It was the tail end of my first enlistment with the Air National Guard—young, dumb, and on the slow spiral toward marrying my first wife. Back then, military travel had its own weird charm. You weren’t exactly a tourist, but you weren’t a soldier on the front lines either. Somewhere in between. I’d already hit Germany once with this ragtag crew, a blur of bratwurst, beer halls, and barracks. But this? This was different. South America. A whole new continent. My first taste of it—though not the way I wanted. No street food, no seedy bars, no wandering into the chaos. Just a sanitized, starched version of adventure, served cold under the safe wing of the U.S. Air Force. Supervised. Structured. Soul slightly stifled. Oh did it seem.
As we touched down in Manta, Ecuador—heat rising off the tarmac like a mirage, the kind of place that smells like salt, oil, and stories you probably shouldn’t repeat. This wasn’t vacation. It was military duty dressed up as travel, the kind of gig where you get just enough foreign soil under your boots to feel worldly, but not enough to actually do anything dangerous or interesting.
We were there to install radio equipment—tech work with a Cold War aftertaste, something bureaucratic and boring to most, but at 26, I felt like a supporting character in some Tom Clancy novel. I was excited. Not because of the mission—hell no—but because this was South America. I had never been this far south. Never heard Spanish rolling off the tongue of locals like poetry or watched the Pacific crash violently against a strange coast.
And the base? Not bad. Actually… kind of amazing. Clean rooms. Cold air. Beds that didn’t scream “temporary government housing.” It was like someone decided to do morale right for once.
But the chow hall—that was the real revelation. Steak and lobster, nearly every night. I’m not exaggerating. It was a culinary fever dream dropped into the middle of a military base. Big trays of meat that actually tasted like meat. Real butter. Real choices. You eat like that as a young enlisted guy, and it rewires your expectations permanently. We were full. We were lazy. We were smug. Somewhere between overfed tourists and bored mercenaries, waiting for the work to start.
We weren’t out exploring the streets of Manta or sipping rum with strangers in back-alley cantinas—but for a 26-year-old kid playing dress-up in grown-up camo, it felt like I was finally living a version of the life I wanted… even if it came with a government paycheck and a curfew.
We weren’t in Manta for the sights. We were there to run wires, bolt down antennas, and hook up radio gear that probably dated back to Reagan. This was no high-tech Hollywood fantasy—this was the U.S. Air Force’s Engineering and Installation group. A band of specialists with just enough know-how and calluses to make outdated military systems sing like they were brand new.
It wasn’t glamorous work. No medals. No parades. But damn if it wasn’t solid. Everything we touched just… worked. No crashing software. No beta versions. Just reliable, analog guts humming through the tropics, built to survive the apocalypse and a few hurricanes.
And the best part? We were living like kings on the government dime. Surf and turf. A/C. Cold drinks. It was the kind of assignment that made you forget, for a moment, that this was still the military. Two weeks in paradise, wrapped in camo and coaxial cable.
We knew this was a treat. A fluke. Something we’d look back on when we were knee-deep in some freezing mud pit stateside, wondering how we ever got so lucky. And for those two weeks, we leaned into it. Hard.
When the workday wrapped, we had a choice—stick to the safety of the base or roll the dice and grab a taxi into town. Off-base meant stories, beer, and the kind of real-life chaos you don’t get behind a guarded fence. But it also meant cash—something even us in uniform didn’t always have much of. I was an A1C, broke in that government-issue kind of way: enough for a steak on base, not enough for a wild night out.
So, I walked the beach.
It was raw, honest Ecuador. Fishing boats dragged ashore like tired animals, worn men patching nets and hulls with hands that looked older than their faces. Kids darting in and out of the surf, barefoot and loud, while someone’s mother hung laundry that caught the salty wind just right. This was a beach town, but not the kind with margaritas and jet skis. No resorts. No postcards. Just hard living with an ocean view.
You didn’t need to ask about the local economy—$4 a day, if that. The town wore poverty like a second skin. But there was pride here too. People smiled. They looked you in the eye. They kept moving forward.
Eventually, curiosity won out. We decided to go see what Manta had to offer. But before the off-duty beer runs and back-alley misadventures, we got the official intro—an organized trip to a nearby town called Montecristi. A field trip for grown men in uniform, complete with a guide and a van, and the illusion that we weren’t just tourists in camo.
They packed us into a bus and sent us to Montecristi—a small, sun-baked town nestled in the hills, where time seemed to slow and reality hit like a brick. I’d heard of poverty, seen flashes on TV screens between sitcoms and recruitment ads. But this… this was different. This was the first time I felt it. Walked it. Breathed it in.
But then again—were they poor?
At the center of it all stood a church. Weathered, whitewashed, and revered. This was the heartbeat of the town, where faith wasn’t optional—it was oxygen. The streets around it told a quieter story. Homes—if you could call them that—were more like structures, just enough wood and cement to keep a family dry when it rained. No frills. No paint. Just shelter, and maybe some hope nailed to the walls.
They brought us to the local market, a maze of stalls and smiles. The vendors were kind—too kind. There was warmth in their eyes, but behind that, maybe just a flicker of survival instinct. They needed to sell something. Anything. Was this a setup? A little show for the visiting Americans with their crisp uniforms and per diem cash? Maybe. But if buying a few handwoven trinkets made someone’s day a little lighter, who was I to complain?
Still, I wasn’t completely green. There was a hustle behind those “local” Panama hats, a familiar wink of marketing magic. You could smell it—the hats probably came from a warehouse an hour away, branded as authentic with a quick press and a practiced pitch. But hell, they were good at it.
