That's So Ecua: Transportation

Riding Horses in Vilcabamba

Over the past several weeks I have spent a copious amount of time on buses. Krishna (my co-worker and travel buddy) and I had a two-week break between our modules and decided to take a tour of the South of Ecuador and then the Jungle. We traveled to Cuenca, Loja, Vilcabamba, Saraguro, Machala, Zamora, and Tena. I am assuming we spent approximately 50 hours in transit between different cities. I had plenty of time to think and experience all things with Transportation in Ecuador. So, I am taking the opportunity to talk about Transportation in Ecuador. Enjoy. 

Vendors:

Without fail, no matter where you are, vendors will come onto the bus and try to sell whatever they have. These items range from street food (quite tasty, but not advisable to buy and eat), pan flute music (yes, I have heard The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel), recipe books, cure all pills, and SO much more. On longer trips it is common to take pit stops for food, bathrooms, and picking up new people, animals, and things. During these breaks Vendors storm the bus with their tasty treats walking up and down the aisles screaming in their vendor voices. I know I have mentioned the “vendor voice” before…ALL vendors have the same voice. It is either a low guttural or high monotone voice that originates from the back of the throat that is quite loud. I am always in awe when a small child enters the bus selling items with their parents (or alone) and they have mastered the “vendor voice” as well.

Another common occurrence is beggars coming onto the bus telling a very sad story asking for donations. Usually these stories include family members who were robbed, were in a car accident, or are gravely injured. They walk around to each person asking for any change that they have to help their families. A lot of the time these stories don’t make any sense or the person asking gets the story mixed up when he tells it again. Other times the injured people come onto the bus themselves showing their bloody and bandaged leg when they should clearly be heading to the hospital. Needless to say, it is always disturbing. Sometimes vendors won’t leave you alone until you give them whatever change you have.

Transport by my horse, Tornado.

I took the liberty of documenting all food items that were sold on a five hour bus ride to Tena in the Jungle from Ambato. This includes: chochos con cuero (lupine beans, toasted corn kernels, grilled pig skin, tomatoes, onions, and lime), helados (ice cream), aguas (water), sodas, various fruits, cake/caye de banana (banana bread), bon ice (otter pops), empanada de verde (meat filled empanada made out of plantain bananas), caña (sugar cane to chew on, as if that is good for your teeth), and pinchos (skewers of meat, vegetables, bananas, and potatoes). On this particular bus stop the skewers were pure chicken feet. Yum! It was rather humorous because the lady came on selling her chicken foot skewers and looked confused when no one purchased this delicacy. This is just a small sampling of what you can get on the bus. Usually there are full on meals available in Styrofoam containers or containers that look like mini garbage cans.

Personal Space, or Lack There Of:

After living in Ecuador for almost 9 months, I am still not used to the lack of personal space, especially on buses.  Ecuadorians have a bad habit of shoving as many people as possible on a bus. I always take a deep breath before getting on the bus. Sometimes there are seats, other times standing room only. More often than not I am pushed up against some random stranger while awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact, especially if it is a sleazy looking guy. If you don’t buy a ticket early enough for long distance journeys (more than an hour) there is a strong chance that you will be standing in the aisle with others as well. Sometimes you are lucky and they put plastic benches in the aisle to sit on. Living in luxury I tell you!


On buses you really need to be careful and watch your belongings. Several of my friends have been robbed on buses and it is advisable to put your valuables in your bra, or an inside pocket of a jacket or purse that has a zipper. There are tons of schemes to steal from foreigners in Ecuador and making you feel uncomfortable is only the beginning. If someone gets too close for comfort and won't leave you alone, get away from them as soon as possible. Or you can resort to screaming, "ladron!" this will most likely stop them in their tracks and give you an opportunity to get away.

