All Aboard The Playbus...

Well it´s that time again where I´m being hassled by Michelle to put a post on the blog (not really I enjoy it, but just never get chance as she is always on it). We´ve left Quito (and the Phantom Ketchup Flingers) and are now in Otavalo. It is quite a small quaint town nestled between two mountains which has the biggest market on the continent according to the guide book. They´re setting it up now, yes I can actually see them, and to be honest it doesn´t look that big. Mind you it all depends on how big all the others on the rest of the continent are innit?

I think Michelle is already getting psyched up for a day of browsing and shopping whilst I get dragged around getting sunburnt (or even more sunburnt I should say). Even though it´s been cloudy quite a bit, I think because we´re so high up the sun is stronger on my fair skin, well it makes sense when you think about it doesn´t it? (The sun being stronger not my skin being fair). Still it can´t be any worse than walking round Ikea (can it?)

The bus from Quito here was an experience, one which we have to repeat as we´ve just booked our jungle trip and we have to fly out from Quito for it. Well it was either that or endure a 10 hour bus journey much like the one I´m about to explain.

It started off relatively easy; we bought the tickets from the bus terminal, $4 (about 2 quid) and then went through the gate and waited for it to turn up. Bearing in mind that it said the bus leaves to Otavalo every 10 mins, we were´nt to cheesed off when the first one turned up 30 minutes later; everyone has warned us that things never run on time. We´d also read that you should take your bags on board with you rather than leave them in the luggage part under the bus as bags have a tendancy to go missing! There were 6 people on the bus when it left Quito (all westerners) so I had the bags on 2 seats next to us.

Little did I know that the bus would stop at every single corner of a street from Quito to Otavalo which is about 100km North. Two lads, who´d been on the sauce in Quito, 5 minutes before boarding by the smell of them, of course wanted to sit in the seats that I´d put the bags, so I moved them. Then over the next half hour I reckon half the population of Ecuador boarded, some for only a matter of minutes, the bus. By this time it was too late, so I simply left the bags in the aisle and moved them each time somebody wanted to pass. Still it´s one way of conversing with the locals! "Sorry, yes I´ll move it", "Sorry is that bag in your way? Of course I´ll move it"

One other thing, about half way into the journey this little (obviously he´s from Ecuador) boarded the bus and started preaching about something in Spanish down the front of the bus. I was riveted; everyone was glued to him. He was so passionate I thought he was trying to persuade us to overthrow the government or something. I was staring straight at him and he seemed to be addressing me directly. Anyway, after about 5 mins he whipped out this little box of green sweets and started passing them round to everyone. After a few more minutes he then asked everyone for a $1 for the sweets. Needless to say , everyone handed him back the sweets and went about their business. I was amazed at how much he put into the speech though. God knows what he was talking about. For all I know it was probably the manufacturing process for making the sweets.

Anyway, as Michelle keeps saying, it beats working!

Hasta Manyana (sic)