Transportation

So we all listen to eachothers phone calls, conversations, etc – this is how it is when you share a lobby for internet calls and one bedroom with three other students. Tonight it happened to be hilarious, because I listened to Anna describing our daily commute to her boyfriend over the phone, and I realized, the mundanities need to be recorded. So from her mouth to my blog, here is an average commute home.

We ride the public bus one hour each way to and from Lamay. None of the public busses match. They are all different colors, are labeled incorrectly with the names of random places, are different sizes, but they do share the feature of never stopping entirely. They just slow down at stops while everyone walks/runs alongside and jumps in the open door. Then, as Anna was saying, at rush hour, people are just crammed in like sardines in a can. There is no courtesy and whoever gets on first sits. After that, you are just kind of smushed into your seat by pregnant women with babies wrapped in colors against their backs, old men with shoes fused to their feet, old women with all manner of grain, grass, potato, or livestock in their manta (cloth wrapped against the back to form a pack). Everyone smells like corn-meat-smoke and fields and B.O.

Theres two people work the bus, the driver and the guy who takes the money. The latter just walks around knowing who paid what and where everyone is going and so how much they owe. One of the eternal mysteries is how he keeps track. We cant figure it out. Apparently the guy who takes the money is also the guy who shows the registration (stored under a felt blanket on the dashboard) to the police when we get pulled over at a random checkpoint checking if we have too many people on the bus (We do. No one gets off though, the bus just pays a fine and continues on). While this standardness is going on, we just stand blankly, with everyone else, waiting for the bus to start up again and take us home. An old guy in the pile of people is grunting vamos vamos; sir the driver got off to talk to the cops. Ah. Vamos.

Then the bus spends a lot of time in the left lane. Sometimes for a cow, sometimes to pass a mototaxi (see below), but sometimes its just not entirely clear that the whole lane-distinction thing matters. Theres not much in the way of traffic, but going around mountainbends in the middle of the road does create a just-dont-look feeling in the pit of your stomach. Especially knowing that the bus coming the other way has about the same level of regard for lane-lines as yours.

Between Urubamba and Cusco, the way we go when we run our errands there, is only one city, Chinchero. In Chinchero, entertainment always boards the bus to keep us occupied until Cusco. A mentally retarded man singing Peru's top 40 hits (asking a sole for the privilege of listening), or a slick-talking salesman selling superfood and eucalyptus balm (he convinced me, I almost bought it).

Within Urubamba are the mototaxis. I frankly dont even write about these things because Ive gotten so used to them, theyre ubiquitous. The are motorbikes that pull a nylon box in the back that you ride in. I didnt realize the first night that we were here – until Satoko tried to get in the front seat with the driver – that there was no front seat, unless you straddle the bike with the driver. Strangely they are covered in decortaive stickers – it looks like a 6 years old girl picked them out. And they especially love batman stickers. I thought they just loved any stickers and that there must just be a wealth of batman stickers here since that is what at least 50% seem to go with, thematically speaking, but then today I saw one with no stickers but "BATMAN" handwritten across the top, so go figure. Maybe they really just love batman.

Once we get off at the bus station, there is the sigh of "were almost home," but first there are a few more obstacles. If its evening, you have to hop two fences to go the short way, or you have to walk all the way around the hill, to get to the road. Then is an uphill climb filled with swerving mototaxis. Then is the dark unpaved part of the road, and around the bend is the mad dog who tried to bite anyone in a group smaller than three. Then is the secret hole in the middle of the street that drops into the stream – perfect size for an ankle twist. Then finally, you ring the bell and the huge door swings open into Edwins paradise. THEN, youre home. Home, sweet, home.


Smushed on the bus!