To Quinindé and Beyond

 We left our hotel in Quito and picked up Elders Ocampo and Wallis and headed to Quinindé. We loved hearing about their families and lives up until their missions. It has been 15 months since we've been to Quinindé and checked the apartments.

We had never visited Las Golondrinas and we got lost taking the dirt roads. But, it worked out in the end and we didn't suffer to much bumping up and down.

I've seen a total of 2 riding lawn mowers in Ecuador. Most of the work is done with weed whackers. Whole soccer fields are done with these beauties. We enjoyed visiting the apartments and missionaries and then we stopped by the meetinghouse for interviews. It began raining and grow stronger with lightning and thunder. We finally left around 5:30pm to get to Esmeraldas. We would probably not make it before dark, but we would just be driving past to get to Atacames.

Paul stopped and got some fuel, which was a great idea, because we came to a stop shortly after. For an entire hour we waited in the rain as it became dark. We rolled up on a crashed bus in the ditch and then on to Viche. We finally dropped off the assistants at the Tolita meetinghouse after 9:30pm. We would return here in the morning, so it's a good idea to drop a pin or take a pic.

 

We were excited to get to our hotel in Atacames, but ran into a pothole that took us out just 2 minutes later. After pulling over, we spotted the 3" hole in our brand new tire. Almost immediately, a motorcyclist came by. 

He told us their were thieves and criminals in the area and that we needed to move immediately. I pointed at the tire. Poor Elder Willard threw out his back trying to take off the lug nuts. The shop who had installed our tires had over-torqued the nuts and we were stuck. We were so grateful for this moto driver and his help. Within 30 minutes we had the spare on and were driving again. He proceeded to lead us into Atacames, drive slowly until he arrived home. We easily found our hotel.