an intriguing busride home

nothing really out of the ordinary - point a to point b without a hitch although a suspicious "thump" noise and the sight of oodles of people pointing at our front wheel and shaking their heads with ominous foreboding wasn't all that much comforting. however, thump and all i made it back a-ok and even found a nice city bus from the terminal that dropped me off at the policentro after a pleasant 20 minute tour of alborada (usually i have to take two buses to make the trip, or shell out 2.50 for a cab).

it was market day in riobamba but unlike the market days in guatemala this one didn't start at the crack of dawn. when i was strolling through at 8:30 there were many gaps in the crowd of vendors and few people were fully settled. the artisans section was not all that different from any other, a little tamer than cuenca's, but there was a line of people at sewing machines that i thought was pretty interesting. about 10 of them, lined up facing the cathedral, sheltered in their little tarpalins, old singer sewing machines in front of them and a big bin of fabrics and threads to the side.

it also sucks to be travelling during the off season. restaurants that are supposed to be open at a certain time are not, and often don't open until way into the later stages of the afternoon. i wandered around for a long time today looking for lunch options. the veggie restaurant doesn't do weekends, the english cafe place was out of veggie sandwich toppings, and the rain forest cafe with a suptious looking menu and a huge open sign plastered to the door wasn't going to open until 4 in the pm (my pointing out the sign did little to sway the guy inside who was startled by my knocking and asking questions). i did find a pizza place that was unlocked and didn't seem to mind my wanting lunch at close to 1. called "los sabores de italia" - the flavours of italy - they had a relatively mamoth selection of za and i settled on the popeye (which he phonetically voiced out when i mistakenly thought they had anglicized it - so popeye became poe-peh-yeh) - a spinach, onion and garlic concoction. boy was it good. i'm gonna have to get in touch with the lonely planet people and let them in on this place cause it rocked.

i walked the kilometre to the bus station, a nice stroll down the main drag, and got there right in time to take the 1:40 to guayaquil.

like i said, uneventful but interesting. after the thump noise the ayudante (helper) got out to take a look at the undercarriage. he gave a helpful shrug and climbed back in and we went back to launching ourselves at the speed bumps. we rolled into one town with a huge icon just off to the side of the road. these things are pretty popular and this one was a beaut. usually it's a statue enclosed behind glass and all done up with paintings and carvings decorating the enclosure. this one was named the "virgen lourdes" and the ayudante bolted from the bus, approached the statue and dipped his fingers in a small dish at the front of the icon, made the sign of the cross and hurried back to the bus. i did not find this as comforting as i believe he did.

then when we crossed the border to the province of guayas we stopped to let people on and quite a few pointed and furled their brows at our front axle.

well, we did make it though, and none the worse for wear. i'm off to milagro tomorrow early and will update y'all on how i make out there.