  Our primary destination was Cuba, where we spent four days in Havana.  As there are no direct flights for tourists from the USA, we had to catch a flight from Cancun, Mexico.  Since we both love the beach there, we spent some time before and after Havana enjoying Mexico.

 

We wanted to visit Cuba before it was fully opened up to an invasion of tourists from the USA.  Despite all the talk about dissolving the trade embargo, it is actually still illegal to visit Cuba as a tourist.  The only way you can legally do it is to meet one of 12 travel restriction exemptions.  Fortunately, writing a third world travel safety book gave me enough credence to qualify under the “journalism” exception.  It turned out to be a moot point.  US Customs and Immigration agents didn’t even comment on our destination when we returned home.  No justification necessary (although I had the draft copy of my book just in case).

 

We had a great time in Havana.  We walked all over the city, visited tons of cool museums, drank mojitos, saw some live music in the legendary jazz clubs, and rode around in some classic American cars.  Travel there isn’t easy.  Due to the trade embargo, none of the Cuban merchants take credit cards drawn on US banks.  That’s a nightmare because it means you can’t pre-book a hotel or rental car.

 

The ATMs don’t work for American bank cards either.  We had to carry lots of cash and pay for everything that way.  Unfortunately, there is a huge penalty for trading US dollars for Cuban Pesos (20% fee).  We circumvented that by pulling out Mexican Pesos from the ATM in Cancun and then converting them to Cuban Pesos at the airport in Havana when we landed.  We got around the hotel issue by renting an apartment on AirB&B instead.

 

I had some preconceptions about what I would see in Cuba, but I really wasn’t ready for the reality we faced when we landed.  Here are the things that surprised me the most:

 

1). The deteriorated infrastructure.  Roads and sidewalks were in horrible disrepair.  Turn of the 20th century buildings have not had any improvements in 60 years.  Swimming pools and city parks were abandoned.  It was almost like being in a war zone.  The people and the government just don’t have enough money to maintain their buildings and infrastructure.

 

Delapidated buildings and a famous hotel that hasn't been remodeled since the 1960s

Dilapidated buildings and a famous hotel that hasn’t been remodeled since the 1960s

 

2). The high unemployment rate.  I was amazed at the numbers of people aimlessly hanging around in the streets during normal working hours on a weekday.  No one seemed to be working.  We had hired a taxi driver to shuttle us around, so I asked him about it.  He told us that almost all of the jobs are controlled by the government (it is a Communist country, after all).  Most jobs have very low pay.  The average Cuban makes the equivalent of $25 US dollars a month!  Can you imagine trying to live on that?

 

Our driver told me that he was formerly an engineer.  He said that the most money he ever made in his government engineering job was $70 a month.  It wasn’t enough to feed his family, so he quit.  Now he drives a taxi and makes a lot more money.   Many Cubans have eschewed government employment for piece meal work in the tourist industry.  It pays better and requires less effort.  It doesn’t take much work to make $25 a month in tourist tips.

 

3) Food shortages.  Since we had an apartment, our plan was to buy breakfast and lunch foods at the grocery store to prepare ourselves.  That didn’t work out so well.  We went to the largest grocery store in the best neighborhood in Havana.  There were no eggs, dairy products, fresh fruits, or fresh meats available for sale.  The supply chains furnishing the government run grocery stores have some serious flaws.  It’s rare that the stores regularly have any of these items.  Thankfully, we brought some protein bars from home that we were able to eat for breakfast each day.

 

The restaurant menu choices reflected some of the difficulty getting certain foods. No steak today. This is my dinner of stuffed rabbit.

The restaurant menu choices reflected some of the difficulty getting certain foods. No steak today. This is my dinner of stuffed rabbit.

 

Who needs food when you can get a pitcher of mojitos for $7!

Who needs food when you can get a pitcher of mojitos for $7!

 

4) Utility outages.  Power was out in our apartment about 1/3 of the time…and this was in Havana’s ritziest neighborhood.  There were constant rolling blackouts that affected entire city blocks.  We also had no running water for one whole day.  Utility problems have become the norm for this once-great island nation.  It makes living there even more difficult.

