I could see exactly what the hired guns planned to do with me when they opened the rear hatch of the Jeep. Tied up, hooded and blindfolded as I was, they would ask me to stumble out onto the ground and kneel and then they would give me one final opportunity to confess before resting the hard, cold muzzle of the pistol on the back of my head. It would be the last thing I would ever feel. And all of this was going to happen in the country to which my heart belonged.
I have convinced myself, ever since I was a child, that I have an inextricable, ineffable connection to Ecuador, a tiny South American country of glaciers and jungles. During the two years I lived there as a young child, I did not have many profound insights into Andean culture or class struggle. I have manufactured my sense of “connection” by dredging up blurry images and disconnected memories, and then recycling them for more than they are probably worth.
It was a desire to rediscover this link-or at least to better convince myself of its existence-that led me back to Ecuador this summer (polishing up my Spanish was a secondary concern, of course). Part of this process was seeing the house I lived in 12 years ago, a sprawling hacienda surrounded by acres of immaculately tended gardens on a hillside in Quito.
At the front of the property sat a wall, just as I remembered it, 10-feet high with a thick, wooden drawbridge. I headed around back to a busy city street, and, in what amounted to a series of very suspicious-looking actions, I managed to take five photos of the old house.
In Latin America, the wealthy are often at risk of being kidnapped, ransomed or killed. It follows that they do not take kindly to unwelcome strangers and are even more adamant about their private property than most tax-paying, law-abiding Americans. Also, pictures are sometimes used to plan the siege of a house. Apparently, I fit the profile of someone who might lay siege to a house.
I stuffed the camera into its bag and looked up to see an overweight Ecuadorian man in a well-tailored gray suit charging across two lanes of oncoming traffic with an automatic pistol raised. He demanded that I hit the ground: ”?Al piso, Al piso!” I complied and slowly leveled my stomach to the sidewalk. The roughneck immediately seized my camera, placed a heavy foot on my back and shot a round into the air.
It is here that I would like to give some advice about traveling in a third-world country, which I failed to follow in Ecuador. First, always carry your passport. It is the only form of ID anyone will accept overseas. Mine was gone for the day at a notary, and I did not have my wallet.
Also, if you are going out of the city, it’s best to bring some fellow travelers along. I was alone. I was afraid. No one could corroborate my story. I was at the mercy of an armed group of what upper-class Ecuadorians tend to call “maleducados”-the uncultured, crude members of their society. They decided to justify their pay on my account.
Over the next two hours, a series of events unfolded that I have continued to relive in my mind ever since. Initially, I was interrogated in the back of a Jeep by a group of men who turned out to be the homeowner’s bodyguards. The men asked over and over, for 45 minutes: “Why are you here? Who sent you?” I was told to remove my t-shirt and to blindfold myself with it, which my shaky hands prevented me from doing alone. After giving me another chance to “confess,” a man jumped into the car, pushed three black wool hoods over my head and secured them with a blindfold.
I was forced into the trunk of the Jeep, and made to contort myself so that I would not be visible to any police that may have driven by as the guards made laps around town. They drilled me with the same questions, demanding that I break down and confess to the acts I was not committing: attempted kidnapping, illicit behavior and trespassing.
My captors opened the rear hatch and, though their only intent was to frighten me by adjusting the back seat, I believed they were going to wash their hands of me. The fear of death mixed with the certainty that it was coming made for a terrifying combination. My mouth was so dry it became hard to breathe.
Mercifully, they took me out of the car, still blindfolded, and led me to a dark, musty laundry room, where I was questioned again, this time by hooded men. Eventually, a well-built man with perfect English grammar and a barely noticeable Latin accent informed me that they had contacted my father back in the U.S. and verified my story. I was to be set free, but I would have to be blindfolded again and driven back home. My camera battery was taken-why, exactly, I am still not sure-and the pictures of the house erased.
Re-hooded, I was forced into the trunk of a small hatchback and driven to within a block and a half of my host family’s house. The drivers told me that they would follow me home and that I was not to attempt anything funny. Crammed into the dirty trunk of a tiny car, the ideal visions of the country of my heart were temporarily shattered. I was ordered, “Don’t look back; don’t fucking look back.” I did not look back.
