Latin America is the continent with the most murders, the deepest pain and the most intense suffering. Yet it is here that the most bloodthirsty butchers in film history are shown on every intercity bus. At first glance, this may seem a little disturbing. But once the driver becomes the executioner, the solution to the mystery is immediately clear.
The hermetically sealed partition installed in every bus between passengers and driver/executioner does not serve to protect the latter, as in aeroplanes, for example. It is a manifestation of humanity. Similar to the blindfold of the condemned, its sole purpose is to block the passengers’ view of the fate that lies ahead of them.
The executioner speeds the bus down the seven-hour rollercoaster from Riobamba to Cusco at a crazy pace. The widescreen TV on the partition skilfully masks all the bus puffing, braking, squealing and honking with “Crash! Boom! Bang! Oh my!”. Then the old lady next to me mocks the steward, asking if he could play something other than those annoying baller films. She would like something with “Cupid”. I grin – and get scared at the same time. Can love be just as good a distraction from the executioner’s driving style as the fatalism of the “everyone dies sometime” brand, which has been successfully conveyed time and time again by hundreds of tried and tested shooter films?
The first thing I notice is that Ecudorians seem to sleep much better with baller films than with romantic films. Almost the whole bus is awake, a record that has never been reached before. I enjoy the view from the side window. Towards the southern Sierra, Ecuador becomes more and more like the Shire. Suddenly, a fat truck with a 20 cm gap from the front bumps into the scenery and the heroine of the love film says “I’d like to kiss you now.”.
I cling to my laptop, blogging. Ecuadorian Andean curves have it all. Even though the wide, comfortable seats can be folded back by up to 45°, the frictional force alone is often no longer enough to maintain the seating arrangement. Driving a bus here is motorsport: turn left – right leg out, push – turn right – cling to the armrest. Ecuadorians do all this in their sleep. This is not meant literally! They really do move their legs left and right against centrifugal force – in their sleep!
I wouldn’t even be surprised if one of them managed to pull out their wallet in their sleep, count out money, buy food from one of the flying vendors – and eat it while snoring. We don’t know when the first astronauts will be sent on the long cold-sleep journey to other stars. But one thing is certain: they will be Ecuadorians.
At the stopover, the bus driver confuses me a little. Yes, we are very close to the “Nariz del diablo” – a legendarily steep railway line. Yes, Ecuadorians are devout Catholics. But first preaching fatalism with baller movies and then shoving wooden stakes behind all the bus tyres – somehow that doesn’t go together in my head.
As the sun sets over Cusco, I ask myself why it is only 200 metres lower than Riobamba. It felt more like 3,000 metres. On the other hand, roller coasters supposedly start relatively often from the same height at which they arrived.
The hostel “El Cafecito” in Cuenca (yes, there is one in Quito too) is an absolute hit. An old manor house on the edge of the city centre with fine wooden floors, deluxe en-suite bathrooms and high-ceilinged rooms are topped off by a well-travelled chef on the roof terrace with a view over the whole of Cuenca. In the evening, a good multi-course meal is always eaten together at a table, mobile phones are kept off and everyone is actively encouraged to engage with the others – explicitly without “I was there and there” chatter. Like.
Cuenca is richer than Quito. The houses are not finished here either, but at least they are more finished. People wear more expensive clothes and fatter cars pollute the air even worse than in Quito. The historic buildings in the city centre are better maintained. The whole colonial style has been skilfully spiced up with a few neo-Gothic buildings, classicism, a spoonful of baroque and a pinch of art deco.
In the evening, the supposed travelling sheep gather on the roof terrace. The Twenty-Somethings work righteously as doctors, journalists or volunteers. Just as I am pleased that it is apparently much easier in Ecuador not to be on fire at both ends at the same time, the herd starts the ever-popular drug/tail comparison. One mask falls after the other. I’m almost twice as old, probably have three times as many stories and therefore don’t feel like sharing them at all. What’s more, smoking two joints at the same time and in opposite directions always makes me dizzy, and coke stories generally get on my nerves. I go to bed early and bored.
On my last few days between 2,500 and 5,000 metres, altitude sickness seems to have overtaken me after all. As soon as my breathing calms down and I doze off, my lungs report “Alarm! Too little air! Death by suffocation!” – and I’m wide awake again, panting 50 times. The wise black hostel manager says it’s not altitude sickness, but “anxiety”. I don’t dare look up the word now, so I sit down at two o’clock in the morning and start writing. Someone at home is dying of lung cancer. We haven’t seen each other for 30 years. I’m a web designer. There are only links on the internet, and the provinces of Ecudor are named after their volcanoes. Gracias y adios, Ecuador!
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.