The taxi pulls up to the house four and a half kilometers out of town. Chained to the front wall, a guard dog with large jaws gives me an evil stare. Five or six nefarious looking men huddle around a seedy conversation. I know where I am but not what to expect. The front room is dark and the crowd looks sinister. The bar, lined with stools all draped in sex-hungry men, is littered with beer bottles and shot glasses. Salsa music bounces off the walls and drowns out the chatter, while one red light bulb provides the brothel a weak sexual illumination.
More than 40 men packed into this small three-room house, now used for carnal desires, sit leering at women in mini-skirts small enough for little girls, tight halter-tops that invite eyes to get lost in cleavage fissures, and thick clear plastic stilettos. These chongos are pervasive in mainland Ecuador, and have made their way out to the Galapagos Islands as well. The most populated island, Santa Cruz, has three of them. The names are not so important as you only tell the taxi driver how far out of town you want to go and he knows what you mean.
I ask a nature guide about the chongos. One tells me he asks if the customer wants him to wait outside for 15 minutes, 30 minutes or to come back at a certain time. Another taxi driver says he drinks a beer and watches the women while he waits inside to make sure he gets the business back into town.
To me, prostitution conjures up cheap and sordid images. But here in the Galapagos, prostitution is devoid of guilt and embarrassment.
Even sex in general is not as permeated with the tawdry taboo it has in the U. A guide on Isla Isabella tells me many women enjoy the same situation and will have a number of other lovers. One woman I met cheated on her husband with another man. A good friend of the husband was present, and I watched him as he merely turned around, walked away and jovially skipped down the empty street in the full moon light.
