Thursday 29 March 2012

In the morning, before going out to pick up my remaining laundry (jeans), I packed up my main backpack, and went for breakfast under the arches adjacent to the Catedral Nueva. Whilst eating breakfast, I did some people watching, in particular, the shoe shiner guys parked under the arches.

One guy spent what seemed an extraordinary time setting up his seat, and then addressed every passerby. It worked, I guess, as one indigena woman, walked up to him, handed him some money and walked away.

Soon after, a potential customer came by and started to point to various parts of the front of his shoe to the guy next to the one I had seen setting up. I wondered why he had chosen him, but when the shoe shiner shook his head, and the guy went onto the next, I guess he had been to them one by one. Anyway, I watched the one who had just set up, start to clean and polish these shoes; he seemed to put a lot of concentration into his task (his tongue stuck out whilst he did it) but his customer was a pretty fussy guy, as after the shiner was done, he was still pointing out to a spot at the front of his right foot. Afterwards, I wondered if he had given the guy a tip for the work or just paid the usual amount.

After I paid for my (very filling) breakfast, I then went off to collect my jeans - it was past 9 at this stage, and I thought that this should be plenty of time to get them back. I was immediately recognised and didn't have to pull out the ticket (which I had asked her to annotate to say that I still needed to collect them, the previous evening) as she straightaway pulled away her identifying tag and folding them up.

Of course, I was totally right about the bookstore: I ended up spending $20 on a Spanish Verb Tenses book and on a Penguin parallel text of short stories in Spanish and English, despite wondering if I'd be able to squeeze them into my backpacks.

On the way back to the hotel, I asked at the Tourist Office if all buses going to Quito stopped at Alausi and asking which bus companies they would be (well, that's paraphrasing: I actually said I would like to go to Alausi, could I take buses going to Quito; what bus companies - depends on whether it's morning or afternoon, and I said about 12pm).

After a brief visit to an internet café, I went back to the hotel to check out (it was starting to spit, so a good time to leave really, and it was past 11, too) and got to the bus terminal where straight out of the taxi, I was immediately met by a bus conductor touting for customers to Quito. He even carried my main backpack to the bus and shoved it through the scanner for me, including my daypack, leaving me with no way to pay my $0.10 to get through the turnstile. The bus driver had to lend it to me so I could get through.

Once on the bus, when the bus conductor came round to collect either tickets or money, I asked if he could let me know when we reached Alausi.

On the 4 hour journey, I was treated to a rare sight in the Sierras: pillows of cloud nestling in the folds of the mountain in bright sunshine instead of the more usual whiteout of fine mist (neblina) that I usually got in the many journeys between Quito and La Hesperia, which obscures everything from about 10 metres or less. You could even see, on the nearer, finer puffs of cloud, where the edges evaporated in the heat…The sight was beautiful and I regretted again not having brought my little camera. However, even if I had, there's no guarantee that I would have got a decent picture through the window as the bus travelled at speed. There was only one occasion during one of my many journeys to and fro Quito, where I had seen something very similar: it was a sight to inspire Chinese brush paintings, as well as being a picture in its own right.

I had noted in my trip to Ingapirca a roadside store (a picanteria, whatever that is) that seemed to have a whole pig in front, with something (not an apple, but metallic?) in its mouth. I saw two of them this time and thought that it couldn't be the same pig or even that it was a real pig, but that maybe it was some sort of symbol for a picanteria, much as a revolving red-and-white cylinder is used for a barber?

Another interesting sight I had also seen was a cemetery with white multi-storey catacombs, with little arched openings: presumably where the caskets are placed?

When it got to about 3 ½ hours into the journey, and having seen a sign we passed which said "Alausi 34 km," I started paying special attention to the road. The problem is, not every town is necessarily signposted clearly (if at all, especially for the smaller ones) from the road, and sometimes, the bus conductors forget to tell you…

When it got to 4 pm (I wasn't sure what time we'd left Cuenca, but I though approximately 12 pm), I started getting worried that we must have passed it and I managed to grab the conductor to ask when we'd get there, but didn't catch his answer. I wasn't sure if he'd said that we'd missed it or whether he'd said soon, as he mumbled and didn't look at me directly (guilt?): I think he said blah (didn´t catch it) and mismo, which I didn´t understand as I have been taught that mismo means the same - of course, it could be an idiom that I´m unfamiliar with.

When it got close to 4:30 pm, I was sure we'd missed it and resigned myself to going to Riobamba because there was no way I was going to get off in no-man's land (as far as I was concerned) in the hope of backtracking. However, about 4:30 pm, he called out Alausi and I got off (with some indigena people), and collected my main backpack from below (I had to remind the bus conductor).

When I gathered myself together, I found that I had been left in the middle of the approach road to Alausi (not even in Alausi itself!) and that I had just missed two camionetas, which in any case, seemed very full of indigena people. I crossed the road and started to make my way down, coming across a guy who I asked where I'd be able to get a camioneta to Hotel Panoamericano and if it was far, asking how many blocks it was. I couldn't see where he pointed as he told me it wasn't very far so I continued down, being bypassed by a different coach which did go directly to Alausi, and possibly a camioneta. Whilst half-laughing at the situation (I couldn't well cry) for being dropped off nowhere with no taxi in sight, I carried on down until I spotted a taxi behind me and hailed it. I was thankful when it stopped and I could give directions for the hotel.

In the short journey to the hotel (by car, at least!) I managed to ask him how far the train station was from the hotel, how many blocks, and also where I could get the bus to Riobamba the following day. I checked in and again checked where the train station went, and investigated both the train station (which was closed but the security guard and the tourist office, told me it would open the next day at 7:30 am. The tourist office even confirmed that I wouldn't need a reservation to get on the train: I had been told secondhand that Jonas (at La Hesperia) had found that they'd needed to get a reservation - perhaps they went near the end of high season, or something.

Maybe it's reading the first short story on the bus and having the (unread) Spanish book give me confidence, but I felt that my Spanish, whilst still being basic, flowed more easily today. Of course, you could say that with only about a week to go, getting a Spanish verb tenses book is a bit late, but I still want to improve my Spanish, especially as I've had to get by on what I have for the last 2 weeks. It's probably because I have had to cope with it, and I've become aware of my limitations in the language, that I bought it now, plus I haven't come across many English bookstores although I've seen a few bookstores in Cuenca and ventured into quite a few of them, too, but they didn't stock any English books.