Jeff and Marguerite's Big Adventure

-OR-

!Derrumbe!

It started out innocently enough. Our host family wanted us to see a church in a nearby town they are proud of.   Since we would be driving to church, I dressed accordingly; nice shirt and pants, dress shoes that I had not worn in Ecuador yet, no hat.


As we approached the town of El Quinche, there was a roadblock. There had been a derrumbe, or landslide earlier that week. Without knowing how far we needed to walk, it was decided we would walk to the improptu bus stop that had been set up on the far side. It was deemed safe to walk, but not to drive with the heavy equipment that was working to restore the hillsides on the side of the road. It turns out the walk was nearly a mile. A reminder that I had had physical therapy for my Achilles tendon as recently as Friday.

So, we did the walk, loaded the buses, and soon reached a stop around three blocks from the iglesia. We had to run the gauntlet of street vendors trying to sell us everything imaginable. The decibel count runs anywhere from 15 to 30. That's before the church bells start to ring.

So we finished the gauntlet. The money changers weren't inside the temple, but they definitely surrounded it.

Shortly before 10:00, we started to file into the huge main sanctuary. As we neared the front of the crowd, it was announced that this mass would be held outside. So we all turned right, and tried to crowd through a narrow passage and a narrower door. The courtesy level was about the same as at a bus station.  I originally had my hands in my pockets touching my valuables; wallet; phone, and the smallest of our cameras.  Because my elbows were hitting people in the head, I took them out.

It was apparently here, in sight of the altar and the statue of the Virgen de El Quinche, that my pocket was picked, and my wallet was stolen.

There are several precautions I usually take when I go out.  Since we were supposed to be driving, and going to church, if I had thought about them, I would not have thought they would be necessary.  That's why my wallet had a lot more in it than it usually does.

The first photo shows the route we had to walk. You can see the hillside they are trying to reconstruct on the left. The lady in purple facing the camera is the mother of our host family.

The second picture shows the iglesia, and a statue in the park in front. I know you've seen a lot of these pictures, but this is a big part of Ecuadorian life and culture.

The third picture shows the altar.

The final picture is yet another view of the mountains I never tire of seeing. It is carefully cropped to exclude all of the things you have seen before that I have to look past.