Formula for a Lost Tourist

Due to some severe complications with my ticket to the Galapagos, I had to make a pain-in-the ass trip to Quito to get it all squared away (which is a 6 hour bus ride). I am in the station waiting for my bus (which doesnt leave for three hours) to arrive, and decided I´d kill some time with an entry, because I am unfortunately addicted to the internet.


Despite having to leave at 3 in the morning to fix this crap, I have had a pretty adventurous day and its only noon. I am amazed at the friendliness of people here and have come up with a fool-proof formula for getting assistance when you need it:

Big Doe Eyes + Sweet High-Pitched Voice + "Muchas, Muchas Gracias" = Help (Big Breasts Optional)

Maybe a bit less creepy than this.

Now, you may think that you dont need all these things to get assistance. But I assure you, you do. I arrived to Quito at God-Knows-Where and had to ask several people to help me get aaaaalllll the way across town before I even knew that it WAS across town. With this free formula, everyone took great pity on me and walked me to the buses, waited with me so I would get the correct one, called me "mi amor" "mi hija" "mi niña" "dulce," etc. and saved me at least $15 in taxi fare (the whole trip costed $0.50 via the buses). For truly the first time, today I felt like I was really traveling and not some weak tourist dependent on the convenience of a taxi.

The taxi drivers here BLOW. They manipulate, rob, jip, rape, pillage, and burn. They´re a bunch o´ bullies, so much so that even Ecuadorians hate them, and they honk, and honk, and honk, and honk, and honk. I have literally been four inches away from being plowed down by one of them. I once saw an old man crossing the street when a taxi nearly hit him at a slow speed, and he balled up his hands with rage and bashed them forcefully on the trunk of the car. The taxi slowed down and looked angrily out his window but the glower of the old man was so intense the driver wisely moved on. Honestly, I was kind of hoping for a hoedown, but Ecuadorian crime is mostly nonviolent. GO VIEJO! 


And yeah, that´s the end of that.