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.

Furenzu = Fun with Friends

Good food and good times with your friends is what Restaurant Furenzu is all about. If you're not familiar with the restaurant and their 'New Wave' Asian tapas, here's a review I wrote on Yelp. For those of you that haven't yet seen the news plastered across the media, the restaurant right across the street from me on Adeline at 39th here in Emeryville was robbed at gun point two night ago and most of the patrons as well as Cynthia and Simon had all their cash taken.
As a big fan of the restaurant and as an eye-witness to the crime - yep, I was there with no cash in my wallet - I want to publicly thank Simon the manager who took the brunt of the abuse but kept his cool throughout the entire ordeal, which seemed like an eternity even though it was probably not even five minutes.

After the gunman realized that there was not more than $40 in the cash box, he repeatedly told Simon that he was going to shoot him while his cowardly accomplice sheepishly went around collecting the all-too-ready cash in hand from the stunned patrons. Then the gunman took Simon into the kitchen with the gun pointed at his head shouting, "Nigga, I'm gonna fucking shoot you right now unless you give me the money!" Simon calmly answered again and again that there was no safe and no more money.

Returning into the dining room, the gunman made Simon lay down on the floor with the pistol pointed directly at the back of his head, repeating that he was going to shoot him and then the tow thugs left. Thanks again Simon for keeping calm while your life was at risk, setting the tone for the rest of us, letting us know that we were safe because of your cool-headed poker-like rock steady nerves. You the man!