Bus Ride from Baños to Quito, Ecuador

Diane: We took the bus from Baños to Quito. We arrived in the southern part of Quito a few hours later. Quito is a city of 1.8 million residents nestled between two mountain ranges. Due to potential winter landslides, the majority of development has been north and south in the valley. As a result, Quito is only 12 kms wide, but it stretches for 60 kms up and down the valley.

As the southern edges of Quito sprang up around us, I knew that it would be a while, before we actually arrived at the bus station. I was checking out some of the new construction outside, when something demanded my attention behind me. As I turned, I noticed that the man in the window seat directly behind TM was covering something that was the same color as TM’s laptop. I only saw a small triangular corner, but it sure looked like the bottom of the laptop.

The man noticed that I had seen him and practically jumped out of his seat, leaving the man next to him to get ready to leave. In a loud voice, I asked TM to check and see if the laptop was still in its case. As I did this, the man stood next to our seat waving his hands around and speaking loudly in Spanish that I could not understand. Tom immediately realized that there might be a problem and looked to TM for confirmation of the laptop’s whereabouts. Once they ascertained that the laptop was missing, I jumped up and started yelling “ladron, ladron”, which is Spanish for thief. Tom joined in and ran up to the front of the bus, but both of the men had just exited, each in different directions.

The bus came to a halt and the bus assistant left with TM and Tom in pursuit of the thief. I explained to the rest of the bus what I believed had happened. My agitation was so fierce that I could barely remember how to say anything in Spanish, so I mostly used gestures and body language combined with a bit of Spanish gibberish. The person directly behind the thief thought that he had seen a lot of activity and seemed to verify what I had said, but, again, the Spanish-speaking section of my brain was not functioning very well.

As we waited, I got nervous that the bus might take off, before Tom and TM came back. As it turns out this was a groundless fear, because the bus assistant had followed along with them wielding his small machete! Nobody on the bus seemed too upset about the delay. A man close to me asked about the daypack lying on the seats where the thieves had been sitting. I explained that it wasn’t ours. The bag didn’t look empty and I was certainly curious as to what might be in it, but I felt it was out of place to go pick it up. Luckily for us, the woman sitting in front of Calliope had no such qualms. She quietly walked over to the bag, opened it, and pulled out our computer!

At this point, I was exceptionally relieved, because the computer was a lifeline to many of our trip-related activities. The kids had their schoolwork stored on the computer. I had my daily journals. All the pictures we had taken were on there. Our e-mail and e-mailing list were stored there. All my secret passwords for my virtual life were located there. Most of the important items were backed up, but as is usually the case, not all the backups were up-to-date.

Tom came back to the bus first. As he was returning, the rest of the people on the bus said we should put the computer back in the bag and leave it as evidence. I wasn’t sure why as there didn’t appear to be any police around, although a mob had definitely formed around the bus along the sidewalk. When Tom came back aboard, I let him know that we had found the computer. Then TM came back on and the people asked Tom to go back outside to deal with the one thief whom they had apprehended.

I’m still a bit confused as to what happened outside, because I couldn’t really hear or see anything at the time. TM and Tom provided some snippets of the unfolding saga, but I could only put together a portion. When Tom and TM could not keep up with the thief, a helpful truck driver helped them run him down. He brought a small machete with him. As the thief tried to escape up a wall, the truck driver used the back of the machete to hit the thief’s hands. The bus assistant then “escorted” him back to the bus. There was some blood, but I could not determine if it was a serious wound. In the end, the crowd wanted to know what Tom wanted done to the thief. Tom wanted justice done and left the crowd to mete out justice as they saw fit. The bus continued on to the bus station.

How lucky we were that the thieves decided not to risk taking the laptop. The story surely would have had a sad ending for us rather than the thief. However, all of us were left with unresolved feelings about the event.

For example, initially I think we all wanted to blame TM for his lack of vigilance; he put the laptop bag on the floor and let someone unzip the bag and empty the contents. But, as it turns out, he did have his hand on the handles the whole time, in order to prevent a theft. From now on, the laptop travels on the lap - out of reach of any surrounding seats.

The mob that had gathered around the bus left both Calliope and I uneasy. Five days ago, we had seen the movie, “Cronicas”. The film was shot in Ecuador, by an Ecuadorian director, and it had received some acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was in Spanish and I didn’t understand much of the dialog, but there was one memorable scene that needed no translation. A man had accidentally run over a young boy with his car. The crowd gathered around the truck and pulled the driver out. Someone from the crowd provided gasoline or kerosene and someone else provided matches. The father of the now-dead child sprinkled the liquid liberally over the driver and tried to set him on fire several times. Due to the intervention of a foreign journalist and the local police captain, the crowd’s obvious intentions went unfulfilled. The driver being set ablaze by an angry mob was a haunting scene and fresh in our minds. Calliope and I were both very concerned for the well-being of the thief. Tom seemed to feel he would get what he deserved.

As if our emotions hadn’t been jarred enough, our hotel in Quito presented quite a contrast to our bus ride and to our surroundings in Quito. In addition to being luxurious, it was also very high security. A room key was needed to go anywhere in an elevator. If you tried to walk up or down the stairs, the only exit was on the ground floor outside on the street, and you had to reenter through the lobby through the front doors. We now had a personal understanding as to why these security precautions were desirable.