Public Transportation

It's best not to make fixed plans with Peruvians. Things tend to happen in their own time. Whereas in the states you are expected to keep appointments, here it is somewhat permissible to alter arrangements based on fleeting sentiments, depending on the priority level of the occasion. The only aspect of Peruvian life that does not ascribe to this lack of urgency is the public transportation system.

Of Peru's 28 million residents, 9 million call Lima their home. In a city of gas prices well over $5 a gallon, only the middle to upper classes can afford the luxury of having a vehicle. For this reason, the buses sell about 10 million rides every day. This offers the advantage of never needing a bus schedule, because at any given moment there are 4 or 5 individual buses to choose from, all vying for your bus fair of un nuevo sol--about 35 cents. So the combis are cheap, and you never spend more than 20 seconds at the bus stop, but you pay the price in the experience. Taking a combi is like riding a roller coaster without a seat belt.

It takes two men to operate a combi: the driver, of course, and the conductor. The driver operates his vehicle as if it was one of those magic cars from Harry Potter that can squeeze in the middle of two lanes of traffic and change stoplights. He knows exactly how wide his combi is, down to the centimeter, and merges accordingly. He is not afraid to use the superior size of his bus to intimidate smaller vehicles of lesser consequence. He rejects all culpability to other cars supposedly sharing the motorway: it is their responsibility to watch out for him. He blasts Michael Jackson on the sound system and occasionally taps the brakes in traffic to the beat of the music in order to alleviate boredom by using the rear-view mirror to watching his passengers slowly turn green.

The driver's compañero, the cobrador, guards the mouth of the beast. His official job is to operate the folding door, collect bus fare, and hand out tickets; however, his primary occupation is salesman extraordinaire. Whenever the combi lurches to a stop, whether it be an official, required bus stop, or a traffic light, or speed bump, or simply because bumper-to-bumper traffic has trapped the bus, he jumps off and immediately begins yelling at people in the street-- "To'oArequipaaaArequArequArequipaahastalVeintiochoArequipa
veintiochochochoParaderobajabajabajabajasubebajasubesubeVAMOOOOS!'  Which barely means anything to native limeños, let alone little-miss college student from Lyme, CT. It's like trying to comprehend a Hispanic auctioneer. The only way to handle this situation is to approach the various cobradores shouting at you at the bus stop, look them straight in the face and ask them if they are going to where you want to go-- "¿Va a la Católica? Are you going to the University?" And occasionally, they will tell you yes, collect your bus fair, and then go nowhere NEAR where you are trying to go. It is absolutely necessary to have exact change for your bus fair, as the alternative is to fight the cobrador for your change--during which, if you engage in such an exchange, you are insistently plagued by the fact that you are making a complete idiot of yourself with your sub-par Spanish not only to someone who is paid to be an extroverted bully, but also in front of an audience of fellow combi passengers, for the equivalent of 10 cents. Occasionally, the cobrador will also take one look at my distinctly non-Hispanic facial features and demand a higher bus fair-- "No, no, señorita, it is always two soles from the University to Javier Prado"--when I know that it is only 1.20

So at long last, if you manage to find the right combi, have exact change in your pocket (because you should never take out a wallet on the combi), and your cobrador isn't a jerk who tries to rip you off, inevitably there are no seats available and you have to stand until somebody gets off. This experience is similar to surfing the subway in New York City, only ten times worse, because the combis are all standard, sooo LURCH--from neutral into first aaand then LURCH--from first into second aaand then LURCH--from second into third, and we are off to the races! Additionally I myself am an inch or two too tall for the combis, so I am simultaneously ducking and surfing. The combi drivers race each other to the corners, trying to get past as many stoplights as possible in thirty seconds before they all turn red. There is a third man in this equation, who sits at the stoplights with a clipboard and notes when the buses pass. He will reveal this information to the cobradores for a small fee, so that the bus drivers can drive even faster to catch up with their rivalries who are two minutes ahead. However, sometimes the cobrador of the bus two minutes ahead will pay this note-taker a little extra to tell subsequent conductors that his bus is ten minutes ahead, and therefore out of reach.

Thus is the exciting world of the Limeñan public transportation system.