Been Caught Stealing

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Ecuador, Feb - Ecuador

Relaxed and refreshed from the comforts of Cuenca and our time with Gary and Susie, Lindsey and I boarded an 8 hour bus ride headed to a single night in Loja, an Ecuadorian border town en route to Peru. We were completely unaware that the two guys sitting behind us on the bus were about to try and rob us.

We had read all about various South American scams, such as people in plazas spilling food on you and pickpocketing you while they try to clean you off, taking backpacks out of the luggage holds during the night, and the ploy these two guys wanted to execute. Their plan, with one guy on the aisle holding a newspaper wide open to block the view, was for the other to reach under our seat, unzip one of our backpacks, and take what he could (note, we’ve read this ploy is sometimes executed by slashing the backpack open, as opposed to just trying to unzip it).

Our habit on buses thus far had been to put our smaller day packs that contain our electronic devices and valuables in front of our feet, not even thinking in any way about the people sitting behind us. Speaking of habits, it’s also worth pointing out that a nun and a little girl were sitting immediately across the aisle from us during this whole incident.  Clearly these two thieves were not very religous.

Shortly into the ride, while leaving downtown Cuenca, Lindsey furiously jumped out of her seat in alarm, “What the F!@#?!?”.

“What happened?!” I asked.

Anger and emotion in her voice, “THERE WAS A HAND UNDER OUR SEAT TRYING TO OPEN OUR BAG!” Something had brushed Lindsey’s leg which when she looked down was a human hand attempting to unzip my backpack. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I knew I had to make the biggest scene I could, so I started yelling as loudly and angrily as I could at the guy behind us, in Spanish I might add, “WHY WAS YOUR HAND ON OUR SUITCASE (I may have been confusing the words suitcase and backpack in the heat of the moment, but he got the point). “WHY WAS YOUR HAND ON OUR SUITCASE?” He sunk back into his seat denying anything happened, as I just continued to repeat myself and make sure everyone on the bus knew what was going on. Side note here is that his buddy sitting next to him was quietly reading a newspaper and after the incident he moved to another seat and was completely out of the limelight, and we didn’t really connect him to the scheme until he was long gone.

Around this point, these super nice Argentinian backpacker girls started helping us, telling us to make sure nothing had been taken from the bag and that the bag hadn’t been slashed, which was a negative on both accounts. We were lucky enough to have caught the theif in the act, before anything was actually stolen.

The bus driver, having heard my yelling, stopped the bus. He arranged for a mom and two kids that were roughly 10 rows up to switch seats with us to move us away from the perpetrators. But it was clear he didn’t want to deal with the situation. The bus driver did try to interrogate the guy, but the perp, who was much bigger than the bus driver, starting yelling back at the bus driver, saying he hadn’t done anything, and after a couple minutes of words, the bus driver shrank back and just started driving again.

Things were just heating up though as an elderly good Samaritan sitting across the way from our new seats started laying into both the perp and the bus driver, that the driver needed to call the police, that he has a duty as a bus driver to make Cuenca a better city to live in and not let stuff like this and a guy like this off the hook. We were appreciative of his support, as we were both very emotionally flustered after all that had happened. It was at this point, the perp stormed up the seats and started yelling, almost violently, at the good Samaritan, in a manner that made it clear I needed to keep my mouth shut for the time being and that I needed to make sure he wasn’t going to try to come after me. Luckily, he said his piece and went back to his seat pretty quickly thereafter.

Our biggest concern at that point was that the guy needed to get off the bus ASAP. We didn’t want to encounter him at every rest stop, and eventually in Loja when we had all of our luggage and who knew whether he would get aggressive to demonstrate his asserted innocence. But these fears were short lived as the bus stopped near the edge of Cuenca. At first, we thought the bus had pulled over to wait for the police, but no, it was just a scheduled stop. The two perps (the thief and his newspaper buddy) got off the bus without a word from the driver.

To be honest, given that nothing had really been taken, the two of us didn’t really want to deal with the police, which would probably entail getting off of the bus and missing our hotel reservation for the possible arrest of the guy for a crime that likely wouldn’t stick. We were just happy the guy got off the bus.

We were both shaken up by the incident, the violation of our sense of safety and the averted, yet certainly potential violent reaction from the guy. After 4 months in South America, this was our first run in with criminals and we were aware of how lucky we were to have come out unharmed and with our belongings intact.  Needless to say, now on every bus ride, we are very aware of who is sitting behind us, and if there’s any discomfort, our bags hang out on our laps.

Highlights…

  • This post is also covering Loja, which, especially on a Sunday, is an extremely sleepy (we struggled to find a place open for dinner), yet quaint, border town. Our hotel was very odd and very vacant, with three floors of literally open rooms, most stocked with 5 or more beds, giving it an eery feel of an abandoned insane asylum. Notwithstanding, we were happy to be in a quiet place, and did our best to sleep off the day’s traumatic events.
  • We also spent a few hours walking around town once our bus arrived. We found an interesting castle-like fortress with a great view of town from the roof, as well as a narrow colonial alley with well-preserved balconies and colorful doors.

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