// This post references events in Episode 3.  You might want to check that out first. //

Every producer/cameraman/editor lives with three great fears, the first being that his bosses will ask him to add “blogger” to his title.  Even that’s not so bad as long as the producer/cameraman/editor/blogger doesn’t have to face that second, greater fear, and that’s that he’ll have to begin a post with the following sentence.

My heart broke when I realized that the camera had been stolen.

See?  This is already the worst post I’ve ever had to write.  My worst nightmare has always been losing a camera, which represents not only my livelihood but my very raison d’être.  I realize that many travelers have had cameras, wallets, or iPods stolen from them, but keeping our camera safe from would-be thieves is in my freaking job description. It may be the first sentence.  So when I grabbed hold of the camera bag and felt that it was light, the wave of remorse, stupidity, and the sense of failure that swept over me was surpassed only by the feeling that I had let down my friends.

That’s a rough feeling, even if my friends were more than forgiving.  In Quito, the cast accepted the situation and took great pains to work around it, going so far as to delay trips until we could film them.  Back in the States, the news was met only with a frantic race to find a replacement camera.  Jed, a guy who does so much for the show that we can’t even find an appropriate title for him, reminded me that I was up against some of the best thieves in the world, and that statement almost made me feel relieved.  Almost.  The guilt from that missing camera hung over me for the remainder of my time in Ecuador, and still does.  Our show is produced on a low budget, and that camera (or its replacement) was no small expense, so mathematically-speaking it would have been better for the show if I had been kidnapped and killed.  That’s how it felt, anyway.

Not that I sat around feeling sorry for myself.  Well, not after that first day.  I was determined to set things right by recovering the stolen 7D in some half-imagined plot that involved finding and ideally stabbing the guy who stole it.  In reality, I never had a chance.  That camera was probably on its way to Mexico City within hours of it leaving my side.  Even so, there is no reasoning with a cameraman who has lost his camera, so I put on my fedora* and set out to reclaim what had been taken from me.

Better times.

The most helpful person in my search was an American anthropology student and family friend named Anna whose research has brought her in close contact with Quito’s sex workers.  (She keeps a great blog here.)  Anna was privy to all sorts of secret markets and underworld dealers that I wasn’t, and she generously donated her time and expertise to my plight even though she knew just how unlikely it was.  Over lunch she relayed stories of Quito’s legendary crime scene, which ranged from thieves who only stole car radios if the door was unlocked to burglars who took everything including the apartment door.  She also mentioned a weekly market for stolen goods a few hours from Quito outside of a town called Latacunga.  I questioned her about it obsessively.  “Do you think it’s worth it for me to go there?” I asked.  She gave it some thought, and finally spoke  a sympathetic “No.”

I left for Latacunga before sunrise the next day, not because I doubted Anna’s wisdom but because I had nowhere else to look.  I found the expansive market located in one of the town’s out-of-the-way plazas, and was unsurprised to find myself the only foreigner present. As I toured the tables of repackaged iPods, second-hand camcorders, and the obligatory blanket of knock-off sunglasses, the unlikelihood of my fool’s errand sank in.  There was nothing here that even approached the value of my missing camera, and I was just some stupid, self-deluded kid in a dumb hat.  I tried to salvage the trip by tracking down a mysterious “camera lady” who wasn’t in the market this week, but was equally disappointed with the result.  Dejectedly, I ate a cheap lunch and boarded a bus back for home.

Writing “I had to accept that the camera was gone for good” is the last fear I hope to confront today.   I wish I could write of some silver lining to these events, like “I got to spend more time with the kids,” but the fact is that this whole ordeal fucking sucked.  Or maybe there is a silver lining, a reminder that attachment to inanimate objects causes suffering.  I probably could have learned that from a  stolen iPod, though.  In any case it all happened, and I learned something from it.  Don’t underestimate these guys.  They’ll even take your damn door.

//

*Yes, literally, but only because fedoras are cheap and practical in Ecuador, and not because I’m some detective story-obsessed nerd**.

**You be the judge.