Causualties from Mindo

    Bentz woke up our last morning in Mindo with a swollen bug bite on his eyelid. Not to worry, it only took a couple of hours for a full recovery. There are insects called sancudos that look like a gigantic mosquito and actually have some kick to their bite. It is not uncommon for swelling to follow a bite, with lots of itching as well.






  On our way from Mindo to Quito to catch Mom and Dads flight we were stuck for 3 hours with this massive landslide blocking our way. There were cars backed up on both sides for a ways. In this first picture you can see where a few 4x4 trucks were able to get through after a group effort to clear the large trees and rocks from one side of the road.











At one point this truck decided to go for it, obviously unaware of the fact that his vehicle could not possibly pass the deep mud. After several men assisted pushing and removing more debris this small truck got through. I think he decided to go for it because he knew that everyone would have to help him through if they wanted to clear the road.
One exciting part of the morning was discovering a woman in a taxi that was in labor. Observing that her contractions were getting stronger we arranged for a man with a large 4x4 truck to take her through the mud and on to the hospital.

After hours of groups of people working together to clear the road and make it passable a small tractor appeared from another small landslide it was working on and cleared one side of the road in about 15 minutes. With a rush of excitement everyone ran to their cars and quickly drove through and we made our way to Quito but unfortunately missed the flight. We were lucky enough to spend one more night with Grandma and Grandpa in a nice hotel before they left the following morning.