![]() If there are two of you, most slots accept 50-cent pieces as well (show it to the driver, so he knows you’re paying for two). You can go anywhere the buses go by dropping a quarter into the slot on the coin acceptor. ![]() (You don’t put your palm up in the common American “stop” gesture instead, your palm faces the ground and you sort of make a “slow-down” motion to signal the driver.) You enter the bus through the front door. Where there aren’t any signs, you flag down the bus and it picks you up wherever you happen to be. ![]() Before the guides appeared, the buses were pretty much the dominion of Cuencanos, because they were the only ones who knew where they went! Since the guides came out, anyone with the ability to read a map can ride them with confidence.īig blue bus-stop signs (Parada de Bus) line all the busy streets the closer you are to El Centro, the more sign-posted bus stops there are. You determine the buses’ route numbers, ultimate destinations, and main stops along the way by the signs in the lower left corner of their front windshields.īus guides (the Guía de la Ciudad y TransporteUrbano) have been intermittently available since October 2010 if they’re in stock, you can pick one up at iTur, the tourist office opposite Parque Calderón. In terms of security, they’re are safe for passengers (though as anywhere in the world, be aware of your belongings and surroundings). They run to within a few blocks of anywhere you need to go they also touch all corners of the suburbs and exurbs, from Challuabamba to Narancay, from Racar to El Valle, from San Joaquin to Ricaurte, from Sayausí to Capulispamba. The buses are frequent, convenient, and inexpensive. Yet, even in the face of all that, the buses of Cuenca are one of the best things about it you almost couldn’t ask for a better mass-transportation system. It’s fun to hang out the back door, which the driver often opens at 25 mph a half-block or so from the bus stops. The drivers shift gears with varying degrees of jerkiness, and they seem to accelerate till the very last moment, then brake hard, so you feel like you’re climbing uphill as you make your way to the back of the bus to disembark at your stop. Most buses are Mercedes vehicles that, new or old, bounce around on the cobblestones and pavement without the benefit of shock absorbers. That’s if a seat is available and you aren’t squished among other standing-room-only passengers, such as commuters, students, mothers of children from two weeks to 12 years old, teenagers making the rounds, vendors with big baskets full of produce or chifles or market wares, even barkers standing at the head of the aisle addressing the whole bus, selling something. The seats are decidedly gringo-unfriendly, especially if you’re tall (like me) or saddled with a skinny butt (like mine). ![]() It’s loud inside the bus, outside the bus, and inside residences that line the bus routes. These buses are fumy, issuing diesel exhaust every time they accelerate in first and second gear roughly once every block or two. weekends, servicing more than two dozen lines operated by seven different bus companies. Hundreds of them bomb around town, from roughly 5:45 a.m. ![]()
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