Well, we made it to Manta to discover that it was not a ¨small town with only one ATM,¨ at all (as we had been informed by the mom and daughter that had given us the $8), but was actually a large industrial-looking (aka: dirty) port city with several working ATM´s.Although I'm sure it had more to offer than the dangerous and dirty area surrounding the bus station, we decided not to venture out in the dark and stayed in the area in order to catch the 11.5 hour bus to Quito early the next morning (which we were incorrectly under the impression that it was a direct bus and would only take about 9 hours). After spending several hours on an overcrowded bus, stopping in every small town along the way (to pick up, for example, old ladies carrying chickens) and with Beth incessantly coughing (and even vomiting into a bag at one point), we made it back to Quito.We retrieved our backpacks from the volunteer agency (we had taken only a few things to the coast in our ukulele bags) and Beth has now started taking an antibiotic I brought for what I'm hoping is a bad case of bronchitis (and not malaria, of which she has all of the symptoms).We fly to Columbia at 6:30 tomorrow morning, then to Ft Lauderdale to spend about 8 hours (where we'll finally catch up on 3 weeks of LOST!!) and will be back to Columbus, OH around midnight.Although it has not been the best trip, I have definitely taken away an insight into South American culture that I couldn't have gotten any other way. (I'll post more pictures when I get home).