Thursday, April 6, 2006

We had to flee from Quito in terror. Well, I was fleeing. Michael refused to be ruffled. It was all my fault anyway, so I guess it's only fair that I was the only one terrified.

On our last morning of guaranteed hot water, we decided to shower. I haven't showered every day here just because it's been so hard to get into the bathroom, what with everyone else showering all the time... and covering the floor with water, which doesn't make sense because there is actually a tub and shower curtain unlike some bathrooms, but that's another story.

Michael went first. Then I went. Just as I was getting down to business, there was a knock on the door. "Yes?" I called out. I didn't hear a response. Knowing the shower is audible from outside the door, I thought it must be important for someone to interrupt, so I shut off the water and called out again. Nothing. Somewhat irritated, I put the water back on. It took me a good few minutes to readjust it so I wasn't either freezing or scalding.

Five minutes later, the knock came again. Well, I wasn't turning off the water this time, but I did lean out of the shower. "Yes?"

"Mumblemumblemumble."

"What?"

"Mumblemumblemumble."

How annoying, I thought. Never mind. I finished up, dried off, and left the bathroom wrapped in my sarong, with my hair froed out and dripping from the shower. There was a guy sitting on the steps. Glaring at me. The knocker, I assumed.

I went into our room and told Michael all about it. Looking at the clock I saw that I'd been in the bathroom for nineteen minutes, including tooth brushing and toilet using. That's no military shower I know, but it's not long enough to start up with the knocking. And it's 10:30 in the morning - which in my mind is a more acceptable time to take a few minutes longer. Plus when you think about it, the guy had knocked at ten minutes and at fifteen minutes, and even if you think twenty minutes is a long time, ten is not. And if you're that desperate to shower on your own schedule, pay the extra two dollars for a room with a bath. Plus, I would have taken less time if I hadn't had to readjust the water after I turned it off because of his knocking.

"You're right," Michael soothed. But the more I thought about it, the madder I got. And I formed a plan. A dumb, childish, passive-agressive plan, but that's me when I get mad. "Shoot," I said to Michael, "I'm going to go knock on the door while he's showering and see how he likes it." I could tell Michael didn't think much of this plan, but he didn't try to stop me. "I mean, how dare he?" I said. "I have just as much right to the shower as he does."

"Just wait till I get dressed," he said.

So I got dressed, and he got dressed and then I crept down the hall to the bathroom. The shower was running. I raised my fist to knock.

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!!

The shower cut off immediately. I ran back to the room to find Michael pale and still ducking in terror. "What did you do?" he asked, shocked. "I thought you were just going to knock!"

I was just going to knock. But it was supposed to come out annoying, not psycho. After that I felt 1) scared and 2) dumb. But mostly scared. He'd have to know it was me, but did he know which room I was in? And would he come after us, soap splattered and enraged? My heart was pounding and I cringed every time I heard a door or footsteps.

I tried to get Michael to agree to take our packs with us to lunch instead of leaving them at the hostel to be retrieved later. But he refused. "You should just confront people," he said. "You could easy tear them to pieces verbally." Yes, well.

Outside in the street I was almost sure I saw him. I hadn't gotten too good of a look at him on the stairs because I was hurrying to get my half-naked self to my room. But I'd described him to Michael as "Pauly Shore-looking" and surely that guy was the one. He was just loitering on the sidewalk, doing nothing. "That guy? The one who looks like Michael Bolton?" Michael asked.

"Stop looking at him, he'll see us! And he doesn't look like Michael Bolton, he looks like Pauly Shore."
We had lunch at Mama Clorinda's. I had the locro de queso, an Ecuadorian potato soup with cheese and avocado. And all the while I could see him from the window, just hanging around in his orange t-shirt, looking vaguely revengeful. And then later he was in the Internet cafe, "using the phone" while we checked our e-mail one last time. All I wanted was to get out of Quito and away from this guy. I wished I had never knocked on that stupid door.

I felt much better after we had collected our packs and gotten into a taxi for the bus station. It costs $.10 for a vehicle to enter the bus station grounds, so the taxi driver let us off outside the gates. We should have just given him a dime, because it was a lot of work to find our way to the parts of the station that were meant for us. And it's not a terribly nice bus station. In fact, it's pretty icky. But we finally found our bus, helped along by the guy screaming "Baños, Baños, Baños!" at the top of his lungs.

I bought some sweet bread for the trip from one of twenty identical stalls, my stall choice based on the fact that the vendor looked nice. She was indeed nice. When I told her I didn't need a plastic bag to carry bread that was already in a plastic bag, she insisted, smiling. "Don't worry about the Earth," her smile said. "Take the bag. You deserve it. Besides, you know you save up these little bags in case you need to vomit on the bus."

We sat in the first seat behind the driver, the seat I'd rejected on the trip to Quito because of its lack of view. But I wasn't going to make the mistake I made then and get stepped on the whole way, and anyway this seat's window actually opened, which made a huge difference. And instead of the plain black wall, there was a large poster of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and above him La Dolorosa del Colegio, crying.

Inspired by my pan dulce in two bags, Michael decided to get himself a snack as well. He was out there somewhere when the bus started to move. A moment I'd been actively dreading - having to stop a bus. I leapt up and went around the driver's cabin and down the stairs to where he could see me. Some lady was in my way. What was she standing there for? Go sit down! Eventually I got around her. My Spanish failed me. My English failed me.

"Ah - wait - ahora? Mi novio -" I pointed out the door. The driver seemed to understand, or I hoped he did, and I jumped off the bus and started yelling for Michael. I hate calling attention to myself. Which is why I had childishly knocked on the bathroom door like that instead of just confronting that jerk like I should have. With his knocking and his glaring. Michael was buying something in the most astonishingly dawdling manner, but he finally finished and we ran to get back on the bus. "Gracias," we said. The driver smiled at us forgivingly and then we were off.

"Look," Michael said, "There's the guy!"

I froze and got ready to duck, but then I realized he was joking. Ha ha ha. All right, I won't do anything like that anymore. Another Valuable Lesson, ok?

It turned out Michael had bought some lemon wafers which were very tasty. Our bus joined a line of other busses and rolled slowly through the shouting, whistle-blowing, somehow orderly melee and out of the station, taking us safely away from Quito and that Pauly Shore-looking guy.

 

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El Trole, Quito.

Boarding the trolley, Quito.

Inside the trolley, Quito.

On the bus to Banos, Ecuador.

Volcan Tungurahua, view from the bus to Banos, Ecuador.