Wednesday, Oct 26, 2016

Some days Cuenca is a crazy, busy place. The four of us were meeting Scott and Aurobindo for dinner at Sofy’s for Mexican night. I made reservations for 6:30 pm and a few minutes past six I fired up my Easy Taxi app to get one to our house.

After 10 minutes of trying and being unsuccessful to get a driver to pick up my request, we decided to take the bus to El Centro. The bus stop is at the end of our block. As we headed out of our place and onto the sidewalk we saw our bus drive by. Dang, missed that one.

We waited at the stop for another 10 minutes when another bus came by. Easton and I put our arms out, palms down, moving our hand up and down which is the signal used here to get buses and taxis to stop for you. As the bus approached it had people standing in the aisle which is the norm, especially between 6 and 6:30 pm in the evening. What wasn’t usual was that the bus didn’t stop. It just went flying by us.

This actually shocked me. The reason for my shock is I have been on many buses where the driver just keeps picking people up and there is no room to move. In fact, it feels like people coming in the front door are actually pushing people out the rear door…whether it was their stop or not.

I could see plenty of gaps, spaces, and light between the people standing in the aisle as the bus drove by, so I know there was room for four more people. I’m just a little pissed because I have had people literally in my lap when the drivers keep letting people on, and today, when I need to be one of those people on the bus, I get a drive by.

Instead of waiting for another bus and potentially the same thing happening, Heidi wanted to walk down another block and try to catch a cab on Loja. It is a main street by us and we have often caught taxis here. The traffic was insane.

We stood on the side of the road and watched the parade of backed up cars make their way through the traffic light. Every cab we saw had people in them. At this point it was 6:30 pm and I called Scott to tell him we would be late.

This is still an unfamiliar experience for me. I’ve lived my entire life with a car and could always go anywhere, and be where I wanted to be when I wanted. Waiting on public transportation, although usually convenient, has its moments of unpredictability. Tonight is one of them.

We did eventually score a taxi and made it to Sofy’s. Scott and Auro were patiently waiting for us and after a few minutes, and the arrival of a margarita, all was right with the world. 😉

Good Peeps

Good Peeps

Chili Rellano appetizer

Chili Rellano appetizer

Dinner started with a stuffed Chile Rellano appetizer, followed by an entree of Chocolate Chicken Mole, and Rice Pudding for dessert. I was completely full by the end of our dinner. This is the first time I have had chocolate chicken mole. It was a different taste for me, and the more I ate it the more I liked it.

I forgot to take a pic of my chocolate chicken mole platter. I remembered about half way through. As I looked at my plate at this point though, I had remembrances of changing some pretty wicked baby diapers of my sons. So maybe no pic of my dinner is the best pic for the Ecuador blog post today.

Chau.