Ecuador is relatively tiny and is rarely a country occupying my mind. Before arriving here, I knew of one thing particular for Ecuador: the Equator. An invisible thin line dividing the south from the north. A line with neutral energy. But while leaving Ecuador, I am walking on my own fine line. The fine line of anger and desire.

During my last days in the Capitol of Ecuador, Quito, my temper has been tested several times. I have put myself in a situation I thought I could handle and overcome, but I guess the inevitable happened in the end. I really couldn’t handle it. But first, let me tell you about "Dave".

Dave is an 18 year old with a fast mouth. I must admit, that I probably have forgotten a lot about how it was being a 18 year old myself, but sometimes the 18 year old actually became a bit older. The 14 years difference between me and him were not always present - we managed to have some good conversations, but a lot of the time, the conversations were tough. Very tough. I met him a couple of months ago in Colombia and we have talked about meeting up later on our trips.

With an apparent need for annoying people, Dave several times revealed that he did not care what people thought of him or in fact he said he really didn’t care about other peoples opinion - at all. It was not as much his narcissistic view of life that started my personal countdown, it was more his comprehensive misbehavior when being around other people that triggered me. With the symptoms of ADD (attention deficit disorder) he always seem to have a compulsory control issue as well. Constantly saying things like "let us … !" instead of asking "do you want to … ?". Several times being very persistent and seemingly out of time when getting out the door, but often not thoughtful enough to hurry up himself if he got caught up. Constantly throwing things around inside, like burnt out matches, chewing gum paper, used tickets etc. and when asked to stop, he just replied "Why? There is a cleaning lady working here". Constantly being negative about everything and everyone. "Everything" should be different and "everyone" were stupid or idiots. And one of the worst things he did - when smoking inside in the TV room, instead of moving slightly to get the ashtray, he used the couch as one. Honestly, I haven’t talked to one person that think he is anything else than annoying but in fact, I had some good and funny times together with him. I guess I will meet him again. Hopefully I will not let him get to me in the same way. But hopefully, he has learned something from our conversations and don’t have the great need to annoy as much.

Looking back at the last days in Quito, the transvestite incident was a direct aftermath of some of the frustration of the Dave encounter. Even though the Dave character never pissed me off more than the time we actually were around each other in person, the very small episodes with constant harassment from the locals gets to me for longer time. Quito had several of these moments.

When stepping into the taxi 5 minutes after I arrived in Quito, I agreed with the cabdriver, that the price would be $3. I gave him the directions to the hostel and we drove off. I thought "this seems smooth". After his "misinterpretation" of the address I gave him, he suddenly wanted one dollar more. Even though a dollar is considered as change in my mind, it is still the principle that counts. The same thing almost happened as I were leaving Quito. After negotiation the price of $2,5 with the driver, he first drove a very different way than I would expect. Asking him about where we were going, he replied in a very insulted and somehow angry voice "well, you said the bus terminal, didn’t you?!". Being 100% sure that he was going to drive me to a very unsafe neighborhood and rob me properly, I sat back with clenched fists and getting my adrenaline pumping. Asking him repeatedly of why we where driving in a different direction and letting him know that I actually knew where I was going, I was a bit relieved when the bus terminal appeared in the horizon. But my relief took a quick ending as he stopped in the middle of a roundabout, killed the engine and wanted to get out of the car. "Hey … where are you going?", I asked. "It’s the terminal", he replied and pointed at a row of buses. "This is not the terminal", I said, "this is not the entrance of the terminal. This is in the middle of a roundabout". After some discussion, I realized that I was unable to get him to drive me to the entrance of the terminal. It wasn’t more than 3-400 meters away, but off course - I would have to pay more. He let me off outside the gates of the terminal and I had to cross a heavily trafficked road by foot. I really need to learn some angry phrases in Spanish. Annoyed, disappointed, slightly angry and baffled about the huge differences between The western and the southern world, I walked the few hundred meters to the terminal and got my ticket to the next dot on my map.