Hurray for the Good

Yesterday Sean and Duncan and I went for a bus ride to Old Town, late in the afternoon. We'd heard that some sort of special event was going on along the Malecon. Little did we imagine how special the event would be for us. The bus we were riding, an ATM, was one of the nice ones. We sat towards the back, with what sounded like a gaggle of girls behind us. The bus line didn't run all the way to the southern end of the Malecon as I'd expected it to, but instead pulled into the bus barn maybe 5 or 8 blocks before the beginning of the Malecon. The bus barn was 4 or 5 blocks back from the water front.

We launched off the bus and moving right along through the crowded streets made it to the Malecon which was crowded with locals, performing artists, a few pan handlers, interesting civic art, guys balancing huge rocks on top of other huge rocks, sand sculptures, religious decorations, street vendors, food vendors and lots of other stuff. The big cathedral was in the back ground, all lit up and decorated. The air smelled great, the temperature was in the mid-70s. We were enjoying our walk, soaking up the sights and sounds and sensations. Half an hour after we got there, a beautiful sunset was shaping up and we were maybe a quarter of a mile down the malecon.

Duncan suggested I take a picture of it. I said "Oh, crap! I left my (beautiful expensive digital) camera on the bus!" "Dad, are you sure you even had it?" "Yup. and it's gone, we'll never find it". Well, the boys urged me to be more optimistic and trusting so we set off at a high powered walking pace back to the bus barn, which was buried in the back of the neighborhood. Looking for landmarks, we went by the old man sitting on the sidewalk selling socks, the old blind beggar lady in native indian clothes, the Mexican pool hall, the super mercado, and were hustling down the sidewalk through the throngs of people out enjoying the Sunday evening and the events on the malecon.

All of a sudden we heard "Did you lose a camera?". Turning, we saw two pretty young twenty something girls, one Mexican and one Japanese. The Japanese one was speaking to us in English and seemed to be asking if we had lost a camera! We all started gabbling at once, but it turned out that they had been sitting behind us on the bus, we had bolted off the bus, they saw the camera and took it home with them, and that they were on the way to the super mercado to buy some milk and stuff for dinner. They had looked at all the pictures in the camera and had memorized the faces of the two young studs, Sean and Duncan so had been able to recognize them on the street.

We followed them back to their house, Sean and the Japanese girl talking English and Japanese, and the Mexican girl and Duncan and I exchanging a few friendly words. The Mexican girl teaches Spanish at a language school in PV. They took us upstairs into their second floor flat, where the mom of the house was cooking dinner. a nice spacious apartment, not rich but lots of room and everybody very friendly. they produced the camera, we chatted a bit, and then all left. While upstairs I offered them a chunky reward, which both girls refused. We walked back to the super mercado with them.

I was in a pleasantly shocked state the whole time. The coincidence of meeting them on the street and their honesty was really something. A minute or two either way on our walk back and we would have missed them. What a wonderful world!