The Saga Continues

By Alex

We finally got a hold of Fernando, he had nothing but bad news. To his best knowledge and that of every other scheming middle man in all of Quito, there was no Cylinder Head in the whole city of two million people.

Alaena and I were not impressed. So far this guy had sold us a faulty vehicle under the pretense that the motor was rebuilt and would run for thousands of kilometers with no problems. At this point he was hardly apologetic that the bus had only made it 1500 kilometers.

We departed our Internet strong hold and set off carrying around our 60 pound piece of scrap medal.

We decided that it would be best to go to Marcelles, the mechanic we met a few weeks before who spoke English and seemed to be a nice guy. Getting there was no small task.

The bus system of Quito is horribly busy even at slow times you must push your way on and off. I was attempting this daunting task while struggling with my 60 pound bundle of pain. It would seem that people may notice you nearly falling over while smashing your way into the bus and make room for you, but they don’t.

As the lactic acid build up in my arms began to wear on my ambition we pulled into our stop. It was now only a few blocks to the mechanic shop. Alaena and I staggered down the street parting the sidewalk like we were carrying the plague.

As we began to tell Marcelles our story all he could say was, ¨wow, that’s bad luck¨. Fucking right bad luck I thought. We walked out and left Marcelles to the task of making some phone calls and trying to locate a part. Our expectations were low, but it was worth a shot.

Finding things in Ecuador is not simple, there are no yellow pages, the Internet does not list all the auto shops and if someone does not personally have the part they assume that it either does not exist or no one has it. On top of that Ecuadorians use every thing until it is no longer worth anything, a junk yard is unheard of. Finding a used part was not looking good.

Night buses are notoriously cold and it was becoming apparent we were likely leaving Quito that night. We set off to Old Town to get a blanket for the long ride.

With our newly acquired blanket and a small sense of accomplishment we detoured into a music shop to look for a guitar for Zach.

As I stood in the door I felt this middle age women push on my backpack. I looked back to see what her problem was and she just stood there looking at flutes. I thought nothing of it.

Out of nowhere a shit storm erupted.

The lady started screaming at us and pointing at my bag, you have shit on you; you have shit on you she cried. Confusion surged through the air and before we knew it we were in some ally and these people are yelling at us it’s the birds, it’s the birds.

I looked up, as this plump Ecuadorian lady who looks like anyone’s mom is wiping my back while screaming. I look over to Alaena who is just as baffled as me then it hits me. This is the shit game. There are no birds above us and these people are trying to rob us. It quickly becomes apparent to these would be thieves that we are not falling for their little game and they slowly sprint off.

Alaena and I look at each other and start laughing.

¨They tried to get me to put the bag down,¨ Alaena yells.

¨Fuck I know, we played the shit game and won, I can’t wait to tell Tor.¨ I proclaimed.

Meanwhile our backs are covered in some form of shit or fake shit, it’s still up to the jury and we are standing in an ally way just off the main strip. We decide that it’s probably best to get off the street and try to clean the shit off of us.

Upon further investigation it became apparent that Alaena got the brute of the dousing, she was covered from her back all the way down her legs. For being covered in feces she was in quite a positive mood.

A new pair of pants later, a little bit of food and a conscious eye for shit shysters, we cruised back to Marcelles´s in hope of good news.

It soon became apparent that not only had Quito shit on us but it was now spitting us out. As far as Marcelles could find the only place in all of Ecuador known to have our part was down on the Peruvian border 12 hours away.

I picked up my 60 pound bundle of scrap medal and we hailed a cab out of the city.