Carnaval 1: The Departure

I have a sneaking suspicion that my other extranjero friends are becoming a little more Ecuadorian every day. After approximately 3409384 emails about our trip to Baños, we hadn´t figured out much except what time we should buy tickets for. But then, in classic Ecuadorian fashion, Emma's boss told her that she had to go to a meeting which started an hour before we had to leave. So we were in a bit of a pickle. With a little help from our friends and some juggling of the schedule, we worked out a plan.

So, on Friday I left that house around 12:45 or so, 2 hours and 15 minutes before we had to catch our bus. I was supposed to meet Mary Beth at Trole parada so I hauled myself to the bus stop and endured a ride that felt very long as people jostled my backpack.

I got to the parada and got off and then got a call from Emma asking me to walk to her office from the parada, which is about 4 blocks more or less. So I did, but when I got to the corner where we were supposed to meet I realized I didn't have any saldo (money, minutes) on my phone so I couldn't call her. I then found somewhere to buy saldo for my phone and finally was able to call Emma. She and Mary Beth met me on the corner where they told me that actually, we were going to walk to Emma's house and leave from there.

Finally, we arrived at Emma's and Mary Beth packed a bag. Emma's host brother called us a cab and I waited around for our departure. While Mary Beth was getting ready everyone else at the house left for lunch. The cab arrived and we pulled the door shut and headed to the gate. To find that we couldn't open the gate without the house keys. Which we left in the house. Which was locked. So the cab left us and we called Emma to try to figure out what to do. While she was trying to call someone to come back and let us out we explored our options. I made a few attempts and climbing over the wall but just couldn't pull it off. Finally, we looked in the families car for keys and discovered a garage door opener for the gate. As Mary Beth pushed the button of our salvation and the gate opened I ran out, to see our other friend Bianca less than a block away coming to let us out. Of course.

We ran down the street to hail a cab and amazingly found one within 5 minutes. And promptly got stuck in traffic. We arrived at the bus station at about 3 on the dot. We ran through the bus station, narrowly avoiding knocking down children and old people. We couldn't find anyone at the office where we bought the tickets so we just went out in the station to try to find the right bus. After asking several people we finally found what we believed was the right one and waited there. And then a woman came to find us and told us that our bus had left, but we could get on the 4 pm bus. However, she then decided we could get on another company's bus and not have to get new tickets. We got on at about 3:10, but the bus didn't leave for at least another 20 or 30 minutes.

As we were waiting on the bus one of the bus employees walked to the back of the bus with the backpacks of some gringos and told them that they had to keep the backpacks with them on the bus. The gringo was none too happy and kept yelling, "Mas despacio, mas despacio." Followed by "Hay es bullshit!" I'm not sure whether he was trying to get the guy to talk slower (despacio) or whether he was trying to say there was plenty of space underneath the bus (espacio). I do know he was not happy. Eventually they just put the bags in the aisle and called it good. And finally, we were on our way.

Luckily, this level of miscommunication and complication wasn't too indicative of the rest of the trip. Gracias a Dios. Stay tuned for Carnaval 2: Toco la pared.