The city bus fare is $0.30 for an adult or $0.15 for a senior citizen with a cédula. The buses do not accept cash. You must use a rechargeable bus card, for card readers in the buses.
We have two bus cards which you can recharge and use during your stay. If you have more than two people, multiple people can use the same card. Just tap the card on the card reader multiple times. Please return the bus cards at the end of your stay.
You can also purchase cards at many farmacias and other places that have a sign outside with a picture of this card and the words “Tarjeta Prepago”. A bus card costs $1.75 and you can fill it up with however much you want.
The condominium is very conveniently located with easy access to most of the bus lines.
Many of the buses run right in front of the condominium on Calle Larga. There are bus stops one block in either direction, on Calle Larga, although for a couple of the bus lines you need to walk two blocks to Calle Larga and Tarqui.You can catch many of the other bus lines just across the river behind the condominium on Avenida 12 de Abril. Just go down the ramp from Calle Larga or else exit from the rear condominium entrance, then cross the bridge to the bus stops.
Bus stops near the condominium:
This interactive bus map from Alternatur is really useful. It is easier to use than the government maps described later. They also offer an interactive bus map app for Android phones.
http://www.alternatur-cuenca.com/bus-map.html
You can zoom the map in or out. There are checkboxes to show or hide each bus line. You can also show or hide the bus stops, ATM/banks, and the Tranvía. If you show the bus stops, you can click on any bus stop to see which bus lines that bus stop serves.
Below are some links to government bus maps on the internet. If you use these, you will probably want to save the map files onto your computer since it takes an eternity to download them from the internet.
You can enlarge the maps below, and you can view one section at a time for each route.
https://www.cuenca.gob.ec/system/files/RECORRIDOLINEASTRANSPORTEFINAL.pdf
The link below has two maps, each containing half of the bus routes. These maps, unfortunately, do not expand very much.
https://www.cuenca.gob.ec/node/576
In the office area of the penthouse, you will find a book entitled “Cuenca Bus System Atlas” containing printed maps. These maps are published by the Cuenca Bus Sherpa.