Does This Bus Stop on 82nd Street?

“Are you going to Quito?” a man asked in Spanish as we entered the bus station.

We told him we were not.

“Macas? Guayaquil?” There were others, too, but his rapid-fire Spanish was too much for me to follow.

We told him, “No, gracias,” and moved past him to the ticket window, which was unusually quiet. It was 7:25 a.m., and the bus we wanted was scheduled to leave for Ambato at 8 a.m.

Finally a woman came back on duty, only to tell us that there was no 8 a.m. bus today. There was one at 9:15 a.m., or another bus company had one leaving at 8:30 a.m.

One of many super awesome statues
we saw from our bus windows.

We figured we would check the other company, but on the way, another man started in on the same spiel as the other. Neither of us thought we were really interested in a guy hawking a bus company, but then he heard us say Ambato, and he got very excited.

“Ambato? Es qui,” he said, pointing past the turnstile and into the parking lot.

Our American instincts said that we were about to get duped. Or mugged. Or something. But others joined the man in telling us to hurry, so we shrugged and headed toward the bus they were all pointing at.

A man grabbed our bags and threw them in the storage compartment. I asked the driver if the bus was going to Ambato. He rolled his eyes, said yes and pointed impatiently to the seats.

We got on and settled in. No tickets? No problem. They’d collect our $8 each about an hour into the ride.

This is how the Ecuadorian buses work, or so we were learning quickly. But there was so much more to it. And almost all of it is entertaining.

Fran and I got an indoctrination into Ecuador pretty quickly after arriving on a flight from Lima to Guayaquil a few days earlier.

It was clear that we were closer to the equator, when the hot air hit us in the face as we left the plane. Customs was possibly the easiest I’ve seen anywhere in the world, and we jumped in a taxi to the bus station/shopping mall complex about a mile from the airport.

We could have flown from Lima to Cuenca, but it would have meant changing planes in Guayaquil and Quito, which would have tripled our travel costs. The key is that buses in Ecuador are dirt cheap.

I checked just about all of the 90-plus ticket windows in the bus station before finding the one for Cuenca. It would be a 4-5 hour ride through a national park, and it cost $8 each.

We loaded the bus, which provided about twice the amount of legroom as a standard U.S. airline (and 12 times the room of a Peruvian airline), although there was no air conditioning.

A fast-speaking guy in a black leather vest (did I mention it was about 90 degrees on the bus?) was walking up and down the aisle. It took a minute to figure out what he was doing, when we realized he was asking trivia questions and passing out pieces of candy for the correct answers. If this kept up, it was going to be a VERY long trip.

He then dropped package of cookies on each of our laps, just like peanuts on a Southwest Airline flight, except he immediately walked back down the aisle collecting a dollar from anyone who wanted to keep them (making it more like Frontier Airline). Almost everyone handed them back.

It seemed strange at first, but soon we realized that something similar was likely to happen at every stop. People got on trying to sell us everything from potato chips to candy bars to toilet paper. Some of them gave a polite but impassioned speech, while others acted just like the vendors at a baseball game, saying whatever it was they had to offer.

After a few minutes, the vendors would grab a seat until the next stop, where they would jump off and wait for the next bus to roll through.

So far, we’ve been on four buses, ranging from very low end to the kind of buses that athletic teams use on road trips.

Three of our buses had movies playing. I’m pretty sure they bought the DVDs at a truck stop’s bargain bin. They’ve all been American but played in Spanish.

I’ve now seen a “film” with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in which they are trying to escape from prison. Twice.

There was also something with Kevin James, Salma Hayack and Henry Winkler. James was an MMA fighter, and he won the big fight at the end to win the love of the girl.

Or something like that. I’m not good enough with Spanish to really understand the movies. But something tells me that they’re better that way.

Has anyone in North America seen this
movie? I've now seen it three times.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s something on with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater, who’s playing a priest. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be lousy in any language, but I just can’t keep my eyes off it.

Great news: I nodded off during the movie, but they kept the movie on repeat, so we got to see it three times before reaching Ambato. Nice of the bus company to make sure we didn’t miss a suspenseful moment.

We had to get off and catch another bus in Ambato (the one we were on was going north, and we had to continue east). Most cities I have been to in the world seem to have main bus and train stations.

Ambato, it seems, does, too. But that’s not where you catch the bus to Baños. The bus driver rambled something in Spanish, of which I caught “Ambato” and got off.

We wandered across the street to catch a bus in the other direction. There were two really nice buses sitting at the stop when we arrived. Unfortunately, they took off as we were crossing the street.

It wasn’t long before another bus pulled up. It wasn’t quite as nice, but the bus company worker assured us that it would drop us off in Baños.

I should explain something about buses in this country. Unlike in the U.S., where you hand the driver some money on the way in, Ecuadorian buses have a driver and a driver’s helper. The helper loads the bags, collects the money and cues up really bad movies on the DVD player. I should also mention that they wait a really long time before collecting money. I’m pretty sure they wait just long enough for the majority of the passengers to fall asleep. I think they really like rustling people awake.

Try watching Schwartzeneger act
with Spanish dubbing sometime. 

The bus we got on was already crowded, so Fran and I sat about seven rows from each other. More and more people were piling on, including a woman literally holding up her daughter who appeared to have a debilitating disease that prevented her from taking care of herself.

Fran was horrified that nobody was offering them a seat. I would have, but I instead pointed them to the empty seat directly across from me (the girl who was lying across both seats sat up to surrender one).

A few rows back, Fran was seated next to a man who was napping. And taking up most of two seats (even though Fran was in one of them). At one point during the ride, the sleeping man put his hand on Fran’s leg. Fran was not amused.

Another woman, realizing there were no empty seats, reached for a stool so she could sit in the aisle. Seeing that Fran was in the perfect position on the bus, the woman stuck her rump directly in Fran’s face as she reached for the stool. Then she proceeded to sit right next to Fran, literally hovering over her and into her personal space. Fran was not amused.

This trip was only an hour, and I believe that Fran may have disembarked via the window in order to get off as quickly as possible.

Regardless, we made it to Baños (please bring on all the jokes about how appropriate it is that I made a pilgrimage to a place called “Banos”). It only took eight hours and cost us a whopping $23, including two buses and a pair of cab rides.

So, that’s pretty much what South American travel is like. Anyone want to join us for the remainder of our trip?