CUENCA MODERNIZES BUS SYSTEM

Today is a red letter day in Cuenca. To explain how truly remarkable this day is, I have to digress and reiterate our bus experiences from last year. The bus IS the mass transportation here. People take ANYTHING on the bus. We have seen wheelbarrows (it is not unusual to see vendors with a wheelbarrow full of cherries or strawberries hawking their wares downtown. Once the fruit is gone, the vendor hops on the bus with his or her empty wheelbarrow), huge buckets of items going to and from the market, children tied to their mothers by rebozo, furniture, etc.

The buses are everywhere and come frequently. They cost 25 cents for adults and 12.5 cents for children and seniors (those of the "third age"). Up until today you would flag your bus and jump on as fast as possible (as soon as one foot is on the step, the bus driver takes off like a bat out of hell) and pay the "conductor" who stands in the doorway announcing to people on the street where the bus is going, makes change for people getting onto the bus, helps people who are carrying large burdens get on and off, or helps mothers with multiple children, all the while yelling, "sigue, sigue," meaning, roughly "move it!" Buses have bus stops but also seem to stop most anywhere or pick up people most anywhere.

However, like other places, Cuenca is modernizing its bus system. Some new things: now behind the driver is a digital reader board which tells passengers what the current stop is and what the next stop is; some of the buses turn on the digital voice (a woman's) who also says aloud what the stops are. But the really big news is that you now (starting today!) do not hand your coin to the conductor/annunciador, but put it into the lock box. As soon as the lock box registers that you have paid the correct amount, it will let you through the turnstile. Sounds plausible, no? Well, some people haven't gotten the message and still get on without the correct change - and yes, the conductor will make change...and then indicate to put the coin into the lock box. Also, Jim (who is in the "third age" and pays only 12 cents) has trouble getting the turnstile to open. We think it is because the machine doesn't recognize the 12 cent fare as a full fare. The last time we rode and Jim put his 12 cents in the lock box the conductor had to put money in to make it say 25 cents and somehow Jim got 3 cents back, but the turnstile did open. The other innovation that will be starting soon is a card swipe system. We haven't seen this in action yet, but are surmising that this may be the way to go for the senior fare (and wouldn't it be better to not have to carry around pennies?)

Nancy and I had a fabulous bus experience yesterday. We were approaching our stop and discussing where to get off when Nancy said, "or we can ride to the end of the line and then come back." That's what we did. We rode about another 1/2 hour past our stop and were out in the countryside. Pretty soon we were the last ones on the bus and the bus driver was a little concerned about where we thought we were going. His Spanish was difficult to understand due to his accent (I think he might have been from the coast, where they drop many consonants) but we managed to communicate that we were going to head back the other way. He got to the end of the line and turned around on an uphill dirt road.

He told us it would be about a 5 minute wait. Then he suddenly became Mr. Tour Guide and asked us if we wanted to get out and look at the river. So, we hopped out with our cameras and went with the bus driver and annunciador across the busy highway to look down the gorge to the Rio Tome Bomba.

This is the same river that goes in front of Chuck and Nancy's condo. Down in Cuenca, the natives wash their clothes in this river, as they have done for centuries.

After several photographs and a commentary from the bus driver about how the river comes down from the mountains through Las Cajas (a nearby national park) and how beautiful it is, we got back onto the bus and headed back toward town. The driver went really slowly and actually stopped again so we could take photos.

As we got closer and closer to town, the bus filled out with people. However, when we got up to get off, the bus driver said goodbye like we were old friends. Here he is posing with Nancy.

Where else could you get this kind of an experience for 25 cents?