The old red, silver and blue passenger bus hovers not even six inches above the dirt driveway. Its four tires lie flat against the ground, the axels are bare and the hood is propped up. A skinny man in grubby clothes stands on a stepladder with his head deep into the throat of the engine. To the left, a modest cinder block house, more dirt than house, sits in front of the edge of the plot. Behind the house is a drop off straight into a lush, cloud-forested canyon and river below.

The entire family fills the gaps between bus and house, house and canyon. The mother, grandmother, a small boy, an older girl, dogs, cats, donkeys, lamas, geese and chickens all watch the man bang on the engine with his wrench. Everyone hopes for a miraculous recovery.

I stand there too, hoping for the same. I have only just arrived from about a half mile around the bend from where my father, stepmother and I had gotten stuck in a landslide; mud as thick and inconsistent as pea soup.

''Puede ayudarnos?'' I asked the man when I arrived the house, putting on my sweetest, gringita smile.

''Claro. Ya mismo.'' the man replied, which basically means of course in two seconds. Afterwards, he turned his back to me and peered deep inside the engine.

Fifteen minutes later, the man continues to work on the engine and I still stand in the same position--with strangers, expecting a miracle when I should be giving up hope. After a while of banging, the man jumps off his stepstool, and begins working on the tires. The children clamor around their father's body as he kneels next to the tire. One, two, three, four...he fastens the tires back on just like that--in a snap. ''Cuidado,'' he yells to the children before lowering the bus back to the ground.

''Vamos,'' he yells and the children all pile into the bus.

''Bueno,'' I say and start to climb on as well, but then I hear the motor as he turns the ignition. It whines and coughs like the sick old bastard it is. It finally reaches a long standing wheeze and cuts off. I look at the grandmother who has come to stand by me. She is amused. I know by her face what she's thinking--Another worried gringa when there is nothing to be worried about. The answer is simple--either the bus will start or it won't. Whatever happens-you're in no worse shape than you're already in.

''Tranquila,'' I can almost hear her say to me, but when she talks, she simply laughs. ''So, you and your family got stuck,'' she says.

I look down the road in the direction of the landslide, and think about my father. He's too far away and I can't see the car, but I'm sure he's still stuck deep in the mud. Before answering the old woman, I glance in the other direction at the sky and canyon behind the house. The sun is fading. The varied greens of the mountainside darken. Clouds rise from the hollows of the canyon. I know that night will come in less than an hour, and my dad's mind is probably racing. It's been almost forty minutes since he watched his daughter run off into nowhere. A blonde, foreign girl alone on a deserted country road and if a group of men were to find her.....

I look back at the old woman who also watches the slow process of nightfall. ''Si,'' I finally say in answer to her question. In my bad Spanish, I explain ''La tierra se cayo sobre el camino,'' which more or less means that the earth fell over the road.

The woman smiles knowingly and doesn't say another word. Instead, she walks over to her son and talks with him.

The next thing I know her son yells ''Atras'' and I realize that he wants me to push the bus. Along with the small boy and girl, who are no taller than my waist, I angle my body against the back of the bus and push. Somehow, the bus moves forward, the father pops the clutch and once again, the engine lets out a whine and then stops.

''Enfrente, enfrente,'' the father yells. The children and I comply, running to the front of the bus, so we can push it back into its original position. ''Atras,'' the father yells again with his head hanging out the window.

We resume our original position, hands against the back of the bus, pushing until the engine finally gasps for air and dies. The father shakes his head and gets out of the car, opening the hood again.

I begin to wonder how I got my dad and stepmother into this mess. I guess that I could say it started with the rumor of the Black Sheep Inn, a completely organic joint with solar powered hot water, extensive gardens, good home-cooked meals and a composting toilet all set in some of the wildest and most spectacular scenery in Ecuador. Then, of course, there was Laguna Quilotoa, described in guidebooks as an emerald green volcanic crater lake resting in a place where heaven meets earth. It was all supposedly full of amazing views and surrounded by indigenous culture.

