Lonely Planet. The name of one of the most common guide books available. In the past, Lonely Planet has been the Yelp.com for traveling. This time, I'm not sure I can say it's been as helpful. One thing we usually would have agreed with, but were brave enough to dismiss when the need presented itself, was transportation. We have choices here in Ecuador; flights, buses, bikes, walking, taxis, and of course hitchhiking. Lonely Planet's take on hitchhiking: 'Hitchhiking is never entirely safe in any country, and we don't recommend it. Travelers who decide to hitchhike should understand that they are taking a small but potentially serious risk.' It goes on.
We boarded the 11:30am bus leaving from Banos yesterday. I was very proud of myself, I purchased the tickets in Spanish without Dave's help. They told me it was direct to Quito and would take 3 hours. Just as the bus from Quito to Banos was 2 days prior. We had a 4:30pm flight to Loha and needed to be at the airport at 3:30pm for check-in. The taxi ride would be 1/2 hour - 1 hour from the bus station to the airport. You do the math, it was perfect timing.
At 12:30, we had already stopped about 40 times, picked up and dropped off 50ish people, listened to the bus driver get out of the bus and yell 'Quito' for 5 minutes at each stop and then of course, collect the money as we continued down the road. At 1:30pm, we were getting very nervous. At 2:15pm, the bus stopped (again) but this time no one got off, and no one got on. The bus had broken down. We had an hour and 15 minutes to get to the bus station, catch a taxi and be at the airport by 3:30pm. No way we were going to make it on the bus.
Lonely Planet cont. 'Hitchhiking is not very practical in Ecuador for three reasons: there are few private cars, public transportation is relatively cheap and trucks are used as public transportation in remote areas.
Few private cars? I beg to differ. Smog and traffic is awful in the cities. How does a city get so smoggy that it burns your eyes and throat without private cars? Public transportation is cheap (our bus cost $3.50 per person for our 3 hour bus ride) but this price does not include non stop or timely arrival.
We were inbetween 2 cities on a highway when the bus stopped. We watched about 10 cars drive by ignoring our thumbs before Santiago pulled over in his shaky, but running, Chevy. He was on his way to Quito and lived near the airport. He was wonderful. He drove about 110kph(66mph) the whole way, and only stopped to drop us off at a taxi close to the airport because he needed to be somewhere.
We made it to the airport at 4:00, checked in, went through security right as they called for our flight to line up at gate 1 for boarding. We were on the airplane for 10 minutes before take off. We made it!
Dave: My favorite memory of yesterday was standing on the side of the road with our suitcases looking at the bus we had just left with force (they didn't want to let us off or give us our bags) and seeing all these people looking out the windows of the bus at the gringos with their thumbs in the air. All in all, the bus breaking down was a blessing in disguise, as there is no way we would have caught our flight otherwise. When we arrived at our hotel, all of the day's events made our cervezas de Pilsener that much more refreshing!
