Saving The Planet By Lesley and John (Mysterious Journey)

Now then, we have had many a bus trip in developing countries and on the whole they are very enjoyable. They are usually quite uneventful and you get to see huge chunks a country for very little cost. (Scottish you understand!)

Well, this one started very well and it went very badly wrong quickly and severely even before the journey started. As we arrived at the bus a young South American looking man took our bags and put them in the hold. He wore a nice 'uniform'; pressed trousers, blue tie and crisp, white, pressed shirt. We got onto the bus about 20 minutes before departure. The coach/bus was sort of nice too, by South American standards. We were sitting in the second ‘row’ of seats. A good seat, I thought, until I noticed what was going on in the first row of 4 seats. There were three adults and four of the most loud and unruly children I have so far seen in S America. The kids, from about 18 months to about 6 years of age were loud, screaming and jumping around all over. The 7 of them were sharing 4 seats. (It seems that kids do not get there own seats.) Then about 5 minutes before we set off a young woman got on with a ticket that assigned her to seat number 3; right in the middle of this rabble!!! So, now there are 7 of them in 3 seats and a poor unrelated soul in the middle of them. I never got a look at this young woman's face; it must have had the look of fear and terror.

At 7.00pm, all, apart from the loud family, were settled and the bus moved off. We went down a ramp and out into the street just outside the station, whereupon the bus stopped and picked up 2 more passengers........... but also 7 got off! They say that travel broadens the mind; I would agree with this but I would add that it also deepens the mystery. It’s like boarding a bus in Victoria bus station bound for Aberdeen and then getting off just as it turns into Buckingham Palace Road. Why? (I know me and Lesley have asked this ‘Why’ question many, many times before.)

As we left the mountainous Quito, its beauty was laid out before us like an inverted sky twinkling below us. After about 10 minutes they turned off all the lights and I thought we could all get an early night, if it wasn't for the mayhem going on in the front row. Then about 20 minutes into this 12 hour journey the lights came back on as we pulled into an eatery. We stayed there 20 minutes for people to eat, drink!

Back on the bus, instead of the lights going out again, our conductor appeared with plastic cups and biscuits. He proceeded to give these out to each passenger (right after he picked his nose). All the passengers had a plastic cup and biscuits when the conductor disappeared and then reappeared with a huge bottle of coke which he seemed to be getting ready to go around the bus pouring into peoples' plastic cups!!! We were still about 8,000 feet up a mountain and twisting and turning. The bus driver made no allowances for the plight of his colleague as he sped down the mountain.

But, the conductor proceeded with his foolish task!! He went around in a very comical way trying to stay upright and pour coke into small plastic cups. (Imagine……… Instead of the conductor, in your mind, replace him with by Charlie Chaplin – get the picture?) (Mystery: who thought pouring coke on such a journey was a good idea?) That crisp, white and pressed shirt is not going to stay like that, I thought. I wasn't wrong.

Throughout all of this they had Latin American music playing very loudly. I only noticed this when the kids were quiet for a second when they were drinking that part of the coke that had arrived in their plastic cup. Feeding number 2 over with, the conductor put on the ‘big film’.

It was a Bruce Willis film, Die Hard 4. The conductor turned the volume right up because otherwise no one would have heard it over the loud Latin American music that continued to play throughout the movie (Why?) - and of course the noise from children from hell. At midnight as the film finished, we stopped again for food. It was raining hard but we got off the bus and stood in the rain. What a welcome relief from the turmoil of that bus.

We were back on the bus by 12.30am and some peace descended on the coach until about 3.15am when most passengers got off at some God forsaken place in the middle of nowhere, where not a building stood. But then another load got on.....at that time of night…..where from? (Mysteries)

It was just after 4.30 when the bus pulled into Puerto Lopez, our final destination!!! Ughhhhh!! We should have been arriving at 7.00am. We stepped out into a street which had an inch thick pool of mud all over it. Of course, it had been raining here too. But here we were in the middle of the night, all the other passengers disappearing into the pitch dark and we had nowhere to go until things opened in the morning! We found a very hard road side kerb to sit on until a café opened at 7.00am!!

It felt very safe doing this in a South American town …………………..NOT!