I'm on my way to Ingapirca after a full day of artifact analysis.

Waiting for the bus to come was a new experience for me in my long and varied history of waiting for buses. I left the house a little before (or was it after?) 5:00 and got a ride with Pepe to a traffic circle. This is apparently the only spot in Riobamba where all the buses from everywhere in Ecuador pass through (I would have thought the bus station, but what do I know?). I saw 5 buses to Guayaquil, far too many buses to Ambato, and an endless procession of buses to small towns in the area. I wanted a bus to Cuenca (and I would get off the bus at Cañar, the closest town to Ingapirca). Finally, a fancy lookng bus going to Cuenca arrived and was flagged down by a group of us standing beside the road. Unfortunately, it was full. So, I had to wait for the next one, watching bus after bus to all places not Cuenca go by. It took over an hour (which, really,isn't so bad), but I managed to get on a bus to go see Inca ruins.

***

That was a long ride. There was something squishy under my seat which I stepped on a few times. A small cockroach skittered across the window ledge next to me. The couple in front of me were clearly enjoying themselves a litle too much for public transit, especially since they had their seats leaning back as far as possible and were practically on my lap while they "entertained" each other. It was a twisty, turny, very dark bus ride that came to a thankful end after 4.5 hours. By then it was after 10:30 and I needed to find a hotel and get something to eat.

Everything was closed. I wandered around town, feeling very insecure about the small gatherings of people here and there. I'm not normally a paranoid person, but I was a bit freaked out. I half expected to get mugged. That didn't happen. Actually, there was no real threat of that. However, everything was still closed. I was beginning to worry that I would have to sleep in the streets. Luckily, a taxi came by. The driver and his friend were extremely helpful. They found me a hotel, woke up the guy who runs the place and got me insde. They even offered me a drink of what I think was cane alcohol while driving to the hotel. I politely declined, but was warmed by the offer.

***

My hotel room has three beds. I'm sleeping in the biggest one. I turned on the TV, flipped through the channels to find Harvey Birdman, dubbed in Spanish. That was too much to handle, so I flipped a bit more to find the last 30 secods of Lost in Translation. So, I watched that, listened to the closing credits music and started writing. Now it's time to sleep. I'll be up early, if for no other reason than to get breakfast. I'm so hungry.