Another bus day

Thursday evening.

 

I fell asleep to the sounds of 'I'm sexy', rows of red, blue and green lights along the overhead baggage compartment blinking rhythmically, and wake up to the same pounding rhythm, this time accompanying Spanish words. Does this mean I slept for a long time, or just a few minutes? I'm not sure: it was dark already when I drifted off, and all I see when I look out is my image reflected in the window, and from time to time faint lights in passing. We must be getting close to Riobamba now, only about 3 1/2 hours south of Quito on the Panamericana.

It's been another 'bus day', and a long one, even though we didn't cover a lot of ground. We left our hospitable temporary home this morning at 7:30, Johann carrying the big backpack with our clothes, I the smaller one with the laptop, books, the camera, sunscreen, binoculars, a bottle of water and a bag of peanuts, our tried and true emergency ration.

 

Ale's mother has a meeting at nine and is taking the same busses we will have to take to get into Quito where we'll try to finalize our plans for the Galapagos Islands. The bus system in Quito, while well organized for the initiated, is rather complicated for someone who is not familiar with it, and we are really glad to have Lilia to guide us.

The first bus leaves only a few metres from their front door, fortunately not so full yet that we can't find a spot to put the backpack, but the seats are all taken, and with every stop more people enter the bus, very few leave. The passengers consist of mostly well-dressed men and women of every age group, many on their way to work, I suspect, with a few older and visibly poorer people here and there. Once, a young man in dirty, torn jeans comes in, heavily leaning on a cane: his one foot is crippled, and he says something to the other passengers – obviously he is asking for money. Since we stand in the very front, facing the rest of the bus, I can observe the reaction of my fellow passengers. Most of them avert their eyes, look a bit embarrassed, but I notice that several of the more shabbily dressed people pull out their purses and drop a coin into his hand. He gets out at the next stop. Marina told us that it is actually illegal to give money to beggars now because the government is paying a certain amount to everyone who needs help – if this is true I don't know. Unemployment is at 10%, and it can't be easy for someone without an education who would have to rely on doing manual labour, like this young man, to earn a living.

By the time we enter Quito proper the bus is full. Traffic is very slow now, probably because of construction, or maybe an accident, and it is obvious that Lilia won't make it in time for her appointment at nine. When I ask her about it she shrugs, and says she'll blame the bus for it. Finally we are at the point where we change busses. Now, we enter the 'Metro' system, one of three fast lanes traversing the city on the north/south axis. These busses travel in lanes reserved for them, and no traffic can interfere now with our progress. It is not so full anymore either – much more relaxing. After maybe fifteen minutes we get out at 'Colón'. From now on we will be on our own, Lilia heading in the opposite direction from where we need to go. We have our instructions, however, and the weather is nice – we will be fine.

On Monday night we came into this part of town with Ale, who is taking Salsa lessons after work, and tried to find the “Happy Gringo” travel agency. Not having a city map of Quito, only small sections of it in the Lonely Planet, and Ale's verbal instructions, we walked for many, many blocks – and never found the right place. We had assumed that Quito had been built relying on a grid system like most of the other big cities in South and Central America we had visited; it is not difficult to find your way then. Here, however, it is wrong to rely on the idea that a big avenida or calle will continue in a straight line. Turning after so many blocks might not ever get you where you intended to go. Later, looking at a map, it became clear: Quito is almost like a spider's web, having grown from the inside out. That night, we finally turned around and retraced our trek along the '10 de Agosto', happy to be back at the pickup in the parking lot at the 'Casa de la Cultura'.

This morning, we find our way easily, and first stop at the 'TAME' building. TAME is Ecuador's national airline. We learned that there were plenty of flights from Guayaquil to Baltra, the airport on Santa Cruz, one of the two islands with airports (the other is San Cristobal), and also that there were no special offers at the moment, or rather none for non-Ecuadorians: we had seen advertisements for $199 for a return flight, which would have been about $250 to $300 cheaper than the regular flights.

Armed with this information we now seek out the 'Happy Gringo' travel agency we had tried to find in vain two days earlier. Ale had driven by with us later on the way home, and we knew what the area and the place looked like.

Here, we get all the professional advice we need, and finally decide not to free-wheel it but go with an eight-day cruise boat tour after all. We had, for a little while, entertained the idea of just flying to Santa Cruz and organizing things ourselves, but I was worried that we might not get to see enough – and this is, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime undertaking. It would be really sad if we had come all this way and didn't see what we came for. At about 1:30 all hurdles are cleared, and we shoulder our packs once again to make our way to the 'trole' bus station nearest to the Happy Gringo. Following the advice of Marcelo from the travel agency we opt for a taxi to cover the distance: a thin rain has just started to fall, the first since our arrival in Ecuador.

We get dropped off right at the 'trole' station – the 'trole' is one of the three fast bus lines I mentioned earlier -, get our tickets at 25 cents each and wait for the bus that will take us to Quitumbe, the big modern bus terminal at the very southern tip of the city. Ale had warned us to make sure that we take the right bus here: even though the sign in the window might say 'Quitumbe' the bus might not go there. We ask two bus company employees close by about the right bus, and for the first two they say 'no', but when the third one arrives, and I ask again if this is the bus to Quitumbe, they say yes, so we get on, even find seats this time – great. Now we can relax and enjoy the drive. Passing through, we recognize several of the grand buildings in the historical part of Quito where we walked on Saturday, see again the basilica with its three distinctive towers and El Panecillo, pleased to have some reference points now.

