Transportation - 31 Things

We spend a lot of time in our car.

Quito is a long city with steep hills and roads. Walking or biking from our house to work or school is not really an option. We use one of our two cars every day, and have to remember which car we can use due to pico y placa restrictions (the red car can’t be taken out during rush hour on Tuesday, and the gray car on Thursdays). Public transportation is not bad in the city, but is still very crowded and quite unsafe from pickpockets, and so I am glad at the moment that we have two cars. city-imposed restriction has made me lose a little of the love I had for Quito. 

I try to walk whenever possible, however. I do not like driving in the city: traffic laws are just suggestions, the traffic is chaotic and unpredictable, and because of the way the city was planned, we take many of the same roads every day, so there is not much variety.

I didn’t always feel this way. My first car was a black Mercury Topaz, and I remember just getting in the car and driving for hours. I would always be the first one to volunteer to drive, and didn’t mind using my gas. The radio was always on, the windows down, and even though I found myself stranded in shady parts of town with a steaming radiator, I loved going places with my car. (Thank you, Grandpa, for always being ready to save me, even at 2.00 a.m.)

When Andrés and I got married, the Topaz was sold and we had his car, a teal green Suzuki Forsa. What a car! Fast and fun and a shift. I learned how to drive a stick shift with that car in the constant stop-and-go traffic of Quito.

The second car we owned was a blue Chevrolet Zafira, made in Brazil and with a computer on its dashboard. I loved that car and some of its features: doors that locked automatically as the car gained speed, a radio that not only told you the station you were listening to but also the song that was playing, the third row that folded down to become a larger trunk space.

About 5 or 6 years ago we bought the red car, a Kia Gran Carnival. Although some days it feels too big for the narrow streets of Quito, this car is so comfortable to drive: it sits up high, is diesel and uses very little gas, is automatic and has a DVD player built in so the kids can watch movies on longer trips. 

Now we also have “my” car, a gray Kia Rio Stylus, an automatic and smaller option for those days we might want to go to the mall and actually find a parking spot. We got this car when I started working for Cambridge, as I needed to be able to get around, and it is still our go-to car if we need to get somewhere fast (it can get in and out of traffic much better).