There are many ways to get to places in Ecuador, and I have experienced almost all of them, except for the plane and llama. This is a summary of transportation in Ecuador, in case this column has inspired you to visit.
Taxis
Taxis are cheap and get you places very quickly if you have the luck of wanting to travel when there isn’t much traffic—although this is almost never the case. In a taxi you can learn lots of bad words from the driver as he crosses the yellow line and cuts off a school bus (my favorite bad word: hijo de puta). However, you might be a victim of secuestrar express, which is when the driver pretends that he is a Nice Guy but really drives you to a different place that is deserted and leaves you there with a pack of malnourished wild dogs after robbing you of all your possessions. This has happened to a friend of mine and is my Greatest Fear in Quito.
Local Bus/Ecoviva
The cheapest way to get around the city other than on your own two feet is taking the bus or Ecoviva (bus that only goes on one very long street). To catch a bus, you must have ESP and know where each bus is going because they all look alike and I haven’t detected any markings to differentiate between the identical long, blue, black-smoke-spewing buses. After making the leap onto the bus, all the fun starts. Since I am taller than most Ecuadorians, many people have tended to use my extremities as handrails when the bus slams on the breaks to avoid crashing into another bus. To make the ride even more dangerous, the buses are driven in nonsensical figure-eight patterns; therefore, as everyone is sloshed around together, invariably someone’s hairgel gets smeared all over me. At the very least, the surfaces to hold on are always lathered in hair gel. I hate hairgel. Once you have reached your exact destination/are suffocating in hairgel and can’t take it anymore, you just yell “PARRE!” and leap off the platform into the thick black smoke coming from the previous bus. You might land on a vendor entering the bus to sell chips, but at least you can go wash off the hairgel.
Long Distance Buses
Long distance buses are awesome because when you wake up you are in another place and en route, you can eat delicious snacks sold by vendors who threaten to dump them on your head if you don’t purchase one. There are two ways of catching a long-distance bus. The first, more formal way involves going to a bus terminal and buying a ticket to the location. The second, more common manner involves walking down the street and waiting until a bus comes roaring by and the busman yells the destination at you, just in case it sparks a desire to travel. The competition once got so fierce that two busmen got in a fight over which of their buses I would choose. Every bus claims to be “Direct,” but they invoke a slightly more creative use of the term. Each bus stops at every congregation of people along the way to try and hustle them into taking the bus, and also stops whenever someone yells “PARRE.” If you are a sophisticated Bus-Taker, you can make the bus stop at your house, but I haven’t learned how to do this yet. Buses are also awesome because they are BYOB; while I highly encourage the traditional connotation of BYOB, in Ecuador it means Bring Your Own Barn-animal. Last week, there were three sheep on top of my bus and cuyes (guinea pigs) in someone’s lap. There was also a band of school children playing flutes and guitars. Then, after all of this, the morning comes and hopefully you still have all your belongings when you groggily step off the bus at your destination.
Just a note, when traveling in Ecuador, always bring Purell and toilet paper because you WILL have to touch hairgel and you will have use bathrooms that are merely holes without luxuries like toilet paper and flushes.
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