They will have to kill me before I die 1/20

             One of the things I looked forward to on this trip was the interesting people I would meet and I would have to say the first one was Wayne. While in Ecuador we stayed in a province called El Oro, which literally translated means gold. The people in this part of Ecuador have been mining gold for centuries.

            Now Walter’s family asked us if we wanted to go see the mine. I thought to myself, why not? It will probably be interesting and we have one more day before we head for Peru and embark on a 20 hour bus ride to Lima. So, since they asked if we would like to go you, would think that they had access to it or, at least, new someone there. Think again. We get there and Walter’s uncle is convinced because we speak English, and the men who run the mine can speak English, that we can convince them to give us a tour. I don’t know what to make of it. However, this story is about Wayne.

           Now, Wayne is an Australian gold miner and one of the men overseeing the excavation of gold in El Oro. One look at Wayne and you get the impression that he is a tuff son of a gun with a vulgar, yet funny, sense of humor. Weighing around 210, by my estimation, he isn’t a muscular man per sé but one gets the impression that he has been in a few bar fights in his day and, even in his 66^th year, you still wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. A carelessly buttoned shirt and a wide open safety vest reveal the slightest portions of two large tattoos on his chest, rounding out the tuff guy look. The afternoon would prove that, at heart, he is still the same teenaged, hardnosed and adventurous Aussie that first got those tattoos.

           When he arrives at the mine we introduce ourselves and immediately strike up a conversation. His most interesting takes are on Islam and Ecuador. He believes Islam is a beautiful religion but has no sympathy for terrorists. He said, in his accent that seemed to make everything just a bit funnier, “I don’t even know why you would want 72 virgins they don’t know how to f*ck and they bleed all ova ya. I would much rather a slut who can f*ck.”

            When asked if he liked Ecuador he replied,

         “O I love it. One of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to, and cheap too. I can go out for lunch, with a 20 in my pocket, go have me a root at the whore house, some beers and food and still have change left in my pocket.” (Root, we confused for a prostitute, we were later told, by another Australian, is slang for sex).

            Although he seems crude there is more to Wayne then meets the eye. Although he didn’t have to, he was more than happy to give us a tour of the gold mine. The further in the mine I went the more I learned about him. The father of two young men who, worked with his father in the outback and, later, became successful in the mining industry. The man who went into retirement but could not bear the stagnate and mundane lifestyle so he took the position in Ecuador and decided he would never again fully stop doing what he loved. He summed up his life view by quoting Monte Python´s Yellow Beard, “You will have to kill me before I die.”

            Whether it is Wayne, a tough man, 66 years young, who doesn’t know what it is to slow down, Life (yes, that’s his real name) a man who got his computer science degree so he could work from the road, a better name has never been chosen for a person, or Danni a beautiful half white, quarter black and Indian girl, from Australia by way of Zimbabwe, who is traveling between college and her masters program, or Jeremy, a former marine who now works privately in Iraq and travels four months out of the year, or Leslie a retired Brit who, even at his age, stays at hostels with people less than half his age and seizes to be amazed at what can bring people together. All of them, I believe, have Wayne´s mentality, in that, they won´t let their lives pass them by.