There had been travel warnings in the guidebooks about the lack of transportation and accommodations in the area, but I thought that the rental car would cover those inconveniences. As for rough roads, my father is a cattleman and has spent his whole driving on rough roads. Finally, who could plan for a landslide not even ten minutes from our final destination?

The rest of the trip had been more or less easy and incredibly beautiful. True, the road was extremely rough, changing from potholed pavement to cobblestone to barely cobblestoned to dirt. To say it was bumpy would not even begin to describe it, but the scenery--Ah now, that was something else altogether.

After the hour and a half drive from Quito to Lasso, we began our journey on the Latacunga loop at a beautiful 400-year-old hacienda named La Cienega. At the entrance of the hacienda, we were welcomed by a promenade of tall trees canopying over a dirt road and finally terminating at a circular driveway. A fountain stood in the center of the circular drive with the white adobe hacienda behind. We ate lunch on a glassed-in porch and enjoyed the views of the well-landscaped gardens as we ate a delicious three-course meal. After lunch, we took a walk through the gardens and admired the geraniums, the purple agapanthus and the variety of roses.

Cotapoxi, the largest active volcano in the western hemisphere, acts as a backdrop to the hacienda, but due to clouds, we were not able to see it. At two o'clock, we were sorry to leave, but we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to make the three-hour drive to Chuchilan and the Black Sheep Inn. We had also wanted to spend a little time in Saquisili's Thursday market to break up the trip.

The market didn't disappoint us. Like most of the markets in Ecuador, it contained the brightly colored rugs and tapestries, the sweaters, the scarfs and a few cultural masks. It also had an animal fair and produce market, but our time was limited and after my father bought a Panama Hat, we decided to make our way back to the car and begin the long stretch to Chuchilan.

We drove through one patch worked mountainous field after another. Along the road, the houses became fewer and farther between, but we were always welcomed and greeted by the indigenous people who tended their crops. They were also our sources of direction, waving us ahead with smiles, beautiful in their bright colored tribal clothes. They constantly told us "siga no más," which literally means, "continue no more", but in Ecuador, means "go ahead". For two hours, we drove this way, continuing no more, with landmarks for direction and relying on the help of strangers. Ultimately, we found ourselves switch backing into greener lands, worse roads and a deep cloud forested canyon. The people had made use out of the rich soil of the canyon in the same manner that they farmed the gently rolling mountains. Very few of the steep sides were without their crops; a patchwork that defied gravity and stretched straight up out of the canyon and towards the sky. The green patchwork was only broken by the occasional waterfall, plummeting straight down to the river below. It was incredible.

In fact, the scenery and the friendliness of the people would have made up for everything---the long drive, the poor roads, and our aching backs. ''If it just hadn't been for the landslide,'' I think to myself, but then again, I have learned not to be so vain as to think that I have the ability question the course of nature.

Instead, I turn my attention to the man and the bus. He hits his wrench against the battery and calls his wife to bring him a capful of fuel. ''Maybe this will do the trick,'' I think, as he pours the fuel into the engine.

''Otra Vez,'' he yells, and I return to the back of the bus. This time the whole family has joined me, including the grandmother, who anchors her body against the bus. Despite our efforts, the bus again dies. We, however, continue rocking the bus back and forth, back and forth with the engine quitting each time.

I watch the clouds turn to darker greys and pinks and am sure that my father must be beside himself with worry. I think about his desire for me to write up the trip in the same way that someone would write a travel book and have a laugh about adding a section on pushing a bus in the back roads of Ecuador. Then again, I feel that writing a pure travelogue would leave so much out of my experience here. Scenery is scenery, and a story of only present events would be like a person with amnesia, wandering around without a home, having no past to put his life into context.

