getting out

so for the last night of cuenca (1st term that is) we went to some bar/club that was having an opening. personally, i would think that bars would coordinate their openings with the beginning of CEDEI semesters rather than the end when their most loyal and vociferous admirers scatter across the continent for a month of pleasure. nonetheless, that isnt how it went.

the clubs here have this bazaar system of getting paid. there is no "entrance fee", though if you dont want to drink, you cannot pay the difference at the door. you must buy the beer. when you come in, they give you a ticket. they put one persons name on the ticket and that person is responsible for everyone he/she comes in with. the number of people overall is written on the ticket. the ticket has a chart indicating all of the drinks the bar offers and spots for the bartender to check off as each drink is bought. when you leave, the bouncer checks your ticket to see that an appropriate number of boxes are checked relative to the number of people indicated on the ticket. the tickets are quite large to carry. all pandemonium breaks loose when either one person goes to buy a drink without his clan, or, when people of your clan try to leave seperately.

the other night, at the club i had mentioned, we came in with 6 people. me, anna, some other teachers, and two ecuadorian 19 year olds. one of the 19 year olds was the person whose name went on the ticket. it was going to be difficult, so, i was happy to see that the bartenders asked us to pay for the drinks up front rather than my having to track down said 19 year old each time i wanted a drink. it gave me hope for this new bar/club. they had exposed brick walls, a live band, and airy dance floor - and they didnt adhere to that silly ticket system. or so i thought.

anna and i danced, talked with people and stood around for a while. still we were ready to leave before others. we went to the door, but they wouldnt let us out without a stamped ticket. i went back in. the person whose name was on the ticket was dancing with a lady, so, i waited until the end of a song and approached him, "i need to leave and im on your ticket." he handed me the ticket, which was absolutely empty of stamps, x marks, checks or anything of the like. i took the ticket and gave it to the bartender. she stamped it and anna and i were finally able to leave.

a couple of hours later, anna got a call on her cell phone. it was our friends and they were wondering what happened to the ticket. as it turns out, the bouncer to whom i was supposed to give the ticket, lost it. therefore, there was no evidence that these 4 people actually had purchased the appropriate amount of drinks necessary to leave. there was a large argument and they all had to pay a $1.50 surcharge in the end for having lost their ticket. i felt at first that perhaps i should have showed the ticket to the bouncer and then given it back to the guy whose name was on the ticket. that would have required too much work and walking back and forth for me. i felt that it was the bouncers fault for having lost the ticket. then, i felt that it was the fault of the guy whose name was on the ticket for having been so lacksidasical with his responsibility. but mostly i blamed the system.

the busses have a strange system for taking tickets from people. you have to go first to the section of the bus station that has the companies that go to the place you want to go to. you choose which company you want. you buy the ticket and get a nice, printed on piece of paper. then, in order to leave the bus station you have to pay a $.10 fee. you get on the bus. here, both the bus driver and his assistant will watch you get on the bus without asking you anything. if you have a bag, the assistant will put it under the bus for you. once you are on the bus, the bus eventually leaves, the lights go off and you begin dozing off. invariably, at some point close to the border of the city, the bus will stop to pick up 55 more passengers. the lights will go on, the music will come on and the bus will leave again in this fashion. before long, the lights will go out but the music will stay on. you can still go to sleep this way and you doze off. then, at another point that seems absolutely random, the lights will come back on and the bus assistant will be coming down the aisle requesting peoples tickets.

through all of the obstacles, weve made it out of cuenca. we came here to baños on our way to latacunga and the quilatoa lake hike and eventually onto colombia later this week. so far weve seen days full of sun, warm nights, and international style food. getting out has been a healthy thing.