Back-packs and Trout

Jan 25, 2011
Banos-Quito-Cuenca, Ecuador

Trout with mushroom sauce, white- water rafting, canoeing, bungee jumping, para-sailing, and hiking : Idaho and the highlands of Ecuador have alot in common! The hike and the trout were wonderful the day before yesterday! And I keep running into Idahoneans on the gringo trail. I met young man and former South Carolinian who is living in Eastern Idaho simply because Idaho was the one state in the Union where bungee jumping off bridges is legal. Idaho has finally made its mark nationally, not in mental health issues and legislation, not with livible wage issues or legislation ( It is a ´ Right to poverty state´) or in legal rights for domestic partners, but with bridge recreation!

You can imagine the conversations he might have with his girl-friends Mormon Deacon father.
´What do you do son?´ the stiff looking father intoned.
´I jump off bridges.´
´You say you repair bridges?´
´No... I jump off them. With a Bungy cord and harness.´ Very long pause.
´You don´t say.´ Another pause.´You go to church son?´
´No sir.´
´You better start.´ The Book of Mormon is passed, well actually pushed across the coffe table with a Coke ( Mormon owned) and cookies.

The bus ride to Quito was unevental but the scenery extraordinary! We skirted along the cragged snow-covered peaks to our right, perhaps Volcano Rucu Pichincha at 4700 meters, and lush highlands of Pine, Cedar and Eucalyptis in the lower elevations. The challenge of the day was landing at the south bus station, and having to gain the most northern part of the city by the airport without spending much money.
´´Nooo. No, muy caro!´´ ( No. Very expensive!) said the lady in the ticket booth about taking a taxi. She was kind enough to give me written and somewhat legible bus transfer notes. I boarded the Trolley ( Trole) , an Ecuadorian version of Bogotas' Transmelenio- tandem buses. Quitos' are both diesel and electric and PACKED with all Quitenos. And me with an enormous back-pack, and smaller carry-pack barely able to stand as the bus lurched forward, and to the side. The only foreigner in miles. I was the olive in the Ecuadorian cocktail barrel. People were tremendously kind, smiling, and generous with directions, perhaps expecting me to keel over at any moment, or get pick-pocketed. Finally found a seat, and the sweet lady with the adorable little boy to my left, fortuitously had the same first stop as me.

At the second and third transfers I had to stand, one hand grasping the rail-handle, the other my small camera and coin purse in my left pocket. A short Quiteno guy was smuuuushed up against my front, his back to me, two people were on either side, and someone up against the back-pack. I noticed that his envelope consistently seemed to be scratching my groin, and then I figured out it was not his envelope, but his pinky-finger. That same pinky-finger one sees raised with capachino cups, `tragos`de whiskey, and pan dulces. Very discretely. But repetitively. Scratching his lust ( or his ' cajero' bank pin number- who knows) upon my groin. Urban grafiti.
´Oh geez, what does he hope to achieve by this?´ I thought to myself. We were almost to the last stop and near the airport, and an internal debate was going on as to how I should react. Shove him with my knee, my only free appendage? But he had no room to move to with the compressed riders. Finally decided,
´B.F.D. Make his day!´Between my camera, my coin purse, and my groin, I was way more concerned about the camera and coin purse. ( Virginity having been lost decades ago) You would have thought I was bungee jumping off an Idaho bridge though, the way I shot out of the bus when the doors opened! Coin purse and camera in hand, and no obvious signs of slashed or cut packs or pants or missing items. Total expenditures including the taxi from the last stop to the airport: $2.65 U.S.
´´You go to church son?´´, asked the stern Mormon Elder.
´´ No, Buddha has me covered, thanks anyway.´´
´´ May I share the book of Mormon with you Son?´´
´´No, thanks, but I will have a cookie and a coke though.´´

Abrazos
Esteban