Estillo

So I´ve been here for a week and much has happened. I´ve yet to get sick, but we´ve already fought off a mugger, struggled to sleep on a night bus, and been reminded of just how little time means to most of the people here.

The muggin was pretty funny in retrospect. One dude approaches four of us and demands 5 bucks, which we honestly didn´t have. He proceeds to grab my camera which I toss to Hugo who starts to casually walk away. The suspect pursues, turning an early morning stoll on the beach into a life or death run. He grabs Hugo, we hit him. I smoke him with a nalgene, he backs off. To the guy: what the FUCK were you thinking? Four on one, really? really? I'm not huge on math, but the odds aren´t in your favor, homie. Next time crawl out of your hellhole a bit earlier when its dark out to take advantage of a single gringo. Not four. I do give him credit for running as hard as he did while maniaclly shrieking with laughter. That did manae to scare the shit out of me...at least more than his mugging skills.

We left the beach and got on one of the many busses we´ve gotten accustomed to taking. Three bucks for a seven hour ordeal. A headline in todays paper read, ¨459 killed in six months.¨ Car accidents here are pretty common and its no surprise. The bus drivers haul ass, passing eachother blindly on turns or going downhill, turing two lane roads into three, sometimes four, lanes. We have survived the most deadly streches of Ecuadorean road thus far. From Quito to Riobamba...which brings me to the last paragraph.

Riobamba is a quiet town during the week, known to most gringos as the starting point of the famed Nariz del Diablo train ride. In 1998 Dad and I had one of the best travelers experiences I´ve had to date. I won´t go into it all now, but it involved a local eavesdropper educated at Princeton who invited us, after riding together on the roof of the train, to his ginourmous hacienda. From there we ventured into the hills on horseback to a tiny village having its fiestas patrias (think block party in the andes, complete with agua de fuego and amateur bullfighting). Of course the strangers name has been lost to history. Only Reuben remains. Anyhow, we arrived late in Riobamba to rise early in order to catch the 7am train. I awoke at 5:30 for some breakfast and went to the station around 6 to buy tickets. The train was not in service and wont be for another week. It would have been nice for them to tell us that when we called yesterday :P Classic South American style. The guard at the station was unemotional. ¨It might be working on Monday,¨ he said. ¨Maybe not.¨ At least he was being honest? Hahaha

I will return to Nariz del Diablo to find Reuben. I plan on hopping off the train and hiking until I run into someone who knows of him. Considering he's a pretty big land owner, I am hopeful someone will be able to help me. If not I'll probably just get lost in the hills for a little while. Can't be thaaaaat bad...

Miss you all, thanks for reading :)

Sean

ps- pictures are gonna be hard to come by. I'm not a huge fan of internet cafes but I do feel bad. I think I´'ll try to upload some pictures of graffitti for me next entry. ¨Maybe not¨...