Gangsta Farm

The world is getting smaller. You can now tweet 10,000 people what you ate for breakfast. But the world of electronic closeness seemed far away as Zack and I hiked through the remote villages of Ecuador’s Quilotoa Loop.

I’m talking: grazing cows, dirt roads, and long stretches of empty land. Cell phones didn’t work. Small flocks of sheep ate grass unattended by the side of the road. After miles of passing through farms and pine groves we came to a little town that consisted of: a school, a church, two farms and a few smaller dwellings. Imagine my surprise when I heard the tinny, staccato intro of that 1995 rap favorite, Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get down and dance like I was at the club. This was an opportunity for cultural exchange that I was not going to miss out on. I let my inhibitions go as five or six town townsfolk looked on. They were hoeing in the garden and I was dancing to Coolio. After a few beats they looked away from my spectacle and went back to work.

Check out the scene I stepped into.



Thanks to Zack for the camera work!

***I didn’t get into the true digital, digital get down until I was off camera***

So it seems globalization is alive and well even in the remote villages of Ecuador.

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