After three years in prison for assaulting my fellow bus passengers I spend two days in Cuenca and head out to Guayaquil, a city on route to my next destination: Montañita.

Guayaquil is Ecuador’s largest and supposed most dangerous city. However it turns out to be my favourite stop thus far.

A short coffee date here ends up in three days of utter bliss. My temporary love and I drive through the city, meet her family and friends, taste all the tremendous food Ecuador has to offer and sleep together in an actual decent bed. My stay here feels like a home away from home.

Days pass, I promise to consider her offer to join her later on on the Galápagos Islands and make my way to Montañita.

Flames, burning angels, drugs, alcohol and sex at a discount price. Montañita is every party place on earth. The difference is the location.

I drop my backpack in my 12 bed dormitory and go to the beach. A sunset, a pizza, a reunion with my acquaintances from Cotopaxi. My female acquaintance joins me to the pizzeria, my male acquaintance we meet at a bar.

We find him in front of a pool table, shirtless. In his left hand a cue stick, in his right hand a girl from Ibiza (pronounce: Ibeetha), in his mouth a Cuban cigar and he’s shouting along to hardcore U.S. gangster rap.

I appreciate the chaos this man resembles and upgrade him from acquaintance to potential friend. Later that night my female acquaintance receives a similar upgrade.

A day of recuperation and a day at the beach with my new friends follow. Thereafter it is time for stupid decisions.

I find myself in purgatory once more: black shirt, dark thoughts, a faint smile and a street full of bars and heathens. I wonder how this night will end.

My companions start chastising themselves by taking shots at their liver. The clock races and whilst the night ages, youngsters’ intellect starts deteriorating. To keep up with the genocide of brain cells and overall regression I start gulping down pain killers like an obese kid would chug a jerrycan full of gravy.

My posse and I are a combination of numb and dumb.

Amidst conversations that are as lengthily as they are forgettable I see a girl step outside of a club. I approach, quickly revive my brain cells, introduce myself and accompany her inside.

Flashing lights determined to cause an epileptic attack, music tearing apart ear drums and people bumping into me: my earplugs resign, my mind questions if I’ve ever possessed any intelligence at all and the acetylsalicylic acid lets its nemesis run its course.

Whilst I contemplate and search for my common sense I look around. Everyone’s dancing. I dislike dancing. I don’t dance, ever. I despise it.

The girl I’m with asks me to dance. I remember that I like girls. I start dancing.

Some bumping, some grinding, a man shaking his head whilst realising how far he has come during the thirty one years he has been wandering about on this planet.

The lights go on, the club closes, the sun rises and the nightlife changes into two beach chairs and a beach umbrella.

Waves come crashing in. The sound of the attacking and retreating water is soothing.

I chug the remainder of pain killers, close my eyes and feel how a beautiful hand runs through my hair. Five fingers and six aspirines tell me everything is okay. Too tired to respond I give in and believe their lies for the time being.

No sleep, loud music, murderous bass, endless conversations and no rest. How I will feel once the effect of the painkillers wears off is a rhetorical question - so I make sure it doesn’t.

The night wasn’t worth the consequences, nearly nothing ever is. But sometimes I want to forget, sometimes I just want to live. If an overdose of painkillers, two weeks of aggravated pain, nausea and insomnia is what it takes, than so be it.

Her hand keeps caressing me and her voice, singing softly, steers me away from my inevitable misery.

I glance at my phone and see a message from my love in Guayaquil. She asks me if I’ll come and be with her.

I glance at my phone and see an email with my flight confirmation to Peru.

I decline the chance of happiness with a beautiful person and move my future into a different direction. Never knowing if I took the right turn.

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