My time in SA is coming to an end

I hate to say this, but I have been fighting the inevitable. People warned me about being a solo female traveler and I told them it was BS. However, I'm starting to see that South America is not the safest place for a female traveler, and I am cutting Colombia out of my trip and trying to get a flight home from Ecuador at the end of the month.
So far, I have been almost mugged in Buenos Aires twice, been attacked on a bus in Uruguay, stranded at the Bolivian border for weeks, nearly got deported at the border to Ecuador (I haven't had a chance to update, but yes, the other 8 people were deported back to their perspective countries when there was cocaine found on my bus), nearly kidnapped by a police officer in Otavalo, and robbed at knifepoint today in Quito. 
I was more shaken up by this than the border incident, which had me ready to book a flight home, but this sealed the deal for me. I was extremely fortunate that the cops caught one of the guys and got my iPhone back for me, but my bag is gone that had everything else of value in it. I never carry all my stuff around with me, but this hostel didn't have a safe, just a small lockbox that I left my passport in, so I had my iPod, Kindle, camera, some money (luckily my credit cards and most of my cash were in my secret pouch), and some other random things like souviniers I had just bought at the market.
When I got back to the hostel, my friend Sarah told me that I could put in a claim with travel insurance, so luckily I can probably get back $ for some of the lost items. But, regardless, if this is what is happening in Ecuador, I highly doubt I am going to be okay in Colombia. So while I still have a passport and all body parts intact, I'm going to call it a nice 4 month trip, spenda couple weeks in Banos and Mindo and hopefully volunteering in the rainforest, and am working on getting a flight home at the end of the month.  
If you're thinking why the hell doesn't she leave now, well...it's because I have loved this trip and don't want it to end with such a bad taste in my mouth.  I want to end with a positive experience and I think that going to these places will do that for me.
If you're thinking why don't you just stick it out, well...I'm sorry, but there's only so much one person can handle. I've done my best at dealing with these situations as they happened, but people have their limits, and here is mine!
There will be no pictures to accompany this blog. Hopefully my thief has a lovely time admiring my photos from Otavalo that I'll never get to see.
It's a quarter after 3 and there's not a chance I'm going to be able to fall asleep tonight. I can't stop thinking about what happened today. I think what's bothering me the most is how helpless I felt. Growing up in NY, I always felt that I could face anything. All of us Sheepshead/Marine Park kids grew up well before our time, and I dealt with things and people that hardened me before I even hit college. Once I was back in the city after Albany, I always felt invincible. I could walk around wherever, whenever, by myself or with whoever, and never for a second felt fear. But in South America I'm now scared of everything. The men that leer at me and yell out lewd comments, I'm forced to pretend I don't notice and walk by. In NY these men would get the finger. Everything I do I'm subjected with the possibility of what could happen. I might get into a cab and he will drive me to the suburbs and rob me and leave me there (this happened to people in La Paz). Someone might break the cab window, reach in and steal my bag (Lima). Someone might approach me on the beach with a gun and demand all of my belongings (Rio).  Someone might come up from behind me with a knife and steal everything I currently own (today). If this was NY I'd like to think I would have tried to fight back.  But I trust people here less as to what they're capable of and what they will get away with since they belong here and I am the outsider. When I was thrown on the floor I didn't try to run after them, didn't try to get help, didn't scream. I just sat there in shock. I think my reaction bothered me most of all. No matter what happens here, the little Spanish I know and poor understanding of the culture and my surroundings makes me helpless, which is something I hate to be. All I want right now is to be in an environment where I feel safe again. I don't want to leave my hostel tomorrow, but I know that I will because I can't act like a child. I'm just praying nothing else happens while I'm down here. I guess I shouldn't complain about all those Caribbean vacations I took - at least the worst thing that happened in the Bahamas was a hurricane.