Today we went to check out our Spanish school (Simon Bolivar), and practice getting there, since we weren’t sure exactly how to do that.
Paolo told us that there is a government-sponsored bus that runs down a main road (6. de Diciembre). This bus costs only $0.25 per person, per ride. However, it only stops at designated stops.
There are other busses that run a similar route and will stop anywhere, but those are a bit more confusing if you don’t know exactly where you’re going. And they take longer.
So, when we got to the bus stop, we hopped up on the platform (directly from the road) thinking that we paid on the bus. We were wrong.
The bus security guard came up to us and said that we needed to go through the turn styles, and pay there. Oops. He escorted us back to the booth and watched very carefully that we did as we were told.
The challenge though, is that we didn’t know where the bus would stop, and where the closest stop to our school would be. We were just hoping that we would recognize street names as we drove past them.
At one point, we thought we’d gone too far, so we got off. After we left the bus stop, and checked our map (given to us by Javier yesterday), we realized that we were only about half way there.
So we had to get back on the bus, and pay again.
The next time we got off the bus, we were at the right place. Exactly. The bus stopped right at the street we needed!
So we started walking to the school. We got a few blocks and realized we’d gone the wrong way. No big deal, but we were already late meeting Pablo there.
Apparently being late is a bigger deal in Ecuador that it was anywhere in Central America. But, Pablo loaned us his cell phone, and we settled up on the groceries he bought us yesterday.
Once at the school, Sophia showed us around and gave us a welcome packet. We’ll start classes on Monday.