Carrie and I wanted to go to from Quito to Las Lajas, Colombia to see the beautiful basilica at Las Lajas.
All of the online guides said that to get there, you should take a bus from Quito’s Terminal Terrestre (the bus terminal in the middle of Quito).
One problem…
Terminal Terrestre in Quito is closed.
No one had posted that anywhere in the 5-7 reviews we read online.
As a result, we spent 1 1/2 hours trying to find terminal terrestre.
We took the ecovia (city bus) and got off near the church of San Francisco.
We got in a taxi.
When we asked for “terminal terrestre”, the taxi driver didn’t say it was closed, but did tell us that there were only two major terminals in Quito – Terminal Carcelen in the north and Terminal Quitumbe in the south.
Based on past experience with (some of the) taxis in Quito, we figured he was pulling some kind of switcharoo or scam, or just trying to get us to go farther than we needed to.
So we got out. We went to a nearby Internet cafe. We found terminal terrestre on a map and found out where we were.
We walked 30 minutes to terminal terrestre.
When we arrived at Terminal Terrestre, this is what we saw.
Empty, vacant, and closed Terminal Terrestre in Quito, Ecuador
This is Terminal Terrestre, or what’s left of it.
Turns out, the taxi was right and wasn’t pulling any funny business on us.
Terminal Terrestre in Quito is closed and has moved to two terminals… one in the north and one in the south.
Moral of the story?
I don’t know… There is no moral.
(Maybe “don’t trust everything you read online or in guidebooks?” but that’s kind of obvious (selbstverstaendlich)).
Just hopefully you’re reading this blog post before you spent 45 minutes getting near Terminal Terrestre, another 45 minutes trying to find/walking to the place, and another hour heading back north to terminal Carcelen.
Terminal terrestre in Quito is closed.
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Hello Carrie and Jonathan! Thanks for this post. It’s over a year since you wrote this post but the publications I read still refer to Terminal Terrestre! haha! I’m heading to Tulcan in few weeks and hopefully I won’t get lost now.
Priyank
Hey Priyank, I’m happy that this was helpful for you. That’s the exact reason that we took the time to write it, so I’m glad that it cleared up confusion for you before you got in a taxi or tried to walk there. 🙂 Enjoy your time! Where are you heading after the Basilica?
the OLD terminal is closed, but the two new terminals are doing a brisk business, and will get you wherever you want to go! Carcelen will get you to all points north, Quitumbe to all points south.