We are on a huge military cargo plane going back to the UK when, through the opening in the back where the hatch opens out for the parachute soldiers to jump, I see a beautiful ocean view, with sparkling blue waters and a whale bouncing in an and out the water parallel to a coastline.
I am not usually excited by whale sightings, but this whale continues jumping in and out of the water, and even though it is far down below us, the sparkling water and the sandy coast make for a paradise.
‘Look, a whale!’ I cry out to my fellow passengers.
As the planes rumbles on it appears to descend and the view becomes clearer.
‘Maybe they are dolphins,’ I declare, and sure enough, there are schools of them bouncing in and out of the sparkling waters, swimming north up the coast line, and coming nearer into view as the plane descends,.
Our plane comes to land at an idyllic outcrop – an unexpected break point in our return flight. We file out and walk along a narrow path along a sandy road, with beachfront restaurants to our left, and shop-seller stalls to our right. The place seems foreign to what I have seen before but magical too. Maybe it is Moslem or Caribbean, I cannot tell from the coloured stripes and robes of the shopkeepers.
‘What is this place?’ I ask a tourist in a white bucket hat sitting in a restaurant to my left.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, and I think, How can you not know?! You’re here, aren’t you?
I continue on, and stop at a stall to ask the proprietor. ‘What country am I in?’ I ask.
The woman replies, ‘We’re in Africa.’ But Africa is a continent, I think.
Then I reach down to a small black girl by the woman’s side and ask again, ‘Where are we?’
The girl looks up and says to me, ‘You are in Ecuador,’ and I think how marvellous.
I must tell Siobhan that we have to go to Ecuador proper, and not just for a stopover. Never mind if Quito is high up in altitude, it will surely be good for her if we only stay for a short time.
Then the airline stewards lead us to our restaurant which is on an island off the sandy coast. We step into the water until we are up to our necks, and I pull out my iPhone so it won’t get wet. I lift the phone above my head but too late, I have to shake the water off it.
The phone will be alright, I think. I’ll take it back to the airplane and leave it there, because I don’t need it while we are here, in paradise, on this island.
Photo by Pauchok via GoodFon.com.
