Jan 11, 2007 - Night bus from hell!

After our bike ride we got on a night bus to Quito. We needed to get back to Quito so that I could pick up my passport from the Embassy. From Puerto Lopez, it's an 11 hour bus ride to Quito, so we were really happy to find a bus that left at 8 pm and arrived at around 7 am. We knew that there was somewhat of a problem with night buses being held up at road blocks and robbed at gunpoint, so we were especially happy to find that this night bus was a special high security "executive" bus. On this bus, everyone and their bags are searched prior to getting onboard and people are only allowed to get on at designated stops - no flagging down the bus just anywhere. The driver is also separated from the passengers by a locked bulletproof door.

So, anyway, we were happy about the bus situation...until we actually got on the bus. It was UNBELIEVABLY hot and, because of the extra security, none of the windows opened. We also didn't get the usual breeze from the open door, because we had the extra locked door separating us from it. One of the passengers requested air conditioning, but nothing happened. It was like a sauna. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore...the thought of 11 hours in an oven was too much for me. I went to the passenger who had requested the air conditioning earlier and asked him why we weren't getting air conditioning (talk about a newfound confidence in my Spanish abilities!). He didn't know, but was just as unhappy about the situation as I was, so he banged on the door to the front compartment of the bus. The official opened the door and we complained about the heat. He came in and pushed open the emergency exit on the ceiling of the bus, which let in some air, thank god.

Finally, we thought, we can relax. Wrong! Turns out that our bus was absolutely infested with cockroaches. I am not exaggerating when I say that the bus was literally crawling with them. When we first got on the bus, I saw one and commented on it. Then, I saw one more a little while later and thought, "Hmm, isn't that funny. Two cockroaches on the bus!" Then, a woman across the aisle had a big one drop down onto her head (she went NUTS!). A few minutes later, I reached into my backpack to get something and a cockroach jumped out (the bag was open a little bit). That's when I started to get freaked out. Throughout the next hour or so, we watched coackroaches come out of every crack on the bus. It was a though the awful music that was blasting was driving them out into the aisles! I saw a huge one jump from one luggage rack to the one on the other side of the bus. There was one crawling on the curtain by my window and another one on my armrest. Needless to say, I wanted to kill myself. I'm not particularly afraid of cockroaches, but of course I don't like being trapped in an enclosed space with a large number of them. I felt so claustrophobic and trapped, and just when I was thinking things couldn't get much worse (unless, of course, the cockroaches were spiders), they turned out all the lights on the bus. There we were, in the pitch black (there were dark curtains over the windows so we couldn't even see outside) with cockroaches everywhere. Dave took the window seat (bless his heart) because there was a steady stream of cockroaches moving back and forth along the wall. I somehow managed to fall asleep, as did Dave - probably only because we were exhausted. We both woke up a few times throughout the night brushing bugs off of ourselves...or at least dreaming about it! The morning couldn't come soon enough for me. When we got off that bus at 7 am, we were both very relieved!

Quito was freezing cold at that time of day - an unwelcome change from Puerto Lopez. We got a cab to the same hotel we stayed at last time, despite the weird people who worked there. This time, however, they gave us a room with a "matrimonial bed."That day, Dave worked and I went to the embassy to pick up my passport. In the evening, we took ourselves out for fancy dinner. The restaurant we went to served gourmet versions of typical Ecuadorian food - it was really good! The only picture we have of the day is of the fancy restaurant: