Return to Chile: side walk traffic

It has been a smooth move from the economically collapsing arg, to the much more organized chilito. It was only a matter of time until my cynical side of Chile came out, but alas, it has emerged.

I suppose it might be coming from a big city (the entire population of Chile fits into the greater Buenos Aires) that people have a tendency to walk faster, perhaps they have a meeting, or may miss the subway, regardless of the circumstances, I would say as a rule people tend to walk briskly. Brisk is the last word I would use to describe the average Chilean walker. You can call me high strung, which I am,  but there is no excuse to walk at the pace of a small child learning how to walk unless you are a small child learning how to walk, disabled or over the age of 70.

Not only do Chileans tend to be slow walkers, they are surly slow walkers. About on a daily basis, I get a middle aged woman, coming out of some unknown door, pretty much knocking into me, telling me ‘muevete gringa’ (move gringa). This is annoying. At first I felt somewhat bad, kind of repentant as if I had done something wrong but wait. YOU ARE ENTERING THE SIDEWALK TRAFFIC NOT ME. So now, when I hear the snide ‘muevete gringa’ I reply with ‘esperate weona’(wait asshole) of which tends to evoke a quite adverse reaction. Latinas.

Another sidewalk disrupter are the chains of preteen girls in their uniformed miniskirts coming to or from school. Maybe I just didn’t have enough girlfriends to make my own daisy chain that takes up the entire sidewalk, or maybe I did, but I didn’t because some people don’t want to walk at the pace of the above mentioned toddler and then have to contend with the redrover looking formation ahead. If you want to link arms with one of your friends, that is reasonable, girls like arm linkage. However, if you want to link arms with twenty of your friends, forcing people to swerve into the side of the road, perhaps rethink, maybe put that buddy system into action.

(mutiply these three by three and you get school girl chains in Chile) 

The third obstacle that I’ve run into are the sudden stop maker-outers. So say you make it it through several blocks without having to contend with pre-teen daisy chains, large groups of people walking as if they are on the brink of death, or frank mean middle aged woman, you will enevitably make it to some university building where you will have to beware of the newly smitten (or not so newly) couples. Okay, so everyone likes making out, I won’t exclude myself from this group but if I’m going to choose to make out on the street I do no stop suddenly to have a romantic moment, maybe a long stare followed by the impending kiss. Congratulations couple, you have now made yourself into a human roadblock, or at the very least a human median. And what’s more, you CAN kiss and walk at the same time, I know it’s a strange concept, but try it and simultaneously become much less of a burden to your fellow pedestrians.

You might think that it is all romantic as it looks in this picture but trust me, it isn't. 

Bus Anxiety

I suppose to end my time in Argentina, I will write about one on going issue, that from day one to day 365 still tends to haunt me on a daily basis: Bus Anxiety.

I have come to learn that Argentina has a way of doing things, that most porteños have grown up with some kind of system of how the bus works, that is to say, when to get up, when to sit down, how much money to put on your sube, which lines to not tell where you are going and which to simply glide by on the cheapest fare possible. When I arrived to Argentina, they just simply did not give me the complete guide to bus etiquette. I will proceed to explain the entire bus rundown.

The bus stop: For a new comer, even finding the bus stop can be a challenge because Argentine bus stops resemble post-it notes on a pole. The post-it note on the pole is a luxury because it is likely that someone has decided to gift themselves the post-it note on a pole, one inebriated night, and now the bus stop is tape, with unreadable handwriting on the side of a speed limit sign. It reminds me a bit of Easter egg hunting, in the most frustrating sense of the idea. To get an idea of what this looks like, I will provide a visual.

Payment:However, say you do manage to find your correct post it note, you can now find your way to the bus, you will now have to pay. Great, that seems simple. Wrong. If you don't have a sube card, you have to pay with coins. Simple enough? Wrong. There is a coin shortage in Buenos Aires, complete with various conspiracy theories to accompany, regardless, coming up with that 3 pesos in change is going to be a challenge at best. You will then notice that everyone has this lovely purple card that not only you can swipe (and go into debt up to seven pesos!) it is also HALF the price of the three pesos you would have muster up. So just where do you get this little gem of a card? Where else? The post office! But wait.. not every post office has them, and they frequently change locations and not only that, you have to wait in the endless line at the post office, so unless you have unlimited time, and patience, that gem of a purple card is going to take you an entire day to obtain. Obnoxious? I would agree. 

The pregnant and the elderly: Okay, so you have now made it onto the bus, whether your sube worked or you had to sacrifice those sacred coins, you are on. Not only are you on this bus, there is a seat that you can sit in! So you sit in the seat right? Logical. Then you start seeing the entire bus dynamics changing as younger people get up for older people and 50 year old ladies get up for the pregnant lady and all of the sudden, there you are, surrounded by senior citizens and pregnant ladies. At this point, all you can do is hope that an enormously pregnant woman comes along, because then you must give up your seat and no one gets offended. But say you don't, and you end up with the border line senior citizen approaching the bus. Anxiety should now implode. You are on the brink of offending a man that is 65 because by giving him your seat you are essentially saying, you look ancient. So do you give up your seat? Offer? Either way, be prepared to be hit with an utterly offended middle aged person because your age guessing skills are absolutely impotent or with kindness because you hit the mark and the 65 year old just got a hip replacement. 

The crowded bus: The worst, is probably when you manage to make it on an overly crowded bus. I have learned that the proper way of getting on this bus is not to mingle in the general standing area on the first floor but to go straight up the stairs to the upper level of the bus, where let me be clear there is no door. If you don't know where you are going, this is an absolute nightmare and you can pretty much just expect to end up in some unknown part of the city because you missed your stop. So, say you don't go to the upper end of the door, you have one of three options. You can a) stand by the door which means the door opens and closes ONTO you. B) You can stand in what would be about equivalent to the mosh pit at some concert whereby you are bound to fall because there is nothing to hold onto, and reap the wrath of an Argentine whatsapping. C) you sit on the handicap bars and just really hope that no one in a wheelchair gets on anytime soon. Option C is the best, but still not great. 

In conclusion, I will be happy to never get on a bus again in Argentina. Chau Buenos Aires.