Bus schedule

Our plans are that when Samuel and Ben need to head back to Quito to catch their flight back to the US, they will take the bus from Cuenca to Quito, but last night during the night I began to worry that the bus might not leave Cuenca in time to assure that they could make their flight. So, today Samuel and I went over to the bus station to ask about a schedule. It turns out that the buses start leaving Cuenca at about 6:00 p.m., and leave every hour or so until midnight.

A six o'clock departure will put them into Quito about 3:00 a.m., which is probably about right for a 7:30 a.m. flight. It will take the better part of an hour to get from the bus station to the airport, and probably another hour to get through all the airport formalities in Quito, putting them in the boarding lounge by about 5:00 a.m. However this also allows them a couple of hours for the unexpected, and we all feel that is important. Especially as we have been reading about the "enhanced security" now being imposed on travelers to the US from international destinations.

Then late this afternoon we all walked over to the Carolina Bookstore, which is run by an American expat living here in Cuenca, so that the boys could get some new reading material to keep them occupied on the way home. On the way over we saw the kids in the picture below zooming down Remigio Crespo, the major street outside our apartment. I would guess that they were about 12 years old, and the fact that they are slightly blurred, while the background is not, is no accident. I would guess that they were moving at close to 40 mph. I don't know if a policeman would have done anything if he had seen them, but I would guess not. The drivers around them didn't seem to concerned either.