Methinks that I've entered about as many blogs from experiences on transportation on my travels as I have about places and people. Anyway here is another one on Ecuadorian public transport on buses from Quito (2,850m) in the Andes to a lodge on the Rio Napo near Tena (~500m) in the Amazon basin.

Leaving the crowds of Quito behind the bus climbed to a high pass (4,500m) in the Andes before descending to the steamy tropical jungles, winding down ridges with large drops into the the tributaries of the Amazon below. Heading down hill just outside of Quito I was quiet alarmed that the bus driver seemed to be using his breaks a lot to slow the bus on down hill sections of road not using his gears or engine break. A bit alarmed at this from safe driving point of view I asked out guide was this driver new. She replied that this was normal driving for Ecuadorian buses. Break pads are cheaper to replace than gear boxes but it just seemed to go against the grain of everything I'd been taught about driving down steep windy roads. It was also hard to either sleep of sudoku with a constant hiss and release of breaks all the way down the hill to Tena. We made it to Tena with break-shoes intact and functional......later our guide pointed out that this road was considered the most dangerous road in the country! The contrast in scenery was quiet simply breathtaking - even the last 80km of road that took almost two hours to traverse.

Our transportation 'experience' for the day unfortunately didn't end there. Were were to get a local bus for the remaining half-hour journey to the river lodge we were staying at. So after a quick lunch we arrived to the bus-stop to find that the bus we were going to take was canceled (apparently due to lack of interest) and we would have to wait for the next one. No big drama we'd just have to sit around for an hour in the steamy humidity waiting for the next one...........an hour and several gallons of sweat later bus arrived and we loaded up. A group of 16 westerners must have made the bus trip look more interesting and every local in town decided to also get on the bus! The bus was licensed to seat 44 but apparently there was no limit on the number of people allowed to stand. Our estimate was that there was over 90 people on the bus, all squashed in with barely enough room left to sweat on each other in the tropical heat.

After some seriously tight packing of people onto the bus down the isle were were off. At least we were now moving and some airflow was generated, a big sigh of relief went up (at least from the westerners) realizing that we'd only be subjected to half-an-hour in these First Fleet conditions. We were also happy that since there was no conceivable way to squeeze more people on it would be a quick trip........we were wrong. Driving for barely five minutes the driver pulled over to pick up even more passengers and his wife, the conductor, forced them in, forcing the rest of us to become even more intimate with our neighbors! Ten minutes and several pickups later we were our of town and a couple of our number were getting motion sickness from a combination of heat, their neighbors body odor and the motion of the bus. Since we were away from the police checkpoints the drivers wife told them to get up on the roof with the bags. These were the lucky ones despite having to hang on for for there lives and duck low lying branches, they had managed to escape the crush of humanity below.............South American public transport at its best!!!