A global nomad's favourite place

Playas, Ecuador and the eternal qualities of the edges of the world

Why do I love this place? It never changes. Everything else I've ever known already has. But here, the sun will always set right there—it always did, always will. The sand will always sink just so under my steps. The shelters will always stand—wind-battered palm branches draped haphazardly over solid bamboo frames. If the shelters change, it's OK: I could build one just like them. Bamboo or driftwood pillars, a metre of stick hidden under the sand—like an idea just below the surface—essential to the whole structure.

The wood will always wash up and litter the shore. So will the plastic bottles, dead blow fish and strange yellow foam that seem to keep the tourist crowds at bay. I love the debris, too, because it makes this beach mine. Good to those who love it, a stranger to the rest.

What I love about this place is that my toes will always trace the same same symbols in the same sand. My hands will push it into piles. Make a pillow. Make a hole. The sun will always set right there.

One thing about the beach might change: the new walls around it. New houses and hotels blocking off their claims in the corners of your sight. But where the sand starts, the time stops. Walls stop.

My beach will never change. The people will. There: that's a new dog. A new kid. Haven't met you before. But so: I will change, also. The place will stay the same.

The wind will always make that sound. The waves will always roar and their same white crest will chase along the shore like a white dog bounding, racing up the beach with joy.

The sunset is always different. Sometimes it's pink cotton candy stretched over the roof of the sky. Sometimes purple tints the bellies of the clouds for just a minute when the angle is right, just before the sun drops out of sight. Yesterday it was the fire of the red flare throwing out lavender plumes—wide stripes of slight clouds winding from behind you, tapering into wisps of smoke at the horizon. But the ball of fire will always sink behind that endless curve of ocean. It's a constant that anchors me to this shore.