Transportation in Quito

Quito is a city which is still in the process of modernizing. Also, it is huge, stretching nearly 25 kilometers north to south. Most transportation is done in one of three ways. First, there is the most advanced form, the trolley, of which there are two. They run north to south, however do not extend nearly the entire distance of the city. The best feature of the trolleys is that they often play a song that sounds like a broken ice cream truck as they go along, constantly sounding as if the battery will die completely any second. Also, the Ecovia, the trolley which I take and which is supposed to be more environmental makes so much pollution that the back half of the red trolley is black, utterly disgusting.

The second main form of public transportation is the bus. It is worth noting that both the trolley and the buses only run till about 9 at night, and are generally unsafe after 8, making them absoltely useless after dark. However, they are also both only 25 cents, meaning that when they are safe they are a great deal. The buses are the most confusing I have ever seen. They are of different colors, which do not really mean anything, and all have signs telling random places which they may or may not go. Their most distinguishing feature is the controllador, the man who leans out the door of the bus shouting destinations and hustling people in and out of the bus. He literally will shout for the entire duration of the busride, leading me to believe that controlladors have incredible lungs. Also, the busdriver has a button which he can press to make a cat call, a truly incredible feature. It seems to be to much effort for the bus driver to lean out the window and make catcalls, thus they built in the feature for him. The final great feature of the buses is that they really don't stop to let on or off passengers, much like the rolling stop at stopsigns. Either you quickly become skilled at hopping on a moving vehicle, or you hit the stairs on the bus until you do learn.

The final form of public transportation in Quito is the taxi. Luckily all taxis in Quito are required to be a certain color and run on the meter during the day, making life far easier. However, taxi drivers will still try every trick in the book to get you to pay more, especially if you are a foreigner. Probably the favorite one is my meter is broken, meaning you quickly have to negotiate a price or get out, because if you drive to the location first you will almost certainly be paying twice as much. The same goes at night, when the taxi drivers don't have to use the meter, and therefore charge outrageous prices, forcing you to bargain with them until you arrive at something somewhat reasonable. All this having been said, a really expensive cab ride in Quito is 4 dollars, so compared to the United States you are still doing amazingly. Also, as a final note, all taxi drivers drive completely crazy, often in cabs that I think are losing pieces as they go, meaning that the entire time you are scared for your life. They will pass cars on a one lane road three at a time, will squeeze in openings that I don't even see, and will use every other trick imagenable to shave 2 minutes off your ride and thus save themselves 50 cents. Brilliant.