Standing in the aisle after getting to the bus late

Reclining Seats: One of my biggest pet peeves is when the person in front of you decides to recline their seat…all the way so that they are basically sitting in your lap. This is incredibly awkward because a lot of the time they also put their hands up and over the seat, right in your face. There is no option except to sit extremely close to this person or push your own seat back and encourage the vicious cycle of reclining into your neighbor’s lap. The worst is when you drop something and can’t reach down to pick it up because the person in front of you is reclining so far and sleeping like a baby. Then what? This exact same thing happened to my friend Krishna when he dropped his cell phone and bent down to retrieve it but was stopped by the man in front. He was about to lose it and start screaming obsceneties, but luckily at the same time the married couple and their 3 kids in front of us got off the bus and I quickly wiggled out of my seat (seat still reclined in front) so Krishna could retrieve whatever he had dropped.

 Pushing and Shoving: One thing that Ecuadorians have mastered is pushing and shoving to get on and off the bus.  Several months ago I was going to Cotopaxi with some friends and some older gentleman put his arm RIGHT in front of me and began pushing his elbow into my chest and getting himself and his family to the front of the line. In the mean time, I was appalled that this sweet looking gentleman wouldn’t let me enter the bus. So, I did as any other Ecuadorian would and pushed back eventually making this man release his arm from in front of me and stop boxing me out as if he was trying to get a rebound from a tie-breaking basketball game. The real trick is if you are in the very back of the bus and are able to make your way to the front of the bus and get off at your stop. To get the driver to stop, all you have to do is scream, “Gracias!” This is pretty effective most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t happen and you have to walk a little more than you anticipated. On longer journeys it never ceases to amaze me when both indigenous and mestizo people hop off the bus in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE to get to their destinations. They obviously know what they are doing, but sometimes I wonder if they possibly made a mistake and got off too early or too late.

Entertainment:

Bad Movies: When you are on a longer trip, most of the time a movie is put in. The only problem here is that Ecuadorians are unable to choose a decent movie. 90% of the time the movie is a really gory and bad action flick, usually with ninjas/martial arts/ and lots of blood. The other 10% of the time they put on a really stupid movie with no plot (my friends Anna, Will, and Amanda watched a special feature about attacking pterodactyls). I don’t know what it is about Ecuadorians but they really can’t pick a good movie. Also, they are usually of VERY poor quality and dubbed over in Spanish.

Dinner in Machala with Krishna and Amy!

Music: If there isn’t a movie, Ecuadorians tend to blast really cheesy and bad Ecuadorian romantic music. I don’t know what is worse, a bad movie or bad music. Another common occurrence is when someone on the bus decides that they don’t like the music playing on the bus and take it upon themselves to play their own music from their cell phones at full volume. AWESOME…not. Having two bad types of music playing at the same time is both annoying and aggravating.

Safety:

Seatbelts: It is true, 99% of the taxis in Ecuador don’t have seatbelts in the back seat. I am always pleasantly surprised when I get into a taxi and find a working seatbelt AND the part of the seatbelt that latches in for security. However, this is rare. I think this has happened to me 3 or 4 times the 9 months I have been here, Tops. Growing up with my parents using a seatbelt has always been instilled into my mindset from a very young age. It took some time to adjust to no seatbelts, and I can say one thing I am going to really love is using my seatbelt every time I get into my car. It is as if taxi drivers actively cover up or remove the seatbelts, making them inaccessible for the passenger. Ecuadorians don’t seem to mind all that much. It has been engrained in their brains that they don’t need a seatbelt and look at me strangely when I search for mine. Just yesterday I was sitting in the back seat with my host sister and her 11-year-old daughter when Mile (the daughter) looked at me with the most peculiar face as I asked her to move so I could secure my seatbelt. She told me, “You don’t need it Cata. You are in the back seat.” Oh right…duh. Stupid me. Ecuadorians are really strange about this. They act as if it is a burden to wear a seatbelt and only do it when driving past the police. After the police are out of view they throw the seatbelt back and use it only when they see another policeman. There are some exceptions, but for the majority of the time Ecuadorians don’t use seatbelts.

