Leo Horiscope for March 14th 2007

Today you will be a complete push over. If jewelry is thrust in your face, you will buy it like its the last jewelry on earth. If a taxi driver insists there is no other way but an expensive direct route to the border, you will blindly accept his offer. If a man in plain cloths tells you that he is working with "Ecuadorian Intelligence" as a border companion, you will let him walk you over the border, to the bus station, and then to a taxi station for the Ecuadorian immigration office...at which point he will, like everyone else today, demand that exorbitant amounts of money are completely ligate. And you, being tired and alone and understanding about a quarter of what´s going on around you, will again accept the offer. But when you´ve had enough, you just might deny the only legitimate truth teller all day.

My border crossing was kind of a mess. I mean, I´m alive, in one piece, with all of my belongs. But, yesterday was a day that made me question if I really am a seasoned traveler. Do I always just BELIEVE whatever newfangled story someone throws my way?

My determination to get the heck out of tourist-haven, bikini-mecca Mancora landed me as the first passenger in a "shared" taxi late in the afternoon. Immediately, the driver began insisting that I wouldn´t make the last bus from the border to my destination, Quito (the capital of Ecuador) if we waited around for more passengers. Ok, ok, I agreed to pay for the full taxi. Its less than $7 and I needed to make that bus. Throughout the trip, his stories continued until I was enough convinced that the only way I was going to get to Quito was if he drove me directly to the border, making special stop offs at the bank and the immigration offices, rather than having him simply drop me off in a nearby town where I would handle the rest on my own. Again I agreed to his proposition, but this this time it was significantly more costly.

At the first immagration office we picked up this alleged "Intelligence Officer" to accompany me over the border. Being that I can speak 6 weeks worth of Spanish, I was pretty much under the impression that it was standard border crossing protocol to have this "officer" walk you over. With great embarrassment, I admit now that I was most certainly duped. That dude worked for the intelligence office as much as you or I. He did, however, walk me safely to the bus station, all the while telling me about all the drugs he can get from Columbia.

At the station two notable things happened...

One, I realized I had been lied to yet again by the taxi driver. Many more buses departed later into the night. An expensive, direct, personal taxi ride certainly lined the drivers pockets, but was not necessary for me to "make the final bus".

Two, just as I was boarding, I was frantically approached by an Austrian man who explained to me in broken English that he had been robbed (pointing out a sizable lump on his head) and needed my help in getting to Quito. By this time, I was slowly putting together all the myriad of ways I had been "gringoed" and was feeling exhausted with other people demands about the way things have got to be. The bus was literally pulling away. In one ear the staff were yelling for me to get in "Nina, Nina Vamos!" in the other, the alleged (I don´t trust anyone at this point) Austrian is shouting that he is helpless and moneyless. To make a long story not quite as long, if you happen to encounter a wandering Austrian out there somewhere who looks like he´s been hit over the head with a frying pan, be sure to tell him I´m terribly sorry. I just wasn´t in any emotional position to hand another bill into the mouth of someone´s demands. Sorry Mr. Austrian, I hope you found your embassy.

All said and done, I woke up with my arms tucked away inside my t-shirt, on a frigged bus that was rolling safely into Quito, which is, to my surprise, a gorgeous city perched amongst luscious foliage, in the Andes.