Worst class trip...possibly ever!

I'll try and keep this entry brief, so that it doesn't get too negative, but as you can tell by the title, this isn't Happy Days. The trip idea of the trip was great. We'd take a group of 6th graders up to the Lagoons at Atillo, hike around a bit, head down to Macas (in the Oriente, surrounded by jungle) to see the sights, swing back through Puyo and Baños on the way back the next day. Things started a little rough. I arrive to the bus stop at 4 AM and end up waiting in the freezing cold and dark by myself until 4:45 or so when the bus finally arrived. Then, we head to Licto picking up kids all along the way (which means waiting at front doors for 10 minutes at a time). After very nearly getting stuck in the mud on the way out of Licto, we make it out to the highway and start making progress. Just a couple miles before Atillo, we come up to the following sight on the road:
This bus had been pushed back down the road by the mudslide in the previous photos. Notice that the door is blocked - everyone had to climb out the windows. So, after waiting at this mudslide for 4 hours and hearing many rumors about how the road-cleaning tractors were coming 'ya mismo' (right now), we decided our best hope was to turn around.
So, at around 12 noon we had finally reach...wait for it...RIOBAMBA...my starting point at 4 AM. From there we made it to Baños at about 2 or 3 PM, where we had the amazing opportunity to walk into the church, get back on the bus and keep going. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty church (below), but I'm not sure if that alone made a worthwhile stop for 2 hours.


Then, after Baños, we continued trucking and made it to Puyo around dark, just in time to eat dinner and go to sleep. Right before bed I was informed that we would be waking up at 4 AM again to head to Macas. As a result, I went downstairs to a restaurant and ordered a beer.

The next morning, we left around 5 AM (with the granted 1 hour late due to the Ecua-time-shift-phenomenon). A couple hours later we made it to a bridge, and stopped there for about 30 minutes (another dubiously worthwhile tourist attracion).

Probably the best part of the bridge were the enormous moths all over the bridge.

Here's the bus we travelled in. Not the most comfortable, but overall, I was pleased. (And the driver and his wife had lived in Spain which gave me something moderately interesting to talk about on the 'ride' to Macas).


And, now, the unveiling of the reason we travelled for two days: A view of a river.

nd a church with a giant, flying Jesus

Another view of the river.

After wandering around Macas for a couple hours, we hopped on the bus and headed BACK TO RIOBAMBA. A rnadom picture I took as we passed through Puyo (I think it might be in Shell, I forget).

Then, as a culmination of two days in the bus, we stopped in Mera at a 'dike' where we went swimming in the freezing cold water (the air was not much warmer). I mainly took this picture for the people who have read or know anything about the story of the 5 missionaries who were killed by the 'aucas' or Huaorani in Ecuador in the 50s. Mera and Shell were a couple of the key air bases the missionaries were working out of before their death.From there, we stopped again in Baños for about 5 minutes while the kids bought absurd amounts of sugar cane and various products made from sugar cane (apparently a lot of their parents wanted to sell it or something). After Baños we had a brief scare the the road was going to be closed due to yet ANOTHER mudslide over the road. Thankfully we made it through. By the way, that would have been the third time a mudslide has ruined my day. Thankfully I'm only batting an average of .667 mudslides every time I go to Baños instead of batting a thousand.
Once we got to Ambato, I decided I couldn't handle two more hours in the bus (we literally spent something like 24 hours in the bus over those two days), so I got off and spent the night in Ambato with some friends. In the end, this was yet another lesson in patience and flexibility that I have been blessed with in Ecuador. My advice, if you're lacking in patience come to Ecuador. Or just join the Peace Corps, since I doubt this is unique to Ecuador.