Around the Protests

After being stuck in Tulcan for a 24 hours I have to say I was ready to get out of there by whatever means.  I met up with two other travelers who spoke some Spanish and we were trying to come up with a scheme to get out of there. We thought if we could take a taxi to the roadblock then walk through it (and hope we didn´t get stoned as some locals said might happen) then get another taxi (collectivo) to the next and so on till we could get a bus the rest of the way to Quito.  The other two kind of swayed away from this idea after talking to a number of the locals who were also stuck that said that it wasn´t be the best idea (very risky in a number of ways).  Needless to say that didn´t happen.  Later in the evening I noticed some commotion at the bus terminal so I checked it out.  They said OK, we can get to Quito now.  Right on I thought.  I quickly packed up and got on board.  BIG MISTAKE.  Well the first 3 hours were all right, just a normal bus ride.  Then we made it to Otavalo (a town famous for its Saturday market).  This is were I saw my first signs of trouble.  The roads were blocked with these raging fires and mobs of people yelling something in Spanish.  So The bus went back to a gas station to decide what to do.  The driver told us we could go another route, but we would have to pay another $3 and it would take an extra 2 hours.  After much debate we were off for $2.  This route was also blocked with protesters at one point.  However the police made a route through and we were off again.  We then proceeded to ascend this small mountain trail made for tractors in the bus.  I think it was the scariest ride of my life.  There were several times that I was sure we were going to role over and end up at the bottom of the mountain (and from the yelps of everyone else I wasn't the only one in fear of that).  Then trying to pass other vehicles was also a hair raising task.  I have to say a lot of people on that bus were praying that they would make it safely through that pass.  I have to say I was honestly scared for my life.  Needless to say (since I am writing this) we made it without injury.  Even if it was 10 hours (3 am) later unlike the supposed 5 hours.  I have to say I took a flight south to Cuenca that afternoon verses anther bus ride through those protests around (and in) Quito.