Adventure on the road

As we were getting ready to leave Sra. Neira's, I got a phone call.  It was Léster Antonio Sánchez.  The connection wasn't very good, but I got that the call was something about my friend and a cell phone.  Soon I heard Laura's voice on the other end.  "I left my cell phone plugged in upstairs at Sra. Neira's," she said.  Oops!  In our huge rush to not keep the ranchera waiting, we had forgotten that small detail.  Here's the good news.  Moisés drives rather like a maniac, so perhaps we can make it to Olmedo (about half an hour by bus) before Laura and her hosts for the night get on their connecting bus to Portoviejo.  We rushed to the Trooper and headed for town.  We sped down the straight stretches and careened around curves until at one point we pulled out to pass a slow-moving (comparatively) vehicle.  In the left lane of the two lane road, instead of speeding up, we slowed down.  And took a really long time to pass.  And then had to let the car that we had just passed pass us.  And then had to pull over to the nonexistent shoulder of the road.  Our get up and go was plum gone!  Moisés is a mechanic, so he did some fiddling under the hood and got back in the car.  No go.  Well, we could move, but we had no power.  At this point, we abandoned hope of getting to Olmedo in time to return Laura's phone to her.  Sure enough, in a few minutes I got another call from Léster Antonio.  "We're on the bus heading for Portoviejo."  Too late.  The phone would have to be sent to Laura once Aunt Beth and Katia reached the States in a couple of days.  Meanwhile, we continued to limp along to Olmedo with the hope that we would be able to find a mechanic that would know what to do and would be open on a Sunday afternoon!  

While Moisés made one last effort at fixing the problem before troubling a mechanic, we ladies went across the road to the little store there for some cold water.

Moisés had no luck, so followed the directions given to us by various citizens of Olmedo to the mechanic shop on the edge of town.  You should understand that we weren't looking for a car dealership or an AutoZone or any such place.  What we were looking for wouldn't in any way resemble a mechanic shop unless they might potentially have a handwritten sign announcing it as such.  As it was, the only sign hanging on the place to which we had been given directions advertised the sale of ice cream.  There was absolutely no sign of life.  Moisés banged on the door of the house that seemed to be connected to the "shop" and hollered the name that we had been given.  Nothing.  We waited for a while to see if he would show up.  He didn't.  

We decided to try and make it to the next town and try our luck there.  We barely had enough power to pass cows, much less vehicles!  

I can't remember the name of the next little town that we came to quite a while later.  We inquired about a mechanic there and were directed to another place similar to the one that we had found in Olmedo.  No one was there either.  

There is another place in town, so we'll give it one more try.  

While this mechanic was open for business, he ended up being unable to fix our problem.  He did, however, provide us ladies with much entertainment as he and half a dozen of his buddies hemmed and hawed under the hood of the Trooper.  We headed back to the main road toward home.  

As we arrived (finally) to the outskirts of Guayaquil, Moisés phoned a nephew of his wife who is a tow-truck driver.  Driving through the traffic in the city was not going to be pretty, so we opted for a tow.  After waiting at the side of the road (and being eaten alive by biting bugs) for at least half an hour, our knight in shining armor arrived and begin loading the Trooper onto his flatbed tow truck.  So now we have six people.  The cab of the tow truck will seat three.  Those preferred seats were given to the driver (of course) and Mom and Aunt Beth.  "Don't talk his ear off," we warned them, grinning, as we climbed back into the Trooper and rode the rest of the way home bouncing like crazy on the back of the tow truck.  

Our view for the last stretch of the trip

We arrived at Moisés and María's somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 I believe it was.  The two-hour trip had taken somewhere between four and five hours.  Supper was Chinese take-out and was waiting for us when we arrived.  The trip was well recounted at the table much to the amusement of all the listeners.  And as soon as supper was finished, all the weary travelers headed to bed.  Tomorrow starts early.