October 22- Taking the bus to the town of Banos

Since we were spending a month in the northern part of Ecuador, I wanted to do more than just hang around Quito especially since we had accomplished doing my bucket list.

We had both always wanted to visit Banos, a small touristy town south of Quito.
http://wikitravel.org/en/Ba%C3%B1os

This time Uwe wanted to take a taxi but I talked him into taking the trolley to the main bus station in the south of Quito and taking the bus to Banos from there.  We took the green trolley south from Cumunda station ( a short walk from our apartment).We could not find the Quitumbe station on the map at the trolley station but were assured by the ticket taker that this trolley did indeed go there- not! We ended up at El Recreo station where everyone had to get off. Looking around quite lost like stupid gringos, we finally saw a sign that directed us to another platform entirely to catch the trolley to Quitumbe, which was a fairly new bus station. On the way there, we passed several other stations not on the map which had obviouly not been revised for a couple of years.

We finally got to the very modern bus station and following the directions I got from another Blog, went up the stairs where there were many ticket booths of the various bus companies going to many different cities. We went to the booth for the company
most recommended where no change in buses to our destination was required. This is the recommended list in order of preference.

1. Transportes Baños - Yellow & red bus
2. Expresso Baños: Yellow & red bus
3. Amazonas: Blue & white bus
4. San Francisco: Yellow-orange bus

The tickets were $3.50/each and we proceeded to where the buses came in to pick up passengers. All was very clean and modern. The ticket showed the bus number, the time it was leaving and our assigned seats. What it did not show was the spot number that the bus would be parked at- there were 32 different spots altogether. We had to ask several people and after a couple of incorrect directions, we finally found the correct location.

 

After a short wait our bus arrived and we left within 5 minutes of the posted departure time.

 

We only had our carry-on and my camera bag so took everything unto the bus with us. The driver tried to tell me not to put anything under my seat but under the seats in front ( I wish I had listened more closely- more on this later). We put our carry-on under the seat in front and my camera bag between my feet.

The total bus ride was suposed to be 3 1/2 hours so we saw a lot of the countryside on our way. There is no such thing as an express bus- we stopped whenever/wherever to pickup and drop off passengers. Some only came on for a short while to sell food/ice cream/news papers. We also left the highway and went into the downtown bus stops of several cities along the way making the trip seem much longer. All in all this was not the most scenic ride except possibly the road just south of Quito and the section between Ambato and Banos.

In Ambato we were suddenly told to change buses even though we were to ride the same bus all the way to Banos. We quickly tried to get our belongings back in our bags- we'd been reading and Uwe had his Ipod out. As I hurried to the next bus I noticed my camera case was halfway open! What the f#%k!

As we found seats in the next bus I put the camera case on my lap and opened it up.

My $400 plus SLR Sony camera was gone along with my change purse with approximatly $10 in it! What wasn't stolen was my new telephoto lense, our cell phone and $100 in bills that I had in another side pocket. Imagine, while the case was between my  feet , these clever thieves made off with a rather large bulky camera and some money.

This is the first time in many many years of travelling that anything has ever been stolen from us and only this time because of my own stupidity. Live and learn, oh gringo stupido!