Suddenly the bus veers off its relatively straight course and takes a sharp left turn, then stops beside a big plaza. This is weird! I walk to the front and ask the driver (still in my rudimentary Spanish, of course), 'Quitumbe'? He shakes his head and points to a station across the plaza. We gather our bags and quickly step onto the platform: busses stop only as long as they absolutely have to, and it's wise not to dawdle.

We walk across the plaza to the station the driver pointed out to us, 'Il Domingo', get the next set of tickets for twenty-five cents each and settle down to wait with a growing number of other people. It's well after two now, and school kids in different uniforms start to crowd into the station. Most kids here wear uniforms, the girls skirts, often plaid, with white blouses and dark jackets, knee-length socks or leotards, the boys dark suits and ties and white shirts, and always black shoes. Like teenagers at home they wield their cellphones, the girls wear make-up, couples hold hands or make out. We look out for a bus with the 'Quitumbe' sign in the window, but it seems that the only busses coming by here are those marked 'El Recreo' and 'Estacion Y”. When will we finally be able to continue? We study the diagram on the wall of the station, but come to no clear conclusion which line goes where. It does seem possible, however, that the Quitumbe line doesn't come by here, but bypasses this main corridor. Finally we decide that we need to go to El Recreo; it will at least be in the right direction, and we can't wait here forever: we need to catch a bus south, after all, and don't want to arrive in Riobamba too late in the evening.

We noticed that the busses were getting continually more crowded as the afternoon progresses, and now can hardly get in. Johann puts down his pack right beside the door, but I am carried a bit further by the mass of bodies pressing in behind me, and have trouble to stay close enough to the front that I feel able to get out quickly. I am wedged in so tightly that I feel I can hardly breathe, trying to avoid standing on my neighbours' feet, trying, too, to keep an eye on my pack and hang on to it tightly. Busses, after all, are supposed to be prime ground for pickpockets and backpack slashers. Surrounded mainly by well-mannered schoolgirls, however, I feel reasonably safe.

It turns out that our assumption regarding El Recreo is correct: it is a switch-over station, and our bus ends there. Everyone has to get off and now joins an even bigger line-up than before for the last stretch to Quitumbe. Several busses pass, full to overflowing, but finally one stops, and the long line of people ahead of us gets rapidly shorter. It's almost time for us to board – but will we fit?? Johann pushes ahead and I follow, but am stuck right in the door, together with several other people. I try to move in further, but can't: the wall of bodies in front of me seems immovable, impenetrable. Scared that I'll be squeezed in by the closing doors I jump back at the last moment, to my big relief followed by Johann. The thought of being separated right here doesn't appeal to me at all.

Again we join the line-up, but are getting a bit anxious. Who knows when we'll be able continue if conditions are like this? Finally we decide to hail a taxi for the rest of the way – it can't be very far anymore, after all. I tell the taxi driver where we want to go, and ask him how much it will cost: we have read that it is smart to do that if you want to avoid being overcharged heavily. It is much further yet to the terminal than we thought, and we realize that our $4 are well spent. The driver sticks to his price, giving me the right change: taxi drivers don't usually receive tips here.

Relieved to finally have made it we find the bus company going to Riobamba, the destination we had chosen as doable in the morning. The 'Patria' clerk takes our $8 and tells us to go to 'Salida 29'. I check the ticket: 3:30 pm - that's only five minutes from now! Almost at a run we arrive at the bus stop just in time for the driver's assistant to stow our bag in the cave-like belly of the bus, and a few minutes later we're on our way.

Ecuadorian folk music streams from the loudspeakers as we start making our way south. I don't think I could ever tire of this music, and so far it seems to have been the music of choice for every bus driver on the way.

 

The fertile valley is opening up now, fields spread out to the left and right, and small herds of Holstein cows graze in lush green pastures. It is milking time, and often we see women squatting behind or beside a cow whose hind legs have been tied together, more pails waiting a few metres away. It is a pastoral scene, one we are not likely to encounter anywhere in Canada or Germany anymore.

 

I am glad for the beautiful landscape outside, because by now the driver's assistant has started one of the gory movies, and it's quite enough not to be able to escape the sound. At least this way I can avert my eyes and, immersed enough in what I see, I sometimes even manage to ignore the sounds of shooting, grunts, and fists connecting with heads and other body parts. Finally it gets too dark to see anything outside, and I catch the credits of the movie: Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger – quite the collection! I look forward to the change in mood when the music starts up again, but this bus driver seems to have a much different taste than his colleagues. Instead of pan flute and guitar there is “I'm sexy, I'm sexy and I know it ...”. Thank goodness that this bus ride won't last 22 hours ...

We arrive in Riobamba shortly after seven, hire a taxi that takes us to the hotel “Tren Dorado” which we found in the Lonely Planet, and have no trouble getting a room for the next two nights – Riobamba, while a fair-sized city, is no tourist destination like Baňos, for example. Its most sought-after attraction is its proximity to Chimborazo, Ecuador's highest (and still active, though not recently) volcano, on clear days a beautiful sight right from the roof-top terrace of our hotel, and a favoured destination for mountain climbers.

A local delicacy

We only chose it because it was conveniently on the way, we needed a place where we could stay long enough to do our laundry, and wanted to see a town where indigenous people are just as much part of the picture as non-indigenous ones.

Tomorrow we will be on our way again, this time to Guayaquil, 4 1/2 hours away by bus. One more night there, and our Galapagos adventure will begin!

View from the "Tren Dorado" (this is not Chimborazo, however)