August 1st

FROM QUITO TO PUYO TO ARAJUNO

Monday was my big travel day from the capital city of Quito to the remote village of Arajuno where I will be spending the next 2.5 weeks.  I woke up at the hostel and took a 45 minute taxi ride to the Quitumbre bus terminal.  This was the first time I had a good chance to see Quito.  It was really cool.  All of the buildings are built all over these huge hills, and there are no skyscrapers so I was able to see a lot of the city at once from the car.  I got to Quitumbre, figured out how to buy a ticket, located the right bus, and began my 5 hour journey to Puyo.

WEIRDEST BUS RIDE EVER

So when I first boarded this bus, I assumed that since we were travelling a really long distance, the passengers who were on the bus originally would be the only ones who would be on the bus.  Not the case.  The bus driver actually kept on stopping the bus (sort of, he mostly slowed down to a roll) and motioning for pedestrians to hop on.  They were more than happy to join us, and soon the bus became quite crowded.  It seemed like the driver was also allowing the people to simply accept whatever money they happened to have, which was really thoughtful.  There was also a sort of co-pilot character, a boy who seemed like he was about 17 years old.  This boy would periodically open the doors to the bus and simply hop off of if.  He would then disappear for several minutes, only to reappear on the bus a mile or so down the road.   Where was he going?  Hopping into other cars? Catching other buses? Running rather quickly? Your guess is as good as mine.  Although my initial instinct was that he was behaving QUITE recklessly, I also appreciated that he was able to have a bit of fun on what would otherwise be a pretty boring job.

More to come about the actual Arajuno Project!!