Back in Mindo

We´re back in Mindo now, currently waiting for an 11:00 bus to Los Bancos just to go use an ATM. Milton told us there was a bus at 7:30 this morning, and we left at 7:00 to catch it, but of course there wasn´t one so once again our day off will be consumed by silly travel snafus. Anyway...

We left the coast on Thursday. Once again we packed a ridiculous amount of stuff (more than we had on the first trip) and 5 people into Milton´s 50-year-old Jeep. It´s a miracle that we were able to all fit, and even more of a miracle that the car made it all the way. Mike and I thought that this time we´d be more mentally prepared for the journey ahead, but the 12 hour adventure was just as interesting as the last. We left Estero at about 8:30, and arrived in Tonchigue at 9:30ish. Milton pulled into a little place that I guess was a garage of sorts.
"What are we doing?"
Milton said something about hooks and then he and Leo busied themselves doing things while the guy from the garage looked under the car. Mike, Steffen and I went to the paneria to buy some cheap, yummy bread. When we returned a guy was welding little pieces of metal onto the sides of the jeep. Milton wanted a better way to secure the tarp on the car, so he chose the day that we were leaving with ALL of our belongings and had a long drive ahead to get the job done. Feeling useless, we stood around in the sun, sweating and squinting, on one of the hottest days we´d had on the coast so far...
This is how most of the stops along the way went. The jeep would stop, there would be no explanation of what we were doing or how long it might take, and we would shuffle around feeling useless. Since the trip back to Mindo was essentially all uphill, water constantly needed to be added to the radiator the prevent overheating. The jeep groaned and sputtered up the hills, never going over 35 mph, while we all sat in various uncomfortable positions and listened to Leo belt out pop songs in Spanish. At some point a police officer stopped the car for not having seatbelts (and probably a few other safety violations). Milton gave him $5 and he left us alone.
The crowning moment of the trip occured at dusk in Los Bancos, when while we were going down a hill the engine died and the brakes failed. The jeep went careening down the hill, almost crashed into the cemement barrier on the side of the road, and rolled to a stop in a parking lot by a school. We commenced with our usual routine of wandering around feeling useless, and a little while later we got going again into the darkness, still with no brakes and only a single headlight.
We finally slowly rolled into Mindo at 8:30 that night, happily set our stuff down in our room (our own spacious room!) and went into town to make some dinner at BioMindo´s juice bar, since the stove in the kitchen wasn´t working.
Another long day of traveling in the books. Needless to say, I´m glad we don´t have to do it again.