The day I lost EVERYTHING

I put my pack with everything, and yes, I mean everything (my camera, my debit card, all my money, my passport and all my documents) underneath the Sur Oriente bus I was to take 30 minutes up the mountain to an empty bus stop where I and a Belguim guy named Olivier were to hike up to Tina´s farm.

Shay and I had decided to split up. She was going on to Cuenca, I was going to work on the farm for a week. We said goodbye to each other, she had tears in her eyes and a bad feeling in her stomach. Then I got on the bus with only the clothes on my back, $5 in my pocket and my drivers license. I sat down on the right side of the bus, the side which my pack was on, but when Olivier asked me if he stunk because I didn´t sit next to him, I switched seats to the left side where I couldn´t look out the window and see my bag. He assured me not to worry.

So we rode and talked. Some time along the trip, I absently noticed the ayudante (bus helper who loaded my pack) was gone, no longer on the bus.

We got off in Tumianama and I immediatly saw Tina, with her broken foot, sitting on a white horse waiting for the other WWOOFer girl on the bus. I had to get back on the bus to tell the driver to unlock the bag storage. He mumbled something and slowly got off the bus with is head hung low. Olivier pulled off the WWOOFer girl´s pack, then his and stood up. Mine was not there.

"Donde esta mi maleta?"
My head spun.

Tina caught on to what was happening and she started talking/yelling at the bus driver. I started crying with my hands over my head in disbelief. I kept hearing Tina say, "Es toda su vida. Tiene nada ahora." ohhhh....

The bus driver told her that the door holding our packs had opened along the road and only my bag had fallen out. He said the ayudante had gotten out to run back and look it. I didn´t believe him. I knew my bag was stolen.

"Don Francisco, my neighbor, is putting on his shoes and getting his truck. He´s going to drive you back along the road to look for the ayudante and your bag," Tina explained. "Sylvia is telling her mother-in-law to look after her children and she will come with you too. I would come, but my foot is broken." Claro.

"I will come too," Olivier, the saint, said, rubbing my back in attempt to comfort me.

So we got in the truck and drove back the way we had just come, my body shaking, tears coming and going down my cheeks. We got to the bottom of the hill with no sign of either my bag or the ayudante. Sylvia started telling me that we should turn around and stay at her house for the night and wait for the bus to down in the morning and then find the bag. All I wanted was to go back to familiar Vilcabamba where Shay and Gavin and other friends I had made there were. Sylvia was nearly yelling at me trying to explain why it was better to go back up the mountain. My head was spinning trying to comprehend her spanish, trying to decide what was best, trying to pull myself together, trying to remain calm.

"No. Necessito ir a Vilcabamba."

We drove to the only place I knew to go, el Jardin Escondido, the hostel I had just checked out of. I immediatly saw Gavin standing in the street and nearly leapt from the moving truck. I explained what had happened with tears going everywhere. He went to police who where having dinner on the corner and told them what had happened.

"Why did you put everything in your one basket, Libby?" Gavin asked.
"I don´t knowwww..." I wailed.

I went with the police to the station down the street. They got their semi-automatic weapons out of the closet, I gulped, and then we got in their truck. We drove back up the mountain. Olivier tried to comfort me. He told me he would loan me money. He told me I could buy some new clothes. I told him how defeated I felt and how I might go home now. He gave me his jacket to wear.

Suprisingly, we found the bus driver and his bus. The police and him mumbled quietly together, hands in their pockets. I strained to hear and understand what was going on . Noone but Olivier and I were anxious. The police cooly stood aside and smoked their cigarrettes allowing the driver to make phone calls to who knows who. I was sure I was being duped.

Then, up drives another Sur Oriente bus and the ayudante hops off. I tried to get the police to search that bus, but they all dismissed this idea. By this time my tears had turned to rage. I was furious at these indolent bus drivers that kept their arms crossed and their eyes straight on the ground and at the cops who seemed to be doing absolutely nothing but mediating, which where I come from, isn´t their only job. We all stood around, for what seemed like eternity. I wandered to and from every mumbled conversation, uneasy and distrustful of everyone around me.

Eventually, after many ignored "Vamos"´s, we set off down the same road, again, to stop at the houses along the road and question everyone about my missing pack. All six of us, the two police men, Olivier and I, and the two bus drivers, crammed into the police´s king cab truck. We stopped at random houses, I hung my head out the window and searched for signs of my bag in the ditches. After many uneventful stops and promised rewards to whoever found the bag, we made it back to Vilcabamba. We stopped at one last house where the owner of a dump truck, that had apparently been driving near where the bag had fallen off, lived. I don´t know how the bus drivers suddenly knew where this had happened, they hadn´t before. This man again, knew nothing.

We went back to police station and one of the police men told me to converse with the driver and "come to an agreement." I had no idea what that meant.

I told them the value of my pack and everything in it was about $1, 500. I had no idea, but knew a high number would scare the drivers because they or the bus company (most likely the drivers) would have to reimburse me for it. About this time, Shay walked in and my tears instantly returned. By the look on her face I knew Gavin had found her and she knew what had happened. Marcos, one of the owners of el Jardin Escondido was right behind her. He jumped into the situation as only a truly fiesty Mexicano can, pointing fingers and standing face-to-face with everyone.

A couple of minutes later, a huge group of people had gathered in the station. All eyes were on me sitting crumpled in the corner. My spanish was defeated, I wasn´t even trying to understand what was happening by this point. All I knew was everything I had was gone. Everything. Se fué.

Marcos stood up and returned telling me that the local radio station had mentioned my missing bag on the radio and that had resulted in a "tip." So the police left again, leaving me behind this time. Shay brought me some yogurt and Doritos and a half-drank bottle of Rum she and Gavin had been drinking while they waited for me to return. After about 30 minutes, the police came back with my pack in hand.

Everything was there. It looked like it hadn´t even been opened. Even my camera, which was on top, easily accessible, was crushed, but still there. The group gathered at the station turned out to be the bus driver´s family who had driven from Loja to help look for the bag. Somebody started passing around a bottle of whiskey. I started passing around my thanks to everyone there.

It was incredible how this little town all came together and helped me. I felt like an idiot gringa who had put all her eggs in one basket and lost the basket. I didn´t ever think I would see my pack again. I am really really lucky.