Nice day trip, awful ending.

My friend Emily was in town this weekend to give herself a break from the Amazon, and so we hung out a bit. It was nice having her around and nice to go out and do something (I've been somewhat lame of late with no one around).

Saturday we headed north to Cotacachi, a small city north of Otavalo that's super famous for its leather goods. Besides the fact that for some reason it was a complete ghost town for the day (why? who knows, it's Ecuador), we had a nice time walking around and playing up being gringas. So we got some nifty leather goods and took silly pictures and caught a bus back to Quito.

After getting back to my apartment, we hung out with my family and whatnot. When I was headed to bed I thought "hey I want to look at our funny pictures again" and so my search for my camera began.

Needless to say, it was nowhere to be found. Also needless to say, I was freaking out for a solid hour. I don't think I got robbed because it was in my purse which had been closed since the bus ride and I don't care HOW good you are at robbing people, you can't unzip my purse that was in front of me, reach in, take my camera, and zip it back up without me noticing. No one was close enough to me for that to have happened.

What I think happened is that after the last time I put it back in my purse (on the bus home) I took out my water bottle once, and that must have knocked it out of my purse onto the floor (and with a ridiculous action movie blasting I couldn't hear it) and there I was thinking it was in my purse the whole time because after putting my bottle back I zipped my purse up and didn't open it again until I was home.

I feel ridiculous because I am SO ridiculously careful with my stuff all the time and an absurd and unpredictable accident like this leaves me without a camera. I've got exactly three months left, and plenty left to see and do, so I'm looking into new cameras that my friend Sarah can bring when she visits February 20-March 1. Am I upset? Very—it was a gift from my parent's for my 18th birthday. Frustrated? Very. Needing to move on and find a way of getting a new one cheaply? Yes, because it's no use stressing out about it because it's done.