Tad and I had been in Ecuador for two weeks when he nearly died. We had planned our around the world trip together for as long as we could remember, and it had very nearly ended with the thud of Tad’s hide onto the floor of a Quito courtyard, leaving a Tad-shaped hole in the roof several metres above him.
Hailing from Los Angeles California, Tad’s been a close mate since we met by chance on a family vacation to Hawaii when we were both 16. We hit it off quickly and found that we both wanted nothing more than get travelling as soon as we got the chance. Since meeting we have been back and forth travelling through the States and Australia, all the while planning the big trip in question.
The trip started with a relatively uneventful 6 weeks in New Zealand. Our second stop was Quito, Ecuador. With Tad’s fluency in Spanish and our first few weeks coinciding with Carnival (it’s not just Brazil that goes nuts around mid February) we were both enjoying the place and were pretty much into the travel groove by then.
The one thing we both struggling with, along with most travellers over there, was the bus rides. Taking a trip through mountain passes with a suicidal maniac behind the wheel of a bus riddled with bullet holes from the previous week’s hold up is enough to drive most to a drink. We did not resist this urge to steady our nerves with a beverage after a particularly harrowing overnight bus ride from the coast back to Quito.
Arriving back late afternoon we were offered a drink by a kindly Columbian pirate DVD salesman staying at our hostel (apparently not all Columbians find themselves trading the one particular class A item). So it was that we had a few shots of Columbian liquor that could only be described as a drink seriously missing a warning label and or disclaimer against any personal damage about to be inflicted.
With our Hostel sitting on the fringe of what was considered the ‘safe zone’ (or tourist ghetto) it wasn’t far then to enough clubs and bars to keep us occupied till the early hours.
The details of the later hours of the morning are sketchy, but the clear details remain that there was a fall from a decent height, three hours of concussed confusion and a bruised backside and shoulder that would remain problematic for months.
After piecing together the little memory and information we had the extended version is as follows. The story finds our hero heading back from the clubs around 3. 00am. With myself fast asleep in front of MTV on the hostel couch. Tad stumbled through the dorm out onto the balcony. It is worth noting that said balcony was three storeys above the neighbours’ place (which was bordered by a high lock out fence and razor wire). Looking for away to either amuse or relieve himself (we will never know) Tad decided to balance on the edge of the balcony, at which point he toppled over and free fell two storeys through a garage roof and then another storey into a very luckily unoccupied residence next door. We only know this as our mate the DVD guy had seen the whole thing go down.
While the DVD guy did check on Tad’s welfare, he told us that as Tad looked OK, he had decided to go back to sleep (A kind and caring man).
All Tad remembers was waking up not having a clue as to his whereabouts and realising that he was locked inside a strange courtyard. For three hours he searched for an exit (including through the house), only then to look up and see the hostel roof next door. He then eventually yelled up at the hostel for help and was rescued by our confused hotel owner.
They say incidents involving drugs and alcohol are your biggest risks overseas. I guess ‘they’ are right.
We always laugh about what would have happened if the neighbours had been home. A stray gringo crashing through their roof would have been unwelcome to say the least, and I cringe to think that they would have probably been armed.
It was one of many times that either he or I would have close shaves on that trip, but the only one that could really be put down to sheer drunken stupidity. The bruises lasted months but the story seems to have legs of its own.
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