Montecristi didn’t just show me poverty. It showed me resilience, and dignity wrapped in dusty streets and handmade goods. I left with a few souvenirs, sure. But more importantly, I left humbled—less certain of what it meant to be rich, or poor, or anything in between.
After Montecristi, they loaded us back on the bus and took us inland—to the edge of the rainforest, or at least someone’s idea of it. The great Amazon, they said. This was it?
I expected something grand. A sweaty, dripping cathedral of green. Vines wrapped around ancient trees, snakes slithering across our boots, the air so thick you’d have to drink it. Instead, it was dry. Kinda dusty. Sure, there were bugs—big ones. Spiders with legs like drumsticks. Bananas hanging low, peppers so hot they looked angry just growing there. But it wasn’t the jungle fever dream I’d built in my head watching National Geographic back home.
They told us we’d be hiking a trail. “It’s just a short walk,” they said. But the look in their eyes said otherwise.
Some of us, the wiser or maybe just lazier ones, opted for donkeys. A noble beast. Proud. Stubborn. Slightly pissed off to be hauling around a sweaty airman from Pennsylvania in government-issue boots. I walked. For a while. Long enough to regret it.
It wasn’t adventure in the cinematic sense. No lost tribes. No mystical ruins. Just a winding trail through stubborn terrain and the quiet realization that the world doesn’t need to be exotic to kick your ass. Sometimes, it’s enough just to see it. To feel it under your feet. Or under the saddle of a surly Ecuadorian donkey.
The rainforest—if that’s what we’re calling it—turned out to be something special. Maybe it wasn’t the postcard version I’d expected, but it had its own quiet magic. For most of us, this was the first time standing on the edge of something wild and ancient. Something bigger than ourselves. And that mattered. Even if we didn’t say it out loud.
We trudged back to camp dusty, sweaty, and a little awestruck. Not bad for a bunch of radio techs playing explorer for the day.
Later, we’d head out again—because that’s what you do. You chase the next meal, the next beer, the next half-understood conversation in a language you barely speak. You go looking for something different, something real. Even if it’s just for a night.
And for that moment, in that far-flung corner of Ecuador, it was enough.
I still had that godawful haircut—some base barber special that made me look like I lost a bet—but that didn’t stop us from heading down to a beachside restaurant. Salt in the air, cheap plastic chairs in the sand, and the kind of fried seafood that made you forget hygiene codes ever existed.
That’s where I learned the truth about prices in South America.
There are three prices.
There’s the American price—bold, inflated, unapologetic. That was ours. Eight bucks for a plate that cost two. Then there’s the foreigner price—slightly less painful, reserved for Europeans or anyone who could pass as not-American. Five bucks, maybe. And then, there’s the local price—two dollars and a smile. That’s what the guy at the next table paid. Same dish. Same plate. Welcome to the global exchange rate of skin tone, accent, and assumed net worth.
Still, the food was good. The beer was cold. And for a few hours, life was simple.
Until the boat.
We took one out to some island—I don’t even remember the name. It sounded exotic, promising. The water was turquoise, postcard-perfect, and that’s when panic set in. The ocean doesn’t care who you are or how tough you think you look in uniform. I got in. I got out. Fast. Heart racing. Embarrassed. Everyone saw it. And worse—I saw it in myself. That fear. That helpless grip of deep water under your feet.
I swore I’d never feel that again.
Years later, I’d dive headfirst into scuba training. PADI certs, deep water dives, wrecks and reefs. I chased the fear until it gave up. But back then, on that boat in Ecuador, I was just a kid pretending to be brave and failing at it.
We kept moving, though. Traveled farther, saw the ports—real, working ports. Rusted cranes, heavy nets, men moving crates in the kind of heat that makes you hallucinate. These weren’t tourist towns. This was life in motion. Hard, beautiful, and unfiltered.
Eventually, we made it back to base. The job was winding down. Radios wired, antennas up, mission accomplished. And when it was time to celebrate the end of our work tour—we did it right. We went out in style. Or at least as much style as a bunch of sunburned Airmen could muster on a per diem.
Our last night in Manta, we ended up at the bar. Every town like this has one—a haven for the rotating cast of American uniforms, contractors, and wandering expats clinging to the edge of the map. This one was built for us. Word was, it was owned by a Vietnam vet who came down after the war and never looked back. You could feel it in the bones of the place—like it had seen a thousand half-drunken goodbyes and a few too many secrets.
It had the essentials: battered pool tables, cheap liquor, the comforting stench of cigarettes soaked into the furniture, and walls decorated with sun-bleached pinups and bad decisions. And of course, a few older Latina women—half-hostess, half-hustler—lingering near the bar with eyes that had seen more than most of us ever would.
We drank. We laughed. Some of us got loud. Others just stared into the bottom of their glass, not ready to leave but unsure what we were really going back to. It wasn’t just the end of a job—it was the end of something else, harder to name. A glimpse into a world that didn’t revolve around strip malls and domestic routine. A place where life was harder… but somehow more honest.
So, what did we learn?
That there’s a world outside the wire—messy, flawed, and beautiful.
That poverty doesn’t mean misery. That dignity can live in a $2 house and hospitality can come with nothing expected in return.
That fear—of the ocean, of being out of place, of being seen—can shape a man more than a thousand hours of training.
That overpriced hats, back-alley beers, and pool halls with peeling paint can sometimes teach you more about people than any base briefing ever will.
And maybe most of all—that somewhere out there, there are men like that old Vietnam vet. People who found something worth staying for. Or maybe just something they couldn’t run from anymore.
Either way, we raised our glasses. To the work. To the trip. To the stories we’d never be able to tell quite right. And then, we went home.