I've been violated! (finally)

The other day I embarked on the dreaded 10-hour bus ride from Quito to Cuenca. Here's the foreshadowing: Everywhere you look, and everyone you speak with will tell you to be careful because it is fairly common to have someone try to cut into your backpack and steal whatever they can.

Despite my extreme paranoia that generally keeps me safer than most (thank you New York!), a young guy tried to steal my camera during the ride. He was in the seat in front of me, after moving around a bit because I kept shifting my bags. I was being extra vigilent. But the guy climbed under his seat from in front of me, and reached all the way back and cut through the bottom of my bag, which was between my legs and only barely extending under his seat. I was certain no one from the front or the back could reach my bag, yet about an hour into the ride, I felt the almost anticipated slight shuffle at my feet and stood up and saw the guy crouched under his seat looking up at me. I shouted very loudly and he had quite a look of fear in his eyes. I kept shouting so everyone on the bus could hear very clearly, and when I looked, everyone was standing and looking over, putting the ball in my court. While holding him by the scruff of his t-shirt collar, I checked my bag and saw the camera body and the smaller lens missing so I demanded them and other passengers pulled them off the floor and offered them to me. Clearly my spanish lessons have not taken hold because the only word I could conjure was mas! when telling him to turn over the other pieces of my equipment. I shook him around a bit and made the bus stop and had him and his female partner kicked off the bus I-don't-know-where.

So in the end I lost two Nikon camera batteries ($30 each) and 5 rechargeable AAs. But you know what I'm most mad about?—and I'm really struggling with this— is that I didn't pummel him bloody. Keep in mind I am a guy, and I was raised in New York, where people start swinging at the slightest cross look from a stranger. Although I was aggressively shoving him around and shouting curses in my most aggressive voice, my only leftover emotion is disappointment in myself for not just totally beating him senseless—as he well deserved by any standard. Ok, any "guy" standard. Ok, ok, any "guy raised in NY" standard. I'm learning, through a few good testing opportunities throughout the years, that my aggressiveness only goes so far. I'm a little afraid of actually punching someone and although it sounds weird, even to myself, it bothers me. Not because it's good to punch people, because it's really not, but because if you're going to stand up for yourself in ways that genuinely keep you safe, you need to know you have the goods to back it up—hopefully never needing to use them. I dunno, that's my theory anyway.

So I haven't been kidnapped so things are good, although I think that's more of Mexico thing. (And wouldn't that suck: "Your family pays a ransom of 8 million or we kill you!" - Um, Sorry.. my family has about $250.76, will that do?)

But after being her for two days, I will say that I really like Cuanca. It's very colonial—every single street is cobble stone— but culturally urban at the same time. I actually watched an old gentleman impatiently tap his keys on the counter for service in a restuarant. To me, that's a good thing and something I would NEVER have expected to see anywhere in Central or South America. The people seem friendly, educated and relatively aware that it's 2009. I could stay here for a little while..