Adventures in Public Transportation!

One day we decided to ride the bus. We had a general area in mind, but no real destination. The bus system here seems to take you wherever you need to go, as long as you have a magical microchip implanted in your brain to clue you in on which bus goes where…

We hopped on somewhere on Patricias Mendocinos in the middle of the city and headed south towards the suburb of Godoy Cruz. We read there were a few institutes in that direction so we wanted to get a feel for the neighborhood. What we guessed was the neighborhood near the institutes was quite nice, but our bus kept making left turns that took us farther and farther from the city. The further away we went, the sketchier the area. I was reminded of another adventure I took years ago with Erin to the outskirts of Verona in Italy. We knew exactly which bus to get on, but I guess we also should have known when to get off the bus. We ended up near the terminal in a far off neighborhood. Luckily it was still daytime, the neighborhood was nice and another bus came to take us back to the city in about a half an hour. I recounted this story to Graham many moons before and when I mentioned it again, he said he remembered my fated bus trip and checked to see if the bus said “terminal” on it.

About a half an hour later, we were deep into Godoy Cruz and a nice young lady approached me to ask if I was OK and if I knew where I was going… I should have known by the worried looks the bus driver was giving me in his rearview mirror probably thinking “what do these gringos think they’re doing?”

We weren’t worried, it was an adventure! Besides, how else would we get to see the far reaches of Godoy Cruz? In fact, I hope we never see them again…

Fortunately, the bus turned back towards the city! We passed through an area that we recognized but was still about a mile from our hotel, so we decided to ride until it turned back towards the stop where we first got on. I started to get concerned somewhere in Godoy Cruz, but I was feeling much better because I started to recognize my surroundings.

 Alas, the bus kept going north towards another suburb called Las Heras. Graham had to teach that evening so I was truly worried because at this point we had already been on the bus for over an hour. A series of right turns brought us to the far reaches of Las Heras, which made Godoy Cruz look quite nice in comparison. The bus driver’s apprehensive looks turned into genuine concern as we pulled up to the terminal and he expressed to Graham that he should keep his eyes on his backpack and on me. Perhaps Graham fibbed when he said he was sure the bus didn’t end up at the terminal…

Funny how a semi-seasoned traveler can make the same mistake twice! Only this time we ended up at the terminal at night, in a really rough neighborhood with no clue how to get back.

But wait! Huzzah! A bus that was heading back towards the city was exiting the terminal very soon after we hopped off the first bus! After a momentary panic that we would not have enough fare to ride, we were cruising out of Las Heras with a few teenagers that seemed to have no problem lighting up a joint somewhere near the back of the bus. The bus driver didn’t seem to mind since he was finishing off a cigarette himself. Two hours after our crazy idea to get on the bus, I exited on the street where our hotel was and I left Graham to figure out when to get off to get to the institute for his class that would be starting in thirty minutes.  

I really hope we can have a couple of those “bus map microchips” implanted soon so I can ride the bus again!