Rubbernecking, Ecua-style

This past Saturday was my last day in Quito. After an intense month of orientation and an amazing Italian farewell dinner at Cosa Nostra, we volunteers went our separate ways to start our journeys to our placement sites.

My travel plans involved taking a shared taxi from Quito to Ibarra Saturday afternoon. The taxi was to pick me up at my door, load my luggage, and take me on my way. Excellent news for my scrawny arms which were not looking forward to hauling my two fifty pound bags. 

Unfortunately, when the taxi company was given my address, I was informed that I lived “too far south of the city” and would need to find my own transportation to their taxi stand in downtown Quito. Seeing me saddled down with two large suitcases, a duffle bag, backpack, and guitar, my host brother, Daniel, kindly offered to drive me to Taxi Lagos.

Daniel assured me that the taxi stand was not far from our house and that we didn't need to leave until 1:40. Since I had absolutely no idea where we were going I saw no reason to argue. It wasn't until we were on the highway in bumper to bumper traffic that I began to question his timing.

He assured me that when he was on the highway that morning there hadn't been any traffic. He seemed to be just as bewildered as I was as to why on a Saturday afternoon we were stuck in what appeared to be the throes of rush hour.

We both immediately assumed that there had to have been an accident somewhere causing the holdup. However, we couldn't see any wreckage or hear the shrill wailing of sirens. We continued to creep along the highway when suddenly we began to see one…two…four, five…eight, then ten or more cars parked along the side of the highway with their flashers on.

“Si,” Daniel abruptly said. “Es un accidente.” I glanced sideways at him as, yes, the cars were all stopped on the side of the road but none of them appeared to be damaged and they certainly weren't close enough to suggest some kind of pileup.  I tried to peer further down the highway to see if I was missing something but aside from the line of parked cars, there was nothing to see.

The line of cars continued to grow in length as we drove further down the road. And that’s when I saw them. A mass of people standing along the right side of our lane peering down into a deep ravine. No one seemed to be doing anything except gawking at whoever or whatever lay at the bottom of the slope. Clearly, something terrible had happened and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to leave one’s car to find out just what it was.

Once we passed the group of bystanders (and their cars) the traffic immediately vanished and we were finally able to move our speedometer past 2 mph. I breathed a sigh of relief hoping that maybe I would still make my 2:15 taxi.

But, as luck would have it, our route took us in a loop around to the other side of the ravine where, again, we were met by another line of parked cars and another group of rubberneckers. I watched astonished as one woman who had just parked her car launched herself from her vehicle, grabbed her children and rushed to the edge of the scene. I looked around the melee half expecting vendors to materialize hawking popcorn and souvenirs.

I’m still not exactly sure who or what fell into the ravine (I could only see so much from my car window) but I couldn't believe the extent to which people here in Ecuador went to rubberneck. In the states we all moan and groan when traffic is backed up because everyone and their mother has to slow down to 25 mph to get a glimpse of who is inside of the ambulance. But we all (usually) remain in our cars and keep the wheels on our car moving.

In Ecuador, an accident is a obviously a perfectly valid excuse to park your car, grab your children and grandmother, and spend the next half hour or more watching the drama unfold.