Off to Baños by night bus and a prayer

NO PICTURES BECAUSE I HAD MY EYES CLOSED THE WHOLE TIME!! - and not because I was sleeping.

Seriously, I NEVER have to take a night bus in a foreign country again.  The only thing that I kept thinking, was that if we were taking this route during the day, it may have been worse because I could have seen how near death we actually were.

We left Bahía to go to Baños at 6:30.  You would think because we would be on this bus for 10 hours, it would have a bathroom - nope.  It was also a very old Greyhound type bus with ripped seats and seats that didn't go back very far.  The windows were struck open a bit, and it was cold.  

We were stopped at some point during the night and told to get off the bus by the police.  I should feel lucky that they just checked my backpack because all the men had to stand with their hands against the bus and their legs spread so they could get a pat down.

The bus was going quite fast at all times especially around the curves.  Cassi said there were cliffs that she was glad she couldn't see in the dark.  It was like trying to sleep while being tumbled in a drying machine.  At one point, I dozed for a few minutes, but, woke feeling very panicked.  I reached for my backpack that I put under my seat and it was gone.  Of course, being the only adult, I had everything in it - passports, money, ATM card, credit card, phones, computer.  I made the bus driver turn the lights on (it was probably 3am) and woke everyone.  Cassi and I were on our hands and knees (yuck) looking for it.  Luckily, we did find it a few seats down and across the isle -it had slid all the way there.

We also had a 2 hour delay because of construction, and again, was glad I couldn't really see what they were fixing.  As we drove over the area of the road they were fixing, it felt like we were four wheeling in a huge bus.  These bus drivers can put any professionals to shame.  We finally arrived, alive, but shell shocked, in Baños in 1 piece.  We promptly went to our hostel and slept until early afternoon.  I send out a special thanks to my guardian angels, again and again.