I think again about my current predicament with the bus, my father's vacation here and my own life in Ecuador. I realize that my journey probably began long before the rumor of the Black Sheep Inn and even before my initial decision to join World Teach. I could say that it began with an internal urge to travel that I have had for most of my life or from daydreams of being part of something entirely new. Both of these reasons are true and not true in the same way that it can be true to say that a decision is dictated by fate, while also admitting that a decision is controlled by consequence.

I think about my life three years ago and how I lived on a road divided. One side was new and smooth and the other worn and fragmented. I oscillated between the two, always having one foot in Texas and the other in New York. In Texas, I had my home, my family, and a romance that I could never quite really end. In New York, I had my selfish pursuits--my studies, my writing, my friends, and my overall removal from real time, real events. I knew that each of these roads had their time constraints. One by graduation and the other by the fact that my family had split and separated--my mother living in Washington D.C., my sister in Tennessee and only my father remaining in Texas. As for the boyfriend, I knew that I had no business continuing on with him especially when I had no interest in marriage.

I, however, chose to remain blind to all, neither committing to nor breaking from either road. When forced to choose, I searched for signs, anything to tell me where I should go. Because of my inability to see the obvious, I chose the familiar. I didn't go with my college friends to an unknown life, an unknown city. I moved back home, ignoring the fact that that road had already splintered, and that it was time for me to move on as well.

I look back up at the man, who still tinkers with the ignition, believing that the bus will have a change of heart and come back to life. I think that it is just about time to throw in the towel and give up. I decide to give the bus one last chance before returning to my father and landslide, when suddenly, I hear the honk of a horn, and I see my father and stepmother in the muddy, white Vitara.

My dad gets out of the car, smiling and shaking his head about the fact that I am having to help our helpers. I introduce him and my stepmother to my newfound friends and my father suggests that we use the Vitara to jumpstart the bus. Consequently, I once again move behind the bus and push with the family so that my dad can tie a rope onto the grill of the bus. And strangely enough, my dad's plan works--the bus actually starts. The whole family, mother, grandmother, children, dogs and chickens pile onto the bus to check out the landslide. Five minutes later, we all arrive. The dark grey mud grasps the road like a buzzard's claw. The man and his wife, equipped with mudboots walk across the landslide. We do the same, searching for hard spots from which we could possibly gain some traction. We discuss the possibility of the bus pulling us.

''I can do it, if we just don't high center. That's the only problem if we high center,'' my father says. ''If it were three, I would definitely do it, but now with the sun going down...I just don't like not having a back up plan,'' my father says.

I talk with the family, asking them if they think it is possible to cross the soupy mud. The man pokes at the unstable ground with his walking stick and slides a bit in the mud. ''No se,'' he says, shaking his head, but I know that the 'I don't know' probably means no.

''What do you think?'' my dad asks me. ''I mean, I could try it. I've been in worse deals than this before, and we're only ten minutes away from The Black Sheep Inn. I just wish we had an alternative plan if this doesn't work.''

I look at my father, the family, my stepmother and the landslide. I take a deep breath and smell the earthiness of the vegetation above and the thick mud head of us. I search the sky for the fading sun, which has long ago fallen behind the mountains leaving only a trickle of sunlight. I think again about my life, the choices I have made and not made. I debate with myself over our options. If we can only make it across the one rough spot, I know that we will be home-free with a place to stay, a warm bed, a nice shower, and a good dinner. We won't have to worry about looking for a place to sleep or finding a meal. However, I know that if we get stuck, then we could be stuck for a long time with no place to go and nothing to do but wait beside our car until morning.

I decide to take one last walk across the landslide. With each step, I sink into and stick to the mud. I listen to the sucking sound the mud makes against my shoes as I walk. After about twenty yards of walking, I look back at my father and stepmother and I know that I've made my decision.

''No, I think we'd better turn back. This mud isn't looking too stable,'' I say and walk back towards my father and step-mother, the family and their bus. As I walk on top of the disintegrated road back to the dry dirt, I begin to think about our options and how to deal with our present circumstances of having no place to sleep and no food to be eaten.