Some cities welcome you with smiles.   Quito tosses you into the clouds.  At nearly 9,000 feet above sea level and sitting almost directly on the equator, Ecuador’s capital is suspended between sun and mist, mountains and city lights, ancient culture and modern life. When my plane landed, just as Maria had promised, a driver named Miguel was waiting for me with a sign with my name on it. He took me to my hotel in La Floresta, a beautiful neighborhood just outside Quito’s h

Sometimes when you travel, you visit a place. Other times, you find a home. I thought I was simply spending a few days in Cuenca, Ecuador. Instead, I found myself welcomed into a family, sitting at their table, wandering markets together, and realizing that the most meaningful parts of travel are rarely the places—they’re the people. Maria and I met at “therapy camp” three years ago. We shared some of our darkest and deepest secrets and have held space for one another duri

“You are going to Guayaquil?” Jack threw back the last swallow of his local Belize beer. “You know they call that city the kidnapping capital of the world?” Then he proceeded to tell me that a taxi driver drove him out to the middle of nowhere and tried to bribe him out of a hundred dollars to take him back to the city. Jack called his bluff and he made it back safely.  This was like the fifth person I had met throughout Central America who questioned me about why I was goin