Road Block

Even though we had a long day travelling yesterday our plan was to drive south from Quito to Cuenca, an 8 hour drive. We awoke all enthusiatic and were keen to hit the road. We picked up our hire car from the airport and promptly got lost and took an hour to get out of Quito! We eventually got onto the Panamericana highway and enjoyed the scenic drive south. The mountains were spectualar and we were amazed by the near vertical strips of cultivated land on the hills. We weren´t so impressed by the kamikaze tactics of the bus drivers who repeatedly squeezed three lanes of traffic out of two. Also, the road near Ambato had suffered from several landslides and we had to weave between the boulders. However, we were still enjoying our adventure! It was just after Riobamba, about two-thirds of the way to Cuenca, that we joined the end of a traffic jam. We got out of the car and walked with everyone to find out what was wrong. There was a huge tree right across the road. It was impossible to continue so we all turned back. We tried another route but there were other road blocks and it was rainy and foggy so we came up with Plan B. We turned back and drove to Baños, a town famous for its thermal baths. Slighty disturbing was the smoke pouring out of Tungurahua Volcano and all the traffic leaving Baños. We arrived at the town and quickly left. We eventually stopped at Latacugna, a quaint town only ninety minutes from Quito. We found a good, albeit noisy, place to stay at the Hotel Makroz and walked out for pizza. We spent the rest of the evening trying to reorganise our itinerary and wondering how we´ll get to Cuenca. It was a long day!