Family and Motorcycle Transport: In addition to not using seatbelts, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen small children running wild in the car with their parents just sitting and watching. I will be standing on the side of the road and see a car zooming past with 3 small children jumping up and down in both the front and the back seat. Car seats are a very foreign idea in this country and I don’t think it is changing anytime soon. The little kids would see it as punishment not something to protect their lives and keep them safe. Motorcycles are very common in Ecuador, and it is also common to see entire families on one motorcycle. Usually it is the father in front, children in the middle, and mother in back. Not to mention that only the father is using a helmet. I watch in fear and awe as a small family flies past me on a motorcycle. This would never happen in the states.

Me and women from Saraguro

In conclusion, the customs and traditions of transport in Ecuador are drastically different than those in the United States. Who am I to say what is right and wrong? I suppose it is all relative to your culture. Ecuadorian culture encourages vendors, no seatbelts, no personal space, bad movies, and a plethora of random issues and things. This is just one of the major differences I have noticed between Ecuador and the States. Stay tuned for more editions of “That’s So Ecua…” in the near future! Thanks for reading!

Abrazos,

Caitlin, Catalina, Cata, Teacherrrrr

Reaction to Osama Bin Laden's Death

As I sit her on my bed in Ambato, Ecuador I don’t really know how to react to the death of Osama Bin Laden. It is this man that was responsible for the death of approximately 3,000 American citizens on September 11, 2001. It has taken almost 10 years (9 years, 7 months, 20 days) to find him and hunt him down. Over the last 10 years there has been way too much bloodshed of innocent civilians all over the world. It is easy for us as Americans (myself included) to brush aside and ignore all the deaths that Americans have caused too. We have been in several wars, primarily Iraq with little purpose and unsuccessful results. Why do we have to kill someone to teach the rest of the world that killing is not okay? This seems so backwards and wrong.

It doesn’t seem right to celebrate the death of anyone. I am feeling a lot of mixed emotions towards this turn of events. It is a shame that one life has to be taken to get “revenge” for taking another life. Call me what you want: a liberal, pacifist, or “un-American”. I know I wasn’t directly affected by September 11, 2001 except for worrying about my uncles who lived and experienced the entire thing from their apartment. I don’t mean to sound insensitive and I do understand that for those that had loved ones killed by the Al Queda on this horrific date in American history are feeling some relief for their loss. But there has to be a way to end terrorism without violence and killing.

I remember September 11, 2001 quite vividly. Living on the West coast I was three hours behind and my mom shook me awake from sleeping to tell me, “there has been an attack on the United States in New York City”. Confused I woke up and stumbled into the living room to watch the two planes crash into the World Trade Towers and crash to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. Was this really happening? I remember thinking to myself, “Someday people will ask me where I was, what I remember, and what 9/11 was like” well, I suppose that time has come. I went to school and we didn’t have school the rest of the day. Instead we sat in our classes and watched the news listening and watching the live coverage of New York City, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. What a horrible day in history.

I found out about Osama Bin Laden’s death through friends on facebook and skype. I watched the live streaming of President Obama’s speech las night and also saw the chilling footage of the World Trade Center attacks again and again. I ran and told my Ecuadorian mom that he has been killed and we watched the news together. I oddly felt the need to tell my family here and contact my family back home. I am feeling strangely patriotic, but what a shame it is that one life has to end to teach the world something. Will there ever be a day where we won’t have to turn to violence? Where we won’t have to kill to get revenge? Where people will be open-minded enough to realize the harm that killing and violence has on this world? A large portion of my friends statuses on facebook have been commenting on the death of Bin Laden. One of my friend’s statuses was disturbing. She claimed that if you don’t think Osama’s death was worth it, you are disrespecting the families, dead, and soldiers who have been affected. She also claimed that if you are in this mindset, that you don’t belong in America, are basically part of Al Queda, and a terrorist. It makes me sad that someone can make those sort of claims about people who just want to live in a peaceful world. I am not saying that Osama’s death was a mistake, but there are other ways to deal with this sort of thing.

Lets challenge ourselves to end violence with love. I am not celebrating, simply reflecting on the last 10 years and what events and wars have taken the lives of so many. Not only American, but innocent civilians from different countries. I strongly believe that two wrongs don’t make a right. Lets move on from Osama’s death with a newfound appreciation for peace, love and justice. All we can do is reflect, respect, and  honor all the lives that have been lost.