I wake up, bleary and disoriented. It´s dark in David´s spare room. There is a dull, rumbling sound. The room is vibrating. I´m rocking gently from side to side.
´must be a train going past´ I think to myself, three-quarters still asleep.
At Bartosz´s place in London, every time a train went by on the underground, the house would rattle.
I´m not in London now though. I´m couch surfing at David´s apartment. In Quito. Ecuador.
It´s not just me that´s rocking from side to side, so is the bed.
´There aren´t any trains in Ecuador´ I mumble to myself as I roll over.
There aren´t any trains in Ecuador… Then what´s making the bed bounce around like this?

The bedroom door bursts open, and David flicks the light on.
´Quick amigo! Out of bed! There is an earthquake!´
I sit up, rubbing my eyes and stare at him stupidly.
´Seriously..?´
´Si, si! Vamos! We must go outside!´

I stumble into the living room, hopping from foot to foot, pants around my knees, trying to get them up to my waist without falling down. Pulling your pants on, half asleep, while the house you are in happily bounces around you is a real test of dexterity.
By the time I get my pants on and join David at the front door, the quake has stopped. We stand there, blinking at each other, and squinting into the dark street.
No buildings have collapsed. Car alarms are going off all up and down the street. Dogs bark crazily.
The mirror falls off the bathroom wall.

´Just a little one´ David breathes. ´I am sorry to scare you amigo, but last time this happened a month ago, it was a really bad one, so I am a bit nervous.´
´That´s OK´ I assure him. ´Í didn´t have time to be scared. I only just woke up now, after I got to the door here. I guess an earthquake isn´t something you want to sleep through. Thanks for waking me up. It´s my first one.´
´Well, you are in South America. Maybe it won´t be your last one.´

David opens google on his phone and reads the report. It´s barely two minutes since the tremors stopped, but the internet is full of quake news already.
´6.9 earthquake´ he reads aloud. ´We are lucky. The epicentre is on the coast. Same place as a month ago. Those poor bastards.´ He shakes his head in dismay. ´They are still rebuilding towns like Canoa after the last one. Thousands of people are still homeless.´

It´s three fifteen in the morning.
´OK, I´m going back to bed´ David says, yawning. ´I must go to work in a few hours. Sleep well amigo.´
He pats my arm reassuringly.
I realise that my face is looking a bit dismayed. It took a while for everything to sink in. 6.9 is a big earthquake. Just a week ago, I was sitting in my dorm room, trying to decide if I should go out to the coast, or up into the mountains to visit Baños. I decided to go to Baños. If I had elected instead, to head out to the coast, there is a good possibility I would have felt a lot more tonight than gentle rocking in bed, and had a lot bigger problems than struggling to get my pants on.

David shuffles back to his room. I go back into the guest room and slump down on the bed, shaking a bit myself now.
I´m wide awake, every bit of my earlier sleepiness gone.
By the time I finish posting an ´I´m OK´ update on Facebook I can hear my host snoring in the next room.

It´s nearly five by the time I manage to stop my mind racing and close my heavy eyes. The dogs stopped barking an hour ago. The morning traffic is starting to mumble in the street outside the apartment. As I finally drift into sleep, far off somewhere, a loud air-horn sounds. Must be a truck on the highway. No trains in Ecuador.

 
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