By The Numbers

With only two days left in South America, I confess that my overwhelming emotion is fatigue. It has been accumulating with each trip, and it has finally overcome my enthusiasm for the adventure. Sarah left early this morning, and I am again staying at my Ecuatorian family´s house in Quito, choosing respite and reflection over any last thrilling activities that might drain the last of my energy and spirits. I have had my fill of adventure and novelty, and despite my ambivalence about leaving, I feel very much ready to return home to both comfort and meaningful work. It has been a beautiful trip. Here are some numbers I have been keeping or compiled recently.

151 hours of bus rides
66 hours of private Spanish lessons
3,400 dollars spent (includes airfare and lessons)
19 cities I have spent the night
26 different hostals
38 towns or cities I have stepped foot in
9 beaches visited (I swam in 6 of them)
14 waterfalls played in
10 modes of transportation taken (includes taxi varieties, e.g. motortaxi, rigshaws, chivas, etc.)
1 bottle of water stolen by monkeys
3 guinea pigs eaten
6 new extreme sports attempted (canyoning, surfing, swing jumping, sandboarding, rafting, ziplining)
1,700 pages of read literature
121 pages of travel notes
11 days in Peru
66 days in Ecuador

An unrelated anecdote:
It seems that everyday in Quito there is a protest. Today several thousand workers marched for Labor Day, protesting lack of rights and jobs. Marchers posted a sign everywhere saying, "Pais con despidos, Pueblo sin derechos" (Country with lay-offs, town/people without rights). They filled the streets of historic Quito, not just marching in a single direction, but filtering multiple ways and covering several blocks, like a flood moving downhill and filling all the outlets on the way.

Yesterday Sarah and I were riding the Trolé, one of three electric trolley lines that runs north-south (in an effort to combat traffic in a bottle-necked city), when all traffic stopped. They opened the doors after awhile so we could escape. Further up we discovered twenty to thirty high school students standing in front of the cars and trolleys on 10 de Agosto Avenenida. They were armed with small stones in each hands, but they were not menacing anyone, just standing and chatting, disallowing traffic to move forward to protest the rising costs of sugar and milk, a price influenced by the government . No cars honked. Nobody yelled or appeared angry with them. Pedestrians passed through as if not noticing, and everyone waited patiently. We sat by the curb and watched, wondering when something would happen. A vendor selling candied coconut sweets stopped to talk to us. She laughed and threw up her arms, "¿Donde está la policía?" (Where are the police?) The police were standing next to us, watching and casually chatting, waiting like everyone else. After twenty minutes, half the students left, and the force of traffic, like hot air trapped in a bottle, burst forward and past the remaning students. Someone later explained to me that that the police only intervene in serious, more threatening protests, to avoid violence for small disputes, especially with high schoolers. I liked this. It seems like a reasonable exchange, or lack thereof, resisting the trade of violence for the end of small disruptions. Every big city I went to in Ecuador commonly had protests, demanding rights, demanding better water, demanding the president step down (I always lingered at the fringes, it is illegal for foreigners to participate in political protests here). The indigenous are particurarly well-organized and protest often, since they are a group often disadvantaged despite their significant population percentage (approximately 35% I think). It makes me wonder if our American government had not killed nearly all of our Native American tribes, and in turn, if they constituded similar population numbers and political will, then what would American politics look like today? What do you think?

Thanks for reading (well, I hope you are still reading), and putting up with my lack of pictures and declining quality. Stay tuned for a final post, complete with final thoughts and pictures sometime in the next few days.