We are in Ecuador. The only bus leaving here today is only two hours away. So we wait at the border post by talking with the customs, who do not ask for more. There is no crowd here. Nobody else crosses the border during our two hours of waiting. Andrea and Tania take out the mull pot and rotate it. Customs officers are intrigues. They did not know, but they appreciate.
Finally, the bus arrives. In fact, it’s just a 4×4 truck on the board of which wooden benches have been installed. Given the state of the road, it shakes. After a while, we stop in front of a military barracks. A soldier comes out and entrusts his little girl to Tania for the trip. His mother will wait for him when the bus arrives. We arrive at Zumba and quickly get on with another bus that takes us to Loja. We spend the night here before leaving for Cuenca the next day. We spend the day walking around this beautiful city, with its huge cathedral that looks a bit like Istanbul’s mosque.
A beautiful street of Cuenca
Banos, a seaside resort in nature
In the evening, we take a bus to Ambato and we’ll take another bus to Baños, where Andrea and Tania have to meet Chilean friends. The city is invaded by Ecuadorian tourists who come to spend the weekend in this balneaire resort which does not have much charm. I say goodbye to my Chilean companions who leave to volunteer in another city. After a night in Baños, I take a bus to Quito.
I arrive in Quito on a Sunday evening around ten o’clock. If I had a little information, I would have known that it was the worst moment. I share a cab with an American meets on the bus. Unfortunately his hostal is full. I give myself up to leave but everyone here discourages me to walk around the neighborhood with my bags. Apparently, it may be the backpackers area, it really fears the evening. I am also advised not to venture more than two blocks from here.
So I leave my bags here and go looking for a place to sleep. Everything is overpriced in Quito. After a few streets, I meet a group of guys who look at me strangely. They speak Spanish to each other, thinking that I do not understand them. There is one who tells others that security guards are too close. Too close for what? I do not prefer to know it and go straight to the guards. I head for the first hotel I find. On the road I still have time to be offered twice the coke and to make me dock by a prostitute.
After a night in my beautiful expensive hotel, I go find Francois who has found a nice hostal in a quieter area. We leave the same day for San Gabriel, the last city before the Colombian border. Just enough time to fly the camera we had just bought in Peru to replace the one I had forgotten at Cañon de Colca. It was between my legs in the bus, impossible to know how they managed to sting it without me realizing it!