Today I parted ways with Tom and Scott to head back to Quito to either pack for the cloud forest or sign up for more Spanish classes. It all depends on what the volunteer organization is willing to do. But first off I have to get to Quito.
Every time I have taken the bus so far, I was with more experienced people who I followed with blind faith. Today I had no such luck .... I was all on my own. Now riding the bus in Ecuador is an adventure that everyone has to experience before they die. The first task is finding the bus station as some cities have only one bus station, others have one for long distance and one for local transportation, and others have a different bus station for each bus line .... it can be very confusing. Luckily Scott knew at which bus station I had to start my journey.
Life in the bus station is like an ant colony without a Queen directing the traffic. It's absolute chaos ... but somehow it's ordered. You have to find your way through a sea of people, all going to different places (some only there to rob you), in order to find the ticket window with a bus company you want to use, going to a town you want to visit. Everyone's trying to sell and buy tickets as if you were trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Half of the destinations you have never heard of. Now if you are headed to a small town, you have to talk to all these people to find out which route will take you to your town. Once you have all that figured out and buy your ticket (usually about $1 per hour of travel .... but as with the NYSE, prices very depending on who you are and what type of bus you are taking) you head off to find your bus, put your bag below (hopefully it will be there when you get off the bus) and head to your seat.
Now what happens if there isn't a bus station in your town? Why you stand on the side of the road and stick out your thumb of course. You can be standing in the middle of nowhere and if you stick out your thumb the bus will stop and give you a ride, it doesn't matter whether or not they have room.
So once you've made it on the bus you're in for the best part of the trip ... the people. As the bus drives around the country, it stops all over the place, all you have to do is ask. You can get off at a gas station, by your house, at the bus station, or even on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, to use the bathroom. Anything goes. You'll even pick people up all over the place even if you can't see a house for miles. If there's no room, you stand in the isle. One of the best things about stopping all the time is that people walk on the bus to sell you chips, chocolate, water, soup or steak dinners with Cesar salad and a twice baked potato (you have to call ahead if you want it well done). They even come on the bus to preach the word of the Lord, sell their herbal tea or ask for money because they were robbed (there is an inverse relation between how poor you look and how long your sob story has to be ..... one went for two towns).
Getting off the bus is the moment of truth. First, you have to see if your legs work anymore. As the average height in Ecuador is about 5', the "jaws of life" have to be brought in to pry me out of my chair, and then I have to crawl down the isle (there isn't any headroom either). The second thing is you have to trust the bus driver that this is actually the town you want to go to, since most of the time there is no indication it's the town you want to visit. The final moment of truth is if your bag is there. Being a good Canadian, I wait for everyone else to get their stuff (bags of grain, TVs, backpacks, garbage bags full of clothes, and on one occasion, their sheep from the roof) before I step in to reach for my bag. Luckily it has been there so far, but there are horror stories about it disappearing.
Now that you're off the bus you have to find where you are going. For the most part, the area around the bus station isn't the safest part of town, and with a big backpack, you want to take a cab. But which cab do you take since everyone is trying to take you to your destination. Once you find your cab driver and find out how much the trip costs (ask first or else they will take you for a ride) but it doesn't prevent being taken for a ride. Well I found a cab driver who told me the ride would be $6, so I hopped in. I should have known better though as I hopped into an unmarked cab ... bad move.
After driving for a while he started to get curious about my watch ... how much it cost, where I got it and how well it worked. He didn't stop eyeing it for about 10 minutes before he started to tell me that the trip will actually cost $7. Once we got to the bus station I used for reference he said that to go any further would cost $8. I decided that this was enough, so out I got. First off, he didn't want to open the trunk to get my bag (it survived the bus but not a taxi where I'm the only person there), so I wasn't getting out of the car before he opened the trunk. Once I got my bag, I gave him my money, and he claimed he didn't have any change so I would have to pay $10 for a ride where he didn't even take me to my house. Needless to say, I won't take an unmarked cab again ... but it likely won't be the last time I get hosed.
After taking the bus home (Susy's home again) and dropping off my bags, I headed out to the Spanish school to ask about changing my volunteer plans in hopes of taking two more weeks of Spanish. I emailed Meredith earlier in the week so when I arrived everything was organized for me. All I had to do was pay, but they didn't take credit cards. So with Meredith as my escort to prevent getting robbed, I went to the bank to get the money to pay for the course. It's a good thing she's strong because no one bothered me (Quito is notorious for people getting robbed, about half the students have been robbed .... it's just a matter of time).
Since I was now staying in Quito for another two weeks, I went to an American run club, called South American Explorers to become a member. It was like stepping into the US. English is the language of choice, the computers have English keyboards and in the back they have REAL coffee. It is a little piece of heaven with offices in Lima and Cusco where I can leave luggage, call home, use the internet for free, read fellow traveler's reports on where to go and what to do, and most importantly meet up with other travelers. If anyone is heading down to South America, I highly recommend joining.
Last week, when we had parted ways, my friends from school and I had decided to meet for drinks at our neighbourhood haunt, the Coffee Tree. As with every time we go, they had drinks and I had some real coffee (what I would do for a Starbucks right now). After a few drinks at Coffee Tree we headed to a dance club to enjoy some music before heading home and getting hosed again by a cab driver (he said it would cost $3, it ended up being $6). It has been determined that instead of my usual making sure the women get home safe, the women are going to have to take me home to make sure I don't get hosed again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment