This morning our group left bright and early from our clinic for the township of Colta. Although not far from Riobamba it was nearly a 2 1/2 hour difficult mountainous drive to our destination. We drove past the main village and off road to a tiny pueblo populated by an indigenous tribe. As you can see the Andes Mountains offer some of the most scenic drives in the world. But if you look carefully you may also see the road cut into the steep mountainsides complete with waterfalls, water over the road, and partial washouts of the pavement. And that wasn’t even the scary part. The last 45 minutes of the drive was on a single lane dirt road that hugged the steep cliffs, was very steep, very narrow, and had areas where the washout left virtually no shoulder on the road and a several thousand foot plunge down to the valley floor. I have personally driven the Amalfi Coast Road and The Gentle Alice Highway over the Southern Alps peaks of New Zealand. Both very difficult and scary roads in their own right. They don’t hold a candle to this trip. We all held our breath more than once during this last segment of the road and prayed for a helicopter ride home (didn’t happen). Thanks to the skill of our clinic director and sometimes bus driver, David Guacho, we finally arrived at our tiny mountain village of Malta, with no more than 4 buildings and a church, but well over 120 people waiting to be seen. More on that in the next chapter.
