Chau Ecuador

Not All is Lost

"They can't steal your smile," a young girl told me on the bus late last night just before arriving the dreaded Terminal Terestre here in Quito. Of course this forces a latent smile and as she gets off the bus a few stops before Old Quito, she yells to me, "open the window!" Running to the small snack stand on the island in the middle of the busy highway, she grabs a bottle of cold water and throws it up to me and blows me a kiss. Chau!

Kid looking out of the 'ranchera' or open bus heading up the coast between Canoa and Atacames.

Finally, after many years of fairly safe travel and several attempted robberies including knife point in Buenos Aires and gun point in Oakland, as well as two attempted pickpocketings here in Ecuador, I got robbed. Leaving the Quito bus station at 6:50AM last Monday, my camera bag safely at my feet on the nearly empty bus, we bounce along on a terrible road en route to Otavalo and the famed crafts market. Not even five minutes into our journey, four burly thirty-something men in black jackets with backpacks in front of them all depart the bus together. "Ladrones," says the bus assistant. "Watch your bag," he cautions, making that teardrop pull down with his index finger on one eye. "OJO!" I check my camera bag and pull it even closer to my feet, the strap around my foot. Safe. Chinese made moto-taxi in Atacames, Ecuador

Suddenly it's my stop, hurry, off the bus. Picking up the camera bag it feels much lighter than usual. I huriedly open it to find my beloved Canon 5D and telephoto lens GONE! I also open the top compartment where my flash lives and it too is gone. I also had $400US emergency money guarded with the flash, all gone. They also got the 50mm f/1.8 which is the only cheap thing to repalce. Incredulously I sit on the side of the road on a paint blistered blue wooden bench, stinging all over. Now what.
This past week has been extremely dificult. However, despite my best efforts at getting angry, upset, frustrated or down, I move forward, shooting with a tiny 14MP Lumix backup, getting the shots I need at a still frantic pace; from the Tulcán on the border of Colombia to nearly 14,000' at La Laguna Quilatoa out of Latacunga just yesterday. Now penniless back in Quito I prepare for my last few days in Ecuador and to the Amazon where I will make the shots happen like the pro that I am, still smiling all the while.

Indigneous Saraguro locals waiting for the bus in Saraguro, Ecuador

Somehow, I still manage to find myself very fortunate and even lucky to be able to ride around on dirty bouncing buses for a month, sleeping in less-than-luxurious accomodations in order to see and capture something new and different every single day. I will always remember Ecuador for its warm people, those lonely indiginous communities high up in the Andes, it's dramatically changing climates and terrain, polution and trash-ladden cities and highways and the bazing hot sun.
As Evo Morales said recently addressing the U.N., "We now must begin to realize that the Earth does not belong to us. It's the other way around. We belong to the Earth."La Pachamama, or mother earth, is Ecuador's greatest gift and only time will tell if she can be respected above all.

A Traveler´s Notes - Ecuadorian Comments

The camera and I are back in action like Action Jackson, moving furiously forward for the last big week in country; including the Colombian border trip to Tulcán and then, the AMAZON! Crazy glue can work wonders on modern electronics - shhh - don't tell them back at the factory. There's a service advisory out for this specific problem and they will be replacing the entire internal chassis once the job is finished, otherwise, the job was finished.

• 'Travelers Diarrhea' they call it in my Moon Handbook... Cormac McCarthy calls it the 'drizzilin shits' in Blood Meridian. Dehydration got the best of me a week back but after sampling all flavors of Ecuadorian Gatorade and a few hits of Imodium, I'm now back to 90%. Changes in altitude, climate and temperature on a frenetic pace works work wonders on the body. A great way to clean the colon though...

• Came across a GIANT earthworm up in the Bellavista cloud forrest. It reminded me of a few weeks back when I visited 'Love Apple Farms in the Santa Cruz mountains and Cynthia, the owner, dared me to eat one of her wriggling red worms fresh from the compost bin, which I did. Protein, lots of protein (I've seen Man vs. Wild eat far worse). This sucker, however, would have fed a whole family!

• Panama hats actually come from Ecuador and can cost upwards of $600 and take about 6 months of manual labor to make a hat that is so finely woven, it'll hold water without leaking a drop. They used to SHIP out from Panama, hence the name
• Che Guevarra is alive and well in the hearts and minds of the Ecuadorian people, many of them at least.
• Museums are closed on Monday's here too.
• Latin American buses - unforgettable. Can't believe I forgot how gnarly they can get on the steep and curvy one-lane mountainous dirt roads, especially in the rain. Like Ethan always said, ¨guys like us are going out on a bus off a cliff in Bolivia.¨ (paraphrase)
  

• Butterflies are always so beautiful, especially to photograph up close and personal

• Latin American dogs are the best and Ecuadorian perros are no exception. Pick one up with direct eye contact and a simple nod of the head at any local beach and you've got a best friend for the day, free of charge
• Straddling the equator at 0,00,00 latitude was cool, for about 5 seconds
• The indigenous Sierra communities are so united that they recently amended the constitution to give them their own governing rights. A few weeks back one small mountain town caught a man stealing a radio and BURNED HIM ALIVE - the whole town blocking the regular policia national.
• Anyone that travels to Quito should eat at La Boca del Lobo in La Zona Fuch (gringolandia). Simply amazing
• Received a shot list today for Havana and glanced at it oh so quickly. I did see trannies as well as several nightclubs and some jazz on the list. Still frantically finishing Ecuador while staying sane at the same time before mentally moving on
• The planes come in overhead on final approach for Runway 35, dangerously low and loud remembering that Military Beechcraft that crashed here a few weeks back. I actually saw the apartment building cordoned off up on the hill today next to www.tierradelvolcan.com 's office where it went in. Pity
• National elections are this Sunday. I've seen more candidates names for mayor in more towns than I could ever remember. I'd vote for Freddy in Atacames though... 'Freddy por Alcalde' (mayor) was all he wrote.
• Catching a 6:30AM bus to Otavalo, then Ibarra with a lunch stop at some hacienda and ending up late afternoon/early evening in El Angel, one of the best Ecological Reserves in the world. Chau!