After a wonderful first half of the day at the museum, the second half of the day presented a bit of a challenge. Poor directions and a lack of understanding of Quito street addresses combined for a 2+ hour walk to a friend’s apartment which was about 15 minutes away from the museum. Lessons learned, purely by trial and error:
- The “Ecovia” is a bus line running along avenidas 6 de Deciembre. Fun fact: the stations are in the very middle of the street so the bus doors are on the opposite side of the usual. To get on, put a quarter in the machine at the turn-style.
- Addresses have two cross streets and a number. I knew this, but didn’t ask for better directions not having received the actual street name.
- Here is what the mysterious numbers mean. The letters at the beginning signify East/West/North/South, in Spanish of course: E/Oe/N/S. A number starting with N or S is on an avenue that runs north/south. A number with E or Oe is on a street that runs east/west. In the center, the east/west dividing line is avenidas 10 de Agosto. The number immediately following the letter tells how many blocks away the address is from the dividing line. The number after the dash is a good old house number. For example, E6-253 is the on the 6th block east of 10 de Agosto on the given east/west running street. The nearest crossing avenue would be given in the address.