o get to Vilcabamba from Quito, wind south down the Panamerican Highway for 16 hours. This takes you through the Andes, past the nameless pueblos and the stray dogs waiting anxiously by the side of the road, like they're hoping to hitch a ride.
Get off the bus in Loja. At the advice of three teenage boys, hop on a sketchy minibus. Sit in the front seat, make friends with the driver, a 30-year-old Ecuadorian who likes to steer with his knees and throw his hands up in the air to announce, "It's like a party in my bus!"
"Do you like to party?" he asks.
I don't know. Do you?
The myth about Vilcabamba is that people here live into their hundreds. Something about the water and the dry climate. Even the sign at the city border announces it: "Welcome to the Sacred Valley, the Valley of Longevity." But many of the backpackers come in search of San Pedro, a cactus with hallucinogenic properties. It fucks you up, man.
You came to write.
It's dark now, and the bus descends quickly from the mountains, so that by the time you arrive at your hotel, all your shampoo and lotion bottles have little sunken bellies from the change in altitude.
Outside, the stars are pulsing.
The first day, you write nothing. Instead, you finish a 500-page book, go to a restaurant for terrible instant coffee, and spend an hour at the criminally slow Internet cafe reading two e-mails. You spend the evening in your hotel room, not writing, pacing around like your prom date is about to show up.
On the second day, you meet an Ecuadorian. He's sort of been following you.
"I have a gift for you," he says.
Which is weird, of course, because you've never met. And while on one hand, this kind of behavior is a three-alarm freak alert, it is also -- you have to admit -- kind of exciting. Out of all the gringas in Vilcabamba, he is stalking you. He knows nothing of your personality, your intelligence, your many invisible gifts. It's purely physical.
How cool is that?
He asks you to dinner, and you accept. He seems nice enough. Also, he is on a horse when he asks you. Also, he has long, silky black hair and a strong, perfect jaw and black tattoos that circle his wrists and forearms, and he is one of the best-looking Ecuadorians you have ever seen. And while normally you don't go for long hair and tattoos, and all that white knight crap -- in this particular case, the horse and the hair and the tattoo thing are really working.
His name is Daniel.
He grew up in Loja, but he lives in Italy now, making and selling jewelry. He gives you a necklace of silvery mauve beads.
"They're called Eyes of the Cat," he says.
"It's beautiful," you say.
"Like you," he says.
And then, hoping to give him the (false) impression that the Casanova stuff doesn't fly, mister, you roll your eyes and say, "Smooth. Very smooth."
He blushes and looks away.
He talks to you about making jewelry, about how he wants to be an actor in the movies someday. You have the sneaking suspicion that if you and Daniel spoke the same language, you wouldn't be able to tolerate him long enough to finish this horrible coffee. But he speaks in that mysterious and beautiful tongue, the language that is revealing itself to you like the sun behind a slowly clearing fog. He talks about nothing, about his sister, about his high school, but it is so lovely to you, because you understand. The words link together in your head, whisper their meanings to you like a secret code. Like magic.
Then Daniel tries out his fledgling English, learned from gangster movies: "Watt da fock joo want?"
Ewww. No, no, no, you want to say. You smile, try to act polite.
"I working in Italy," he says proudly.
Is that what you sound like in Spanish? Good Christ.
That night, in the small bar that is really more like a pizza place, you and Daniel meet a married couple from London. They invite you both to visit them at their hotel, hidden in the mountains beside a river. Argentinean environmentalists run the lodge, and when you discover that they grow and grind their own coffee -- real coffee, coffee that is brewed, coffee that smells rich and full and flavorful, just like the commercials always promised -- you are sold. You change hotels. So does Daniel.
Nothing happens between the two of you. He never touches you, just occasionally compares you to flowers and stars. You are starting to wonder what's wrong with you, what's wrong with him. Without anyone around to corroborate your attraction, you begin to falter. He misspells a word you are trying to look up in the dictionary, and you suspect he's a moron. He tells you that you have a nice body, and you suspect he's a lying slime. You notice that his teeth are crooked. He repeats himself a lot. From some angles, he looks like Gerardo.
Then one afternoon, your married English friend nods in his direction. "Has he got in your pants yet?" she asks.
"No," you tell her. (You love the English.)
"Shame," she says, eyeing him up and down hungrily. "I wouldn't mind having a go myself, if you know what I mean."
You know what she means.
That night you sit beside him, next to a dwindling campfire, and wait for something to happen.
"Are you okay?" he asks.
I'm fine, you say.
He touches your bare feet, his fingers linger over a little water blister that formed after your walk together that afternoon.
"Does it hurt?" he asks you.
It doesn't hurt.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks.
I'm not thinking about anything, you say. And that's the truth. Your mind is empty for once, and you are only looking up at the sky, watching the fire turn the logs into white ash. You have been here almost a week, and you have written next to nothing. You have written this, and maybe nothing more.
And that is totally fine with you.