The Mistake

"El Collectivo"

A couple of weeks ago I made a very stupid mistake …and it involved taking the bus.  Background knowledge: Buenos Aires has a pretty impressive bus system.  There are actually three forms of public transportation: train, subway and bus.  The bus is called “THE COLLECTIVO” here.  The bus and subway are my prefer methods, and because the Subway lines only run in certain parts of the city, I end up taking the bus more often.  Areas that cannot be reached by subway can be reached by bus; you can basically go anywhere in the bus and for very cheap.  I can go from one end of the city to the other for a mere fifty cents.  However like everything in life, it ain’t all rainbows and sunshine.  No sir.  There are problems to be encountered when taking the bus.  The first and most avoidable problem is getting lost.  There are dozens of different bus lines and corresponding bus numbers, but it is difficult to know which bus goes where, because some buses might have the same number but take completely different routes.  Learning the ropes of bus riding takes practice as well as some map reading skills.  Kioskos and newspaper stands also sell cheap booklets that list the dozens of different bus numbers and their routes.  Problem number two: TIME.  I never expect a bus to be on time.  I just don’t.  LIVING IN ARGENTINA RULE #1 is I always give myself an extra fifteen minutes.  This means I either arrive to work early, on time, or on occasion late.  Buses run on a “schedule” but you can always expect delays.  Problem number three: Crowding.  Riding the bus during rush hour can be a pain in ass.  Sometimes buses become so crowded that the driver will refuse to stop and pick people up.  That's the another thing, the buses don’t stop unless someone has requested to get off, or you have physically flagged down the driver of the bus you want to hop on.  Even you are lucky enough to make it on during rush hour, you can expect to become very cozy with your fellow riders. 

Okay, so the stupid and totally avoidable mistake I made a couple of weeks ago.  Every Wednesday morning I work in a part of town called Flores.  I catch the #132 bus in order to get there.  I often recognize the #132 because of its red, white and blue paint job.  This particular bus takes two different routes, both of which put me where I need to be for work.  So one particular morning I was running late.  I had made it to the street corner in time to see the signature red, white and blue bus.  I hopped on, paid my fair and sat down.  Halfway through the ride the bus turned down a different street.  However, traffic was very heavy and sometimes drivers are known to take a side street in order to avoid a traffic jam.  The bus kept traveling in the direction I needed to go.  LIVING IN ARGENTINA RULE NUMBER TWO: ALWAYS carry an emergency $50 pesos.  I keep this emergency money tucked away in case I ever need to take a cab, in the event that I become lost or if public transportation gets shut down due to mass striking.  Which has happened before.  In retrospect I should have gotten off right then just taken a cab, but I decided to wait and see how far the bus went, thinking that the #132 maybe takes three different routes instead of just two, so I stayed on.  So like any giant city, Buenos Aires has some seedy neighborhoods.  Some seedier than others, but it was then I noticed when we turned a corner that I was now in the dreaded “villa” (slum) of Bajo Flores.  Not good.  I decided to stay on the bus in hopes that I would continue on through Bajo Flores and then head up in the direction I needed to go, since I knew that my work was only a couple miles away. Then the driver off the bus stopped and announced that this was the last stop and I had to get off.  I whined to him that I didn’t want to walk in this neighborhood and he shrugged his shoulders and told me to get off.  I reluctantly got off.  Then I noticed as the bus pulled away that I had not been riding the #132 after all, I had boarded the #26.  Both buses I then realized are red, white and blue.  “Stupida,” I muttered to myself.  I am lucky for the fact that I blend in rather nicely here. I do not look particularly “American.”  I am often mistaken for being Brazilian or Argentine, but there was going to be no mistaking that I am not from the Villa.  This was very apparent when I got off the bus and endured stares and cat calls from a group of men waiting for the bus across the street.  Panicking is never an option.  I took a deep breath, I strapped on my backpack tight, checked to see if the spring loaded pocket knife I always carry, in the event I shall need to poke out someone’s eyes was in easy reaching distance and then I put on my “just try and fuck with me” look on my face.  I walked to the corner and with my heart pounding waited for a cab to drive past.  I was in the Villa for all of three minutes, but needless to say, I shouldn’t have been there at all.  I make my Argentine friends face palm themselves when I tell them this story, and I endured a tongue lashing from the cab driver who picked me up.

So the moral of this story: Everyone messes up.  My motto is: learn, laugh and educate others about mistakes that you have made.  Therefore, ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure you are getting on the correct bus.  I am lucky nothing bad came from being were I was not suppose to be.  It is very easy to end up lost or in a neighborhood you should not be in. So double check and stay safe peeps.