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Banos is a small town in the middle of the highlands, bordered by rivers flowing through the canyons on the northern side, and forest covered mountains on the southern side of town.
Kim and I went horseriding along one of the canyons - the views were beautiful, but it was a shame that it was such a wet day. Our horses were also particularly lazy and it took a lot of effort to get them to advance to a gallop - still it was very enjoyable.
Unfortunately the day went downhill from there. We took a bus to Quito that afternoon. The driver and Martin had cautioned us against potential theft on the bus, and advised us to not leave anything on the top rack of the bus. I had a window seat, and I kept my daypack by my feet, my leg wedging the bag against the wall of the bus. About halfway through the 3.5 hour journey, I was aware of 3 suspicious looking men boarding the bus - the reason I noticed them was that they were eyeing both sides of the upper racks as they walked down the bus. I felt secure enough with the daypack by my feet. How wrong I was! Soon after the lads disembarked (just before we got into the Quito city limits), Angelica related her story of how she managed to stop the lads from stealing her bag. She had left a couple of her bags on the upper rack across the aisle from her - Angelica was sitting one row back, but on the opposite side of the aisle. She saw when 1 of the lads picked up her bag and dropped it in the lap of the girl sitting behind me - Angelica pounced on her bag at once, and said "That's mine!!!" The lad was all apologetic to the other girl, saying "Oh I am sorry - I thought that was yours." As soon as Angelica finished her story, I thought I would check on my bag - as soon as I picked it up, I could see that my daypack had been slashed through - it was obviously done from the seat behind me. It was a crowded bus, and the 3 lads had stood very closely together, blocking Angelica's view across the aisle to where their girl accomplice was seated. She must have crawled onto the floor and stretched underneath my seat to cut through 4 layers of material in my daypack, and stolen my money belt, which contained my passport, green card, credit cards, travellers' cheques and cash. It is so very infuriating!! Thankfully I had kept hold of my ATM card in my pocket, so I can still at least access cash. These folks are professionals and were obviously on the bus for just this one reason. I noticed them getting off the bus just before 5pm - I was watching to ensure they did not leave with one of my shopping bags on the top rack. When I called the banks to report on the stolen credit cards, I found out that they had already made a $3,000 computer purchase on one of my cards at 5:03pm. When they tried to make 2 separate purchases of $4,000 and $2,000 on my other card at the same store, Visa logged these as suspicious transactions and attempted to contact me, and failing that, they rejected the purchases.
I found out that there was no Malaysian embassy in Ecuador, the closest one being in Santiago - but they had closed for the day by the time I called. So had the police station, when I went down to make a police report - and it was only 7pm. My sister, Angie, talked to the Malaysian Ministry of Affairs, and was advised that the Santiago embassy would probably need to issue me with an emergency travel document to travel back to Malaysia to apply for a new passport. Without a passport, I would not be able to enter Colombia and Venezuela, and I would have to curtail my trip in Ecuador. I had decided earlier to forfeit the Amazon jungle tour so I could sort out my passport. James however convinced me to enjoy what was left of my trip in Ecuador, and to proceed with my Amazon jungle trip the next morning, whilst he called around to the Embassies and the airlines to book my ticket back to KL.
I am really disappointed that I will not be completing the journey, but at the same time, I consider myself lucky. It could have been a lot worse, and could have happened at the start of my holiday. Instead, I am only missing out on the last 2 weeks, and have at least completed the key highlights of my trip; I was not hurt (given how sharp the knife was, it may not have been good if I had found them out and confronted them with the incident), and I still have my ATM card, so I am not completely at a loss. Plus, I am now really looking forward to spending Christmas with my folks back in Malaysia, and James may join us there. So it has all worked out rather well actually.......
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