Lightning crackled across a dark grey sky, temporarily illuminating the faces of the twelve intrepid travelers sitting around the table in the Pucara community center. However, just outside the doors a crime of magnificent proportion was underway. Blissfully unaware of the larceny taking place outside, our jolly wayfarers drowned out the following clap of thunder with a raucous bout of laughter and other expressions of mirth. Half an hour passed and our merry band of migrants moseyed out from their meeting, preparing to head back to their host families’ abodes for dinner. Still jesting with one another our peckish band of bums proceed to collect and don their shoes, having left them outside the community center in order not to befoul it’s remarkably clean floors. Everyone was donning their customary footwear when Lucas, the blundering yet lovable giant of our group, noticed that one of the rowboats he customarily wears on his feet was missing. Frantically, we split up in to several search parties to comb the muddy earth for our comrade’s size 16 shoe. We searched high and low along the town center, making sure to ask a group of teenagers standing by the church whether they had seen a dog with this monstrosity called footwear in its mouth. They smiled at us and told us they hadn’t. Our search parties eventually congregated once more at the community center, bedraggled and unsuccessful while Lucas, standing on his left foot, prepared for the long hop home…and then there was one.
This past week our group ventured into the Intag region of Ecuador preparing for more home-stays and work with our contact Peter Shear on his organic farm. The town of Pucara, though so small it is neigh impossible to find on a map was big enough to provide a sufficient level of drama to our day to day lives. One event in particular proved remarkably electrifying for our group. A shoe robbery.
The second night of our stay in Pucara the events detailed above took place, and the great mystery of the shoe went underway. The morning after those events we once more convened to search the town for the missing shoe, or what was left of it. Unfortunately, no shoe was found. Meanwhile our lovable schlemiel Lucas was forced to continue farm work, hiking, and soccer either barefoot or in Chaco sandals.
Days passed and the search continued. We posted signs detailing information concerning the cobbler’s nightmare and a reward for its location. We talked to our families asking if they had seen the shoe. Furthermore, much to our own amusement, a police car even drove into town one day to investigate its possible whereabouts. Though none of our inquiries lead to the location of the shoe many stories turned up, each contradicting the other. Some people had seen Manchas, one of the beloved town dogs, running down the street with a shoe of such magnificent size and proportions that any dog could only dream of finding one its like clutched within her jaws. Others seemed to believe that some local boys had taken it, filled it with rocks and shoved it down a pipe. Even more held to the idea that a few teenagers had taken the shoe into the back of the church and shoved it into the sewer. One thing was for certain, the shoe was nowhere to be found.
The final day of our stay in Pucara was drawing to a close and we had all but given up on finding the shoe. We packed our bags, thanked the villagers for their generous hospitality, and fell asleep; waiting for the morning and the time of our departure to arrive. However, not everyone fell asleep quite so early that night. As the town slept our quiet vigilante, Peter Shear, began his Holmesian investigation.
The next morning Topher and Lindsay, the fearless(ish) leaders of our group, woke, talked to their family members and ran outside of their house, elation and disbelief filling them from head to toe. They burst through the door looked down and beheld Lucas’s shoe sitting sodden on the ground… and then there were two…again!
