Day 3
On the road again? We rode the bus. There was barely enough room for our bags, because someone was transporting across the country a bunch of light blue somethings or others in quantities of 24. There must have been 25 boxes of stuff and for some reason our 3 and a half suitcases weren?t that important. But we made it all on. We sat at the back of the bus, Nathan and Jennifer on one side me and my sweet backpack on the other. Nathan was taking pictures of everything as we left Guayaquil and hit the open road. The countryside gets more and more lush and scenic the farther inland we go. I slept the first couple hours I was exhausted. I woke up soaking wet from the humidity and heat, that?s right a bus ride without air conditioning! As we traveled farther and farther we started to climb the mountains and it got colder. I had to switch from shorts to pants. Intermittently during the ride Jennifer read, I did crossword puzzles and Nathan kept on taking pictures. We stopped for the bus driver to eat and we all used the restroom. It was almost a community restroom as the men and women were barely separated you could totally see the concrete ?urinal? as men and women walked in and on both sides no toilet paper. Moving on, we ate what amounts to corn on the cob with a piece of cheese. It was good. We had to transfer buses in Ambato to one headed toward Banos. Once in Banos we found a place to stay quickly as it was raining. We fell asleep probably around 11 and we were all up by 8. Banos is the Ecuadorian version of Hot Springs. Scenic and containing hot baths.