The whole trip costs $12,000, but to get started you need $400. The rest you pay in three installments before arrival. Many, however, lose their first payment because the police detain them.

The ways that Ecuadorians make it to the United States illegally – by sea – are more surprising every day.

A few months ago some Ecuadorians, who were caught migrating into the United States illegally, said that they had spent $10,000 to $12,000 for their passage. Now, things have changed because some coyotes [human traffickers] have realized that the journey does not always go as planned, and they end up looking bad. That is why they have invented the payment plan, charging for safe passage in stages.

Daniel, whose name has been changed, is an Ecuadorian who told us his story of arriving in the United States using the payment plan.

Daniel, 36, came from the city of Cuenca with a journalism degree. Because he could not find work in Ecuador, he decided to emigrate, a decision that caused him to go into debt, mortgaging his family’s home and another piece of property. Until now he has only paid the first part of his odyssey. He says that the second time he saw the sea in his lifetime was that Monday in April when he arrived in the city of Manta. After two days, he was taken along with 30 people to a place a half-hour away where he had never been before and where more people were waiting.

Daniel at first refused to tell us his story, but our curiosity about his immigration by payment plan convinced him to tell us about this new arrangement.

“The truth is that I wanted to leave, but not because I didn’t like being in my country, but because money was hard to get. My brother has been here for 12 years, and he knew that there was a coyote in La Troncal that they called El Chino, and he put in contact. The only thing he told me was that I had to have $400 to leave and $200 when I got to Guatemala, to pay the costs of crossing Central America,” said Daniel, who left his neighborhood south of Cuenca wearing canvas shoes, jeans, a black t-shirt, and carrying two more shirts in a bag with some tuna fish.

They asked him not to carry very much.

“I went in a bus to Guayaquil. In the bus terminal a woman picked me up and said that I should leave the next day for Manta,” Daniel said. Up until then, he had not met his traveling companions.

When he was in Manabí, it was the sea that caught his attention, since he had only seen it once before. He would never forget that the ocean would be his loyal companion for 16 days during his odyssey to Guatemala.

“In Manta they put me in a hotel with 30 people, and on a Sunday night we began an adventure with 58 people, including two Peruvians,” Daniel said. He still remembers the modest blue shoes in which he traveled to the United States. He now wears Nikes he bought with his first paycheck here.

Daniel took the journey to Guatemala like everyone else, with swollen feet and drinking only enough water to wet his lips.

“I have spoken with many friends here, and they say that they even drank their own urine to survive, but that didn’t happen with my companions. Two people guided us and they always told us that it wasn’t a problem to get to Guatemala,” Daniel said.

When they arrived in Central America, they were separated in several boats, and one of the coyotes told them before they hit land to call their relatives to deposit the $4,000 they owed.

“Before getting off the boat I spoke to my mother and told her that it was okay, and that she should pay the second part of the agreement – the $4,000.

“We were in Guatemala for three days and from there they took us in cars from place to place until we got to Mexico. Once there where we weren’t afraid any more. Our new guides told us to have faith that we would be able to get across.

Between Guatemala and Mexico there were around six different people who guided us. I will never forget a guy they called Condorito. He was different because he helped out a lot. He was Mexican and, at the end, he asked for $100 from each of us so that we wouldn’t be detained. That money was separate from what we already had to pay,” said Daniel, who was in Mexico for a month.

He thought that the journey was over in Mexico because the time he spent there felt like an eternity.

“When we were in Mexico we went around in groups of five always with guides and slept in various places, spending several days locked up in rooms so that the police wouldn’t find him. Once we got to Piedras Negras my nerves got to me, because I knew we were only minutes away from the United States. Before we started walking, they told us that everything was ready, but that we had to pay the other $4,000,” said Daniel.

His desperation and nerves were so intense at the Mexico-U.S. border that he wanted to go back.

“In the house where I stayed in Piedras Negras, the coyote’s wife told me while we were eating that many people have been detained and that, if we had bad luck, it could happen to us. She told us to talk like Mexicans so that they wouldn’t deport us; that made me think. The next day I talked to my brother and he cheered me up, telling me that I was so close to realizing my dream,” Daniel said. By the time he got to the border, Daniel had been traveling for two months.

The last payment was quick because in two days he was on American soil, but he wasn’t free because he was taken in a car and locked up in a house until his “contract” was completely paid up.

“It was strange what happened in the final hours because they stuck me in a room, and I had to call home several times for them to deposit the rest of the money. I arrived on a Saturday night and they only let me go Monday afternoon because my mother was delayed in paying. It was horrible,” Daniel said. On Tuesday his brother picked him up, and they traveled more than 30 hours to get to New York.

When Daniel got to New York, his 18 years of study were of no use to him. His brother told him that if he wanted to pay the debt quickly he would have to work in construction.

“At first it seemed really hard. I got blisters on my hands and feet and I took pills for my body aches. After a month of being here, I adapted to my new environment. I know I have to pay my debt first. That’s life, and that’s what I chose,” Daniel said. During the next few weeks, he will create a Web page to practice the journalism he always wanted to.

“Life is hard here. Believe me, if I had known everything that I would have to put up with in terms of safety, I wouldn’t have taken so many risks because I was close to death. Thank God, the boat didn’t sink and the police didn’t detain me. Each time I remember that trip, I feel lucky because my cousin didn’t have the same luck. He was detained in Guatemala, and taken back to Guayaquil like a criminal,” Daniel said.