What a ride

I´m on my own for the next two months. Ari has returned to Ann Arbor, and I continue southward. But before I get to my recent and upcoming, solo adventures, I would like to return to the chronological style I have adhered to until my shabbat shalom message.

We pick up in the city of Cuence or, rather, on our way out of Cuenca, which is a gorgeous city that deservingly received UNESCO World Heritage Site status for its architecture. We are riding the bus from Cuenca to Guayaquil to pick up our flight for the Galapagos Islands, which leaves the next day.

Well, I´ll think of it as they´re trying to keep us safe

Twenty minutes out of Cuenca, the bus pulls over to the side of the road where five police officers are standing. I am sitting in the first row of the bus on the aisle seat (I can see out the front window and know what´s going on). When the bus stops, everybody gets off and stands in the middle of the highway. Even though Ari and I are sitting in the front row, we don´t really pick up on the cue or know what is going on, so we are the last ones off the bus. The police will search the passengers. I´m not sure if this is for drugs or weapons or other stuff.

Once off the bus, Ari and I jump at the back of the line as the police search the other passengers. We didn´t realize that the passengers were standing in two lines - one for men and one for women. We were just a bit startled by the unannounced search. We get in the correct line and, once we start speaking (or not speaking) Spanish and show them our American passports, we get on without a problem.

The police didn´t seem to be taking this search too seriously, so they might employ it as a scare tactic or they must know what they are exactly looking for.

Something you never want to see

The bus continued on the mountainous roads for the next few hours until the bus suddenly stops in middle of a downhill section directly ahead of a sharp turn. The driver and official get out of the bus and rush to get boulders from the side of the road so that the bus doesn´t move. I think it´s pretty clear what the problem was in this situation.

Now, I know it´s the title of this section but let´s return to what I witnessed. The driver getting rocks from the side of the road so that the bus doesn´t continue going downhill. Harrowing? Yes. Confident in the bus driver? Do I have any choice?

The bus smelled horrible, and it smelled even worse when you opened the window. All the men get off the bus to check out what´s going on (Home Improvement style, argh, argh, argh). They simply stand on the side of the road as the watch the driver try to correct what is going on. Some of them also decide to go to take a leak.

If you are going to bootleg American movies, please do so with some quality films

For long bus rides in Ecuador, there is little do. Most people don´t bring books on the bus, and, although the scenery is breathtaking for an American who has never been to Ecuador before, they are not really wowed by the landscape. Sleep is a popular choice as well, but the most common practice would be to watch one of the movies the bus official decides to show.

Aside from my first long bus ride (when they tried to show Home Alone, but the movie skipped out), they have not shown a single quality movie on any of my long distance bus rides (and I have recently been longing quite a few hours in long-distance public transportation).

Let´s go through the list of movie titles that I have had to watch in the last couple of weeks. I had not heard of one of them before I saw it on the bus: Raw Deal, The Shepherd, Code Name: The Cleanaer, Littleman, some WWE Action movie executively produced by Vince McMahon.

A common thread among most of them: high-octane action featuring a lot of bad guys with horrible aims when shooting at the good guys. All the movies have Spanish dubbed over the original English, so the Arnold Schwarzenaegger (sp.?) voice from Raw Deal was just some Hispanic guy. You can tell that they are all bootleg copies because they don´t have a DVD menu. It just goes straight into the movie.

Also, keep in mind that there are plenty of little children riding the buses. These are the movies that they are being shown.