In Libertad, near the TransEsmereldas bus station, I spotted 2 guys almost certainly scoping out people with backpacks to rob. They were in no way subtle. They tried to follow me from the moment my backpack and I stepped off the bus on the main drag of town, but were so immediately obvious that I easily outted them by walking erratically (slowing down, speeding up, suddenly busting sharp turns for storefronts but then swerving and continuing forward). Their attempts to move in tandem with me were visibly disrupted by this. I banked on the fact that they would not attempt anything on the main drag with tons of people around and when I came to the short side-street that TransEsmereldas was on, I made a high profile exit by marching through a corner bar that had 2 walls open to the street. They did not attempt to follow, but sat for a while at the bar, either because they wanted to see if I would ultimately continue on past the bus station, which would be into darkened untrafficked areas, or simply because they did not need to return to point of origin to scope out the next backpack.

         After buying my TransEsmereldas ticket, I came outside and watched the men for a while. Soon, one of them followed someone wearing a backpack into the darkened area beyond TransEsmereldas, but the person returned after a few seconds, I suspect after detecting the most blatant of followers. The man that remained sitting during this time motioned to the man now returning empty-handed from the darkened area, as if to say "What happened?" or "What are you doing?" I watched the backpacker continuing on through the heavily trafficked part of the main drag looking back over his shoulder at the men.

         Later, one of the men walked off for no apparent reason and the other came down my street and sat on the opposite side, directly across from me. There were a million people milling in front of the TransEsmereldas bus station, so just to rattle robber-boy's cage, I strolled out from the pack to make myself conspicuous and stood there blatantly staring at him. After a while of this, he threw up a gesture to me that seemed to say "to hell with you", which is a short-fused sentiment Ecuadorians are not known to express. Guilty.

         From the TransEsmereldas station, I headed directly to the Peace Corps office to take care of my end of the obligatory "mid-term medical tests". The nurse gave me a tuberculosis test and handed me a "stool sample kit". Peeking into my medical folder, she complimented my historical lack of Ecuador-induced health problems, thus jinxing me, and then sent me off. I headed directly downstairs to get online in the computer lab. I signed into my hotmail account and then walked across the room to kill two birds (retrieving something from my backpack/farting away from the other people present) with one stone. I don't recall if I ever found whatever I was looking for in my backpack because I became distracted. The heat from my fart was dispersing and leaving me with a curious wet sensation on my legs. I remember thinking "Hm, that's not right" and twisting myself around to have a look at the back of my pants, which I found streaked with wetness the entire length of the legs.

         Oh I suppose I instantly recognized what had happened, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, but the part of my mind that analyzes my surroundings and controls that wise-assed voice in my head, you know, the one that usually makes fun of everyone else, was simply not responding. After a moment, I heard the voice in my head come online and say "No WAY did that just happen. No WAY. I didn't even feel like I had to go to the bathroom. I feel perfectly fine, in fact. NO WAY that just happened." It continued its denial of events even as the rest of my brain was realizing that the bag in my hand contained a stack of clean clothes that I had brought to wear in Quito, including, among other handy items, clean pants.

         In an isolated bathroom far cross the Peace Corps office building, an autopsy of my pants found them to be filled with an unusual bright yellow liquid that possessed no smell. This was as foreboding as it was fascinating. I also felt my physical condition deteriorating rapidly so when my pants were changed, I grabbed a cab directly to a hotel, rather than Maria's house. By the time I arrived at the hotel, I was becoming very ill. Once inside my room, I fell asleep straight away.

         I woke up a few hours later with what felt like a full-blown flu. I was ¾ delirious and almost unable to rise from the bed. I forced myself, over the course of about 45 minutes, onto my feet. I then slowly left my room and went down the street to drop my pants off at the cleaners, then to send an email to the Peace Corps nurses and Ela, and then to make a call to Maria, who was still expecting me. I then gimped back to my room, where my condition deteriorated further. Violent chills set in. I woke up once in the night and found it impossible to roll away from an incredible pool of sweat I was lying in, the likes of which I have never before seen.

         The Arupo is the hostel where every Peace Corps volunteer visiting Quito will stay. For that reason, the Arupo has a strong chance of filling up with mindless, cliquey Peace Corps twits who will shriek, blow smoke up each other's asses and turn the place into a giant sorority, causing everything to suck. However, I remembered Matt Smith saying he was staying there and as I've said 1000 times before, if there is any substitution for cable TV in this life, it is Matt Smith.

         After checking into the Arupo, I walked down the street to call and cancel plans with Maria, as there was no way I was up for the task. I returned to the Arupo and climbed into bed, feeling very much worse than before. Eventually, there came a knock at the sliding wooden curtain-like door and it slid open to reveal one Matt Smith. This happened to be the room Matt Smith was staying in as well. As it turns out, Matt Smith is not only 'a damn fine substitution for cable', but it appears he is also the 'best medicine' as well. We sat up in our respective beds ripping wise cracks at the television and laughing our fool heads off until midnight. I was feeling much better by the time I went to sleep.

         Ela's plane snuck past me because I was watching for American Airlines and she arrived on LanChile. But a voice in my head told me to watch every person that passes by on the catwalk leading to customs because to not do so, just because I hadn't personally seen a plane from American Airlines landing, would be acting in overconfidence. There passed Ela unexpectedly in the LanChile crowd- a tragedy narrowly averted. We taxied to the Bus station and from there bussed to Baeza and then got a camionetta to take us and Ela's mass amounts of baggage right to her front door. Ela half unpacked and showed me some of the stuff she brought back with her. Our sick and/or travel weary butts didn't make it up past 8pm.