The big red block letters stenciled on
the walls on both sides of the road, spaced at intervals of about 50
feet said, “NO TOURIST ZONE, HIGH DANGER FOR ROBBERY, TURN BACK
NOW.”
I wasn't looking at the signs. I was
staring at my feet, picking my way gingerly up the El Panecillo hill
in Quito, Ecuador. Two-thirds of the way up the hill, and
tantalizingly close to the statue on top, some construction workers
stopped me. They gestured at each stencil, grunting with disgust to
drive the point home. They warned me of “ladrones” and when they
saw my slack face, they made a sneaky stealing motion with their
hands, curling their fingers in a sweep, pinky first - “thieves.”
Sighing, shoulders slumped, I took a last look toward my aborted
destination, and slowly turned around to descend the hill I had just
climbed.
I had ignored other signs too, before
the red stencils. I exited the central church plaza in Colonial Quito
on my way to El Panecillo and instantly felt very alone. The crowds
of tourists and street vendors were close, but knew to respect the
line I had just crossed. I think my little inner voice barked
something, but I kept walking.
Two blocks farther a small police
pickup was parked sideways across the road, blocking my path. I
looked at the man inside the truck waiting for him to tell me to stop
or turn around or go away. He didn't move, so I walked around his
truck. Heck's wrong with that guy?
One block farther, at the base of the
hill, a line of about twenty people stood looking up toward the
statue. Officers and civilians stood mixed near a dark blue van. I
didn't see what they were looking at, so I excused myself and
squeezed between two people to continue on my journey. What's up with
these people?
After the construction workers turned
me around, I understood what everyone else already knew. Police in
flack jackets and helmets, with assault rifles held at the ready,
came bursting out of a building I had just passed and into the narrow
alley with the red stencils. They had two men in tow, arrested. The
police tucked the men into the blue van – turns out it was a paddy
wagon – and drove away. I took pictures.
The newspaper the next day said
something about an arrest in Quito of arms smugglers from Colombia. I
scanned the pictures for my own face in the background, but couldn't
find it. Quito is a big city. Maybe that was a different arrest.
In any case, I learned my lesson.
Broken of my dangerous overconfidence, I walked around La Paz,
Bolivia expecting to be robbed at any moment. I kept one hand in my
left front pocket, on my wallet, and the other on my camera, slung
around my neck. I stayed alert. I glanced backwards randomly to see
if I was being followed.
That's why I was a little suspicious
when Fernando first approached me in the San Francisco Church Plaza
in La Paz. I had been resisting the sales efforts of a man with a
fossil for over ten minutes.
“I have no more money to spend. No,
thanks. I already have one. Yes, it's bigger and better. No, I don't
want another one. Nope. No. No, thank you. Yes, I'm sure. Sorry. No.
No, thank you. I don't have any more cash. No.” I asked him if he
was a Christian, and found myself surprised that I had asked. I'm not
usually so bold or direct in the US, but combined with limited
language skills and nothing to loose, I thought I would ask the
question. He said that he was, but kept redirecting the conversation
back to his fossil. When he saw that I would not yield, he moved on
to better prospects.
It was then that Fernando sidled over.
He and I talked (in Spanish, mind you, so I use this word loosely)
long enough for my buns to go numb on the cement step in front of the
church. We talked about our families, our jobs – he was a magazine
salesman from Lima with five stores in the region (only 29 years old)
– politics, health, God, why I was visiting, where I was from, etc.
He said that yes, he was a
Christian, and showed me his Bible from within his duffel bag.
I
have only ever been burned in foreign countries by taxi drivers, so
you'd think a magazine salesman would be safe from my cynicism, and
one who claimed to be a Christian at that, but I still suspected
ulterior motives when Fernando suggested we go for coffee. “Here
comes the sob story. He's going to want me to buy him dinner. And
what else?”
Sure
enough, as we walked, he said he didn't actually like coffee and
maybe we could get dinner instead. I ordered some spicy quinoa balls,
which were among the least expensive items on the menu – more like
an appetizer – but still very tasty. Fernando ordered a full meal
and I smiled and kept my thoughts to myself. Our conversation really
was quite pleasant, and he was very patient with my elementary
Spanish. The check came and I reached for my wallet. I gave myself a
pep talk: “It's not going to break the bank. This is Bolivia we're
talking about.”
Then
Fernando surprised me. He insisted that he pay for the dinner. He
said the conversation was so interesting, and he invited me, so of
course he would pay. So I smiled again and felt very sheepish. I had
misjudged my new friend and been pleasantly surprised.
It
would not be the last time in Bolivia that I was blessed by the
locals, and each time better than the last, at one point to the tune
of hundreds of dollars.
But
those are stories for my next posts.
(I
am in the airport in Miami as I type this, moments from boarding my
plane to South America. I am moving to Bolivia today!)
