Things To Do When Friends Come To Visit #1

Take them on a bus ride.

City buses in Ecuador have set routes (though it's hard to know what they are except by hopping on a bus and riding it). Unlike in the States, however, city buses here do not have set stops: you can hail one down at any point along the route, and likewise you can ask the driver to stop and let you off at any point. As far as measuring this little system in terms of efficiency, I'd say it can be a pain when you are on the bus and running late and the driver keeps stopping to let more people on, but it's sure a lifesaver when you're the one standing in the rain flagging down the bus.

Another tidbit about Life on an Ecuadorian Bus: street vendors regularly board the buses at intersections to hawk their wares to passengers. They sell anything from candy to "health drinks" to water to coconut juice to who knows what. Sometimes people get on and sing, then troll the aisle asking for tips. Sometimes men dressed as clowns get on and tell jokes.

Example of a joke:

I will preface this with a brief vocab lesson.
(1) Subir is a verb meaning "to rise" or "go up." Whenever the city buses stop to let people on, you can hear the bus attendant ushering people up the steps and into the bus by saying "Suba, suba suba!"
(2) Mono in Spanish means "monkey." In Ecuador, it is used as a joking term for someone from the coastal region (due to the somewhat indiscernable accent and rapidfire speech of costeños). One action verb for monos - monkeys - is trepar, to climb. As in, climbing trees.

...Can you see where this is going?

Okay, so here's the joke:
In Guayaquil, what do we say when people get on the bus? We don't say Suba, suba, suba, we say Trepa, trepa, trepa!

I'm not sure that joke was good enough to warrant the lengthy explanation it required. If you didn't understand it, please accept my apologies and just forget about the whole thing. And on that extremely complicated note, I will end.