Bring on the bus to Tena!
After a 50 minute taxi ride with 'Jonny Taxi' from our AirBnB, we arrived at the Quitumbe Terrestrial Bus Terminal. Quito is a sprawling city in the Andes Mountains, split by mountains and monster ravines that require driving around, rather than through, so it was quite a taxi ride to start our day. We secured our tickets on the Expreso Baños bus, crossing our fingers that it would actually be an express bus. When asked in Gayle's best broken Spanish, the ticket guy assured us the bus made no stops and had no bathroom, so off to the baños for a quick $0.20 pee. I guess the bus is named for the place Baños, not for having baños on board.
We boarded the bus at 9:20 am, and were rolling out of the terminal at 9:31. Nicely done. Virtually on time. We quickly noticed the bus had an altimeter, which measures our elevation. Cool. We started at 2956 m. Confirmation - the bus had no bathroom.
It took us over an hour to weave out of what we considered Quito, and incidentally, we backtracked much of our morning taxi route. We made about 5 stops to pick up new passengers along this route. Go figure. Finally we were passing through new territory, noticing the lush green of the roadsides. Then we made our first official stop. Wait? A stop?
Yup, we stopped so that vendors could hop on an sell their wares. Luckily for us, one woman was selling empanadas, not charging cables like someone else, so we pulled out our dollar. In the exchange, we were handed not one empanada, but FOUR! Score. These empanadas tasted like a pastry cookie and were filled with a strawberry like jam. After about 20 minutes, the driver and co-pilot resumed their positions, and off we continued.
The next part of the journey was a continuous climb to get up and over the mountains. We took a picture of the altimeter at 3679 m, then 3800 m, then 3908 m, believing we had reached the summit (see picture evidence). Truth be told we actually got to 4165 m, but our eyes were too focused on the cool alpine landscape we remember to take a picture.
Our descent out of the mountains was filled with airbrake sounds (imagine a short, high pitched sneeze every 5 seconds), and yes, more stops to drop off and pick up travelers. We fit in a second stop at gas station to get gas, use the bathroom, and have more vendors jump on to sell food. This took about 15 minutes. So much for no stops and express bus! After about another hour, we made a third stop, this one for what we assume was lunch. Women jumped on the bus, selling the Ecuadorian versions of "bowls" - chicken, rice and veggies, corn and cheese, and other things we couldn't understand. Our personal favourite was the women selling hamberguesas from a professional decaled cooler box, complete with all the fixings! Just so you know, this stop took about 25 minutes, and had free bathrooms available.
About 4 hours into the trek, we felt we must be about an hour from Tena, when we saw a sign that said we were 80 km away. At home, we could easily make an 80 km trip in about an hour, but realistically given the road work, slow fuel trucks, and windy roads, we were staring another 2 hours in the face. So we sat back, and enjoyed the cloud forest, and then the pelting rain from the comfort of our dry bus.
At the 6 hour mark, the Expreso Baños rolled into Tena. The skies were clearing, the temperature was about 30 Celcius, and we were now at 519 m. We looked at each other, nodded, and agreed we picked the best option to get to Tena!
The photo below is a little misleading because it's from 2016 and there certainly was no "Climatizado".
