This and That from Here and There: An ordinary day adventure

Saturday was an interesting day. We had with two Bible studies in Ibarra before heading north to Ipiales. The bus trip took over three hours, longer than normal, so we didn't arrive at Jorge and Ligia's to drop off our backpacks until around 3:30 in the afternoon. There, we grabbed a few hymnbooks and an extra Bible and headed to the terminal to catch a van going to Puerres. These vehicles don't have a schedule. They just wait until it fills up with passengers. That means you never know how long you're going to have to sit and wait in the terminal. By the time we got to Nelly's house, it was after 4:30. We knocked and knocked but nobody answered. Finally, we went next door to inquire and were told that she had left a while ago. Maybe she'd be back in half an hour. Here was the problem as we knew it: The last van leaves Puerres for Ipiales at 5:00, the one vehicle that supposedly does have a time schedule. The fact was that we had arranged for one of the friends from Ipiales to come and pick us up at 5:30. However, it didn't look like we were going to be finished even by that time since Nelly wasn't even home. Ookyoung called Jairo, our ride from Ipiales, to ask if he could come later, but he couldn't. We decided it would be better to just catch the last "bus" out so that Jairo didn't have to make the trip since it didn't look like we'd be able to have a study anyway. A little before 5:00, a taxi passed by with destination Ipiales, but we let it go by, thinking that there was a chance Nelly would arrive before we had to catch the bus. As it turns out, we should have flagged down the taxi. To make a long story somewhat shorter, the last bus never came. So much for a time schedule! Nelly finally arrived about 5:10 and began worrying about how we were going to get back to Ipiales. After waiting a good while to see if anything would just happen to pass by, she finally flagged down a passing cyclist heading into town to ask him to send us a moto-taxi. By 5:45 or so, we were settled into our snug little "car" ready to make the trip down the mountain to the village of San Juan. From there, we were pretty sure we could catch some kind of transport to take us the rest of the way to Ipiales. The 20 minute ride from Puerres to San Juan took slightly longer in our little scooter contraption, but we made it without incident. After waiting for a while longer in San Juan, we found a van heading to Ipiales with two available seats and hopped in. Ookyoung and I both said after the fact that had we known it was all going to work out that way, we could have had our study with Nelly after all. Anyway, Ookyoung plans to return next Saturday with don Jairo, so she won't have to worry about the complications of public transport. Who says that common days don't hold adventure?!

While we waited for the bus that never came, we admired the rainbow that encircled the hill across the road. I thought the cows added a nice touch!