As most of you have been able to guess by my last blog, I am doing a lot of travelling. The majority of that travelling is by bus. When my host family does it´s weekly shopping trip, it is done by car but I only occasionally join them. So most of my travel ends up being by bus, or colectivo as they are called here.
Now, to catch a colectivo is simple, first off you need to know where you want to go and which colectivo will take you there. After talking this through with a number of different people and getting a variety of different answers on which bus you need to take, you head to the main road and wait. Once you see one of the buses that should take you to where you want to go you stick out your arm to signal that you would like it to pick you up. After getting on the bus and while you are paying the driver you confirm that he does indeed go by the location you would like to get to.
The driver of the colectivo is a man of many talents. They must be able to drive an old rickety bus at the best speed possible, while keeping an eye out for people on the side of the road waving him down, while counting money and collecting money and at the same time drinking tereree.
When you want to get off the colectivo, you head to the back and pull the bell, the speed of the bus and the ammount of traffic depends on when you pull the bell, if its going fast and or there are other vehicles closer to the side of the road then your bus you need to pull it a little earlier than normal.
As well you need to time your excursions well. If you would rather not be stuffed into the bus like sardines in a can it is better to travel at off peak times. If however you do need to travel make sure you pick up your bus at a location where you know that there are less people on the bus. I have had on occasion hung out of the bus for a portion of the trip home to Villa Hayes as the Villa Hayes colectivo gets quite croweded at 5ish in the afternoon.
Now to get to Itacurubi or the Mennonite Hospital at Km 81 I usually take a slightly faster bus, it´s more of a highway bus that does not stop as often as the common city buses. On the way out to Km 81 it is usually not full and I can get a seat, however in the mornings it is not uncommon for me to stand all 60 km into San Lorenzo where I switch buses.
An average week for me is 10 hours on the bus, however it is not uncommon to have more than 14 depending on the speed of the busses or the ammount of trips into town.
I am uncertian how I feel about going home to my car. I will be able to go anywhere whenever I want, but I´ll definitly be missing out on time to think and enjoyment of the weather while I wait.
Becca
6 comments:
Ahh the colectivos, how I do love you... :)
That is a great amount of time to not be in charge - that is why I love the CTA!
Rebecca, to help ease your transition into Canadian car culture again, I suggest driving with all your windows rolled down, covering up your spedometer (if you want to be really authentic, take a hammer to your spedometer), casually switch lanes at breakneck speed without signalling or shoulder checking, or better yet, drive between lanes. Hope your car's a standard, and you might want to get a boy (perhaps a younger brother?) to sit on your dash and pour terere for you. And if you get stopped by the police, bribe them. Good luck!
I've also seen them texting while driving, changing money, drinking tereré and keeping an eye out horizontal armed customers.
Ah... the simple things we Canadians miss by being so important and busy.
A good self challenge to see if you maintain your current enjoyment with the simple things.
Thanks for the update Becca, God bless you.
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