Bus Ride to Vacation Paradise

As I mentioned in the last posting, we were all needing a little break. After much deliberation, we decided to go to the coast. We wanted a clean room and a pool for the kids. We knew the first bus ride would be around 10 hours and the second around 2. Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of the first bus, but it was pretty nice. We all had our own seats, and they reclined. We left at around 9:30pm, after waiting for what was supposed to be an 8:30 departure. Everybody slept decent. Well, at least the kids.

We arrived in the town of Manta on the coast around 9 or so in the morning, so it was more like an 11.5 hour ride. Then we found the bus from Manta to Puerto Lopez. Let's just say this bus had a little more character. The best thing about the bus was that, in order to put it into reverse, the doorman/money collector guy had to open a little metal hatch in front of where Audrey was sitting and fiddle with the transmission a bit. Then he would yell back at the driver to get going. Pretty hilarious, and we tried to take a picture, but were off on timing.

Here is the front of the bus, with the driver on the nice converted lawn chair. There are also a couple of seats up with the driver, where Jorie chose to sit. She was supposed to watch the road so as to not get sick, but she read a book the whole 3.5 hours it took to get there. Audrey sat behind the driver and rotated around on various seats. Bentz did likewise, with a break every 15 minutes to inform us that he was starving and wanted more crackers or a piece of bread.  

For some reason I can't get the text in between the pictures, so you'll have to scroll down. The next picture is a nice portrait shot of the bus. Also a shot of Amy and Audrey, and then the front of the bus. The trip was semi-uneventful, with the bus stopping every 10 minutes or so the whole 3.5 hours to pick up random people waiting on the side of the road.

Jorie read the whole way, above the blaring salsa music and the conversation that the bus driver was having with his buddies, at high decibel, who were sitting on the other side of Jorie from the bus driver. She was contentedly oblivious.

Bentz was having a little bowel problem still and he notified us in his usual manner. Let me step back a bit. One Sunday in church, as the first meeting was coming to a close, Bentz stood up and announced, "There's something squishy in my pants." Of course, we all that was hilarious, and it became the "Phrase of the Day."

Back to the bus. Bentz announced the squishy-ness was coming soon, so we yelled at the driver to stop the bus. Bentz and I dismounted, and I held him over the side of the road and aimed his behind away from the
bus. Good fun.