May 26- It was a dark and stormy afternoon

Apparently we did not re-enter Quito on the same road on which we left. Thus, we missed our stop (there really aren’t stops here, you just tell the conductor when you want to get off). When we figured out we had gone to far, it was already raining. We got off the bus.

To say it was raining doesn’t really do this storm justice. It was pouring, like the type of rain in which your pants and shoes are pretty well soaked inside of 60 seconds. Also, the temperature had plummeted. Within moments after disembarking the bus, hail started falling. The thunder seemed to crack the sky in two and the lightning strikes were not far away. Anything not under my rain jacket was soaked and cold. This storm seemed downright biblical.

We hoped to climb into the safety of a taxi for a ride back to our front door. Yet dozens of taxis passed by us without slowing down. In all our time in Quito, we were never looking for a taxi for more than a minute without getting one. Now in our hour of need, no taxi seemed willing to stop for a couple of tired, cold, and thoroughly drenched gringos being pelted by hail and attempting to dodge the lightning. We gave up. After probably 10 minutes of getting pounded by the storm, we just climbed aboard the next bus that passed by, thankful to get out of the rain and not even really caring where it would take us. Later on we did find a taxi and get home to peel out of our soaked clothes and to try to salvage our wet merchandise purchased at the market. The pictures show but mere remnants of the storm, later that afternoon.