 

Our beutiful little apartment (for about $60 US a night. Too bad the government can only deliver electricity about half the day.

Our beautiful little apartment (for about $60 US a night). Too bad the government can only deliver electricity about half the day.

 

5) Internet.  It became legal for non-academic Cuban citizens to have access to the internet only a few years ago.  It still isn’t wide spread.  Very few homes have their own connections.  In order to get on the net, Cubans have to buy prepaid internet access cards.  The cards have a WiFi code.  The large hotels and government buildings have WiFi that can be accessed by using the codes.  Huge numbers of Cubans crowded the sidewalks in front of all the large hotels, using the WiFi to access the web on mobile devices.

 

6) The cars.  I expected to see some vintage cars, but I was surprised to note that roughly half of the cars on the road dated back to the 1950s.  It was like a time warp.  The taxis we took were a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Aire, a 1957 Oldsmobile, 1953 Buick, and a 1957 Ford  station wagon that looked like the Ghostbusters car.  To balance it out, we also rode in a 1980s Korean Tico and a 1972 Russian Lada.

 

All of these are taxi cabs waiting for fares outside of one of the larger hotels in Havana

All of these are taxi cabs waiting for fares outside of one of the larger hotels in Havana

 

FullSizeRender

Our ’57 Oldsmobile convertible taxi

 

Some of the old cars on the street in Old Havana

Some of the old cars on the street in Old Havana

 

7) The friendly people.  I expected some anti-American sentiment, but got absolutely none.  The people were all very friendly and amazingly helpful.  That was a pleasant surprise.  The only anti-American ideas we experienced were in the “Museum of the Revolution”, an ode to Fidel Castro’s wonderfully benevolent communist policies.  Lots of the descriptions of the museum items had a distinctly anti-American slant.  Fortunately for us, the official government opinion wasn’t embraced by the citizenry.

 

A painting in the Museum of the Revolution entitled "Corner of the Idiots."

A painting in the Museum of the Revolution entitled “Corner of the Idiots.”

 

You don't like our presidents, that's fine (I don't either). No matter how bad they have been, they still don't even compare to Che.

You don’t like our presidents, that’s fine (I don’t either). No matter how bad they have been, they still don’t even come close to the barbarity of Che.

 

Since most of you are reading my page for insights into self defense and firearms, I’ll mention a couple of more things that may be interesting to you….

 

We had absolutely no fear of crime while we were there.  No one was aggressive.  We didn’t see any drug addicts or violent drunk people.  Everyone smiled and was extremely mellow.  That isn’t common in many Latin American countries.  Another thing you don’t often see in Latin America is a police force that isn’t corrupt.  I spoke to several locals about the police.  The general consensus was that the police officers were often lazy (I might be too if I was making $30 a month), but they didn’t shake citizens down for bribe money.  Not a single person I talked to said anything bad about the national police.

 

The cops were extremely visible in all the tourist areas.  They carried full duty belts (nylon) like we do here (another rarity in Latin America).  They carried a pistol, two spare mags, handcuffs, pepper spray, and PR-24 batons.  Some of the cops were wearing empty holsters as if they didn’t have enough pistols to fully equip all the officers.

 

Most of the cops carried Beretta 92 automatics.  Occasionally I would spot an officer who wasn’t packing a Beretta.  Those guys were all carrying Soviet Makarovs!  I certainly didn’t expect that pistol to be carried down there.   It’s an odd choice for a police duty rig.

 

Not much else to report.  I’m glad we went and had the experience of seeing Cuba before it fully opens to American tourists.  Seeing the friendly local people practicing amazing resiliency in the face of brutal living conditions isn’t something we get to experience every day.  If you have dreams of traveling to Cuba, do your homework.  They don’t make it easy for tourists.  The difficulty is part of the appeal.  It’s cool to experience something new.  If you aren’t looking for a challenge, you can always take the family down to Disneyland instead.

 

 

The only gun I got to play with on vacation.

The only gun I got to play with on vacation.

 

The Cubans like their canons. Probably wouldn't be my first choice for a lunch table.

The Cubans like their canons. Probably wouldn’t be my first choice for a lunch table.