What Happened on the Way to Cuenca

Up at 7:30, showered, had breakfast, then Lisa ad me walked to the bus depot, saying goodbye to Kirsty. Kirsty is nearing the end of her travels, so she's off to Cusco (Peru) in a couple of days to see Macchu Pichu, then back to Canada. Lisa and I are headed to Cuenco.We caught a 9:00am bus from Baños to Ambato, then a bus from Ambato to Riobamba, then another bus from Riobamba to Cuenco.Beautiful scenery, huge mountains, deep valleys. They cultivate everything here, right up to the tops of the mountains, and on steep angles, greater than 45 degrees. It's crazy.It's about a 6 hour bus ride from Riobamba to Cuenca. At Zhud, about 4.5 hours into the trip, traffic started to get backed up. Our bus driver was aggressive, and started to pass all the stopped traffic. There was lots of road construction. We leap-frogged ahead a kilometre or two, then were forced to stop. There's nothing moving up ahead, and no one knows why. Some of the locals on the bus were making calls, the bus dudes were on their cell phones. After 30 minutes of the standstill, stories started to emerge that the police had shutdown the highway. Our bus dudes announced they were turning around and going back to Riobamba. All the locals on the bus got upset, and most got off and started walking. We didn't know what to do. It was late, about 5:00ish, not much sunlight left, and the other backpackers on the bus (3 others) decided to stay on the bus with the few locals that didn't walk. Lisa and I were discussing staying in one of the small town near here, and catching a bus the following day. Lisa started talking to a local woman on the bus, who said this part of Ecuador is unsettled right now, and it wouldn't be recommended to stay here. Then we heard that someone had been shot on the highway ahead.....Now, I'm going to backtrack a bit. When we were on the plane either going to or coming back from the Galapagos, Kirsty picked up a local newspaper, and there was some stories about protests over water rights in Ecuador. Some indigenous groups are upset over something about water in Ecuador, and there had been some protests in some of the Ecuadorian cities. Furthermore, when we were at the Black Sheep Inn, the two Americans (the ones that didn't have enough money to pay), were heading south to teach English in Loja, but they was also stories that the teachers are upset over some changes to the education system, and they have been trying to organize a strike in some Ecuadorian cities.Back to the present, and another woman showed up on the bus, she said she just walked 60km to get to our side of the roadblock. She started walking at 11:00am that morning, so the road had been shut down since at least 11:00am.We decided to stay on the bus and go back to Riobamba, as there's no saying how long the road would be shut. The bus driver was FLYING back to Riobamba, and we made it back in record time, got back about 9:00pm. At the bus station, one of the couples on the bus recommended Hostal Oasis, so the 5 backpackers taxi'd there. The taxi driver mentioned that protests have been happening since Monday.Very nice hostal!Lisa and I discussed what we should do tomorrow, and we're not sure!