Meet my latest crush... :)
Are they not fabulous?
They are probably the most beautiful thing I´ve seen here. Seriously. I fell in love with them the first day, and I have since braved all kinds of inconveniences to travel in them (inside they are just as fascinating and decorative as on the outside).
I have worked out the Guia de bolsillo, which is singularly user-unfriendly. To my knowledge, there is no map where you could see through which streets the buses actually pass - from the Guía you only get a rough idea of the neighbourhood that they are passing through, but you cannot tell which streets, nor where the stops are. And since most streets in Buenos Aires are one-way, when you arrive somewhere and want to take the same line back, you must face the challenge of finding the bus stop in the opposite direction, which can be just about anywhere. It is a tricky business, but not altogether impossible, with the massive cooperation of the locals (who mostly give you loads of interesting, but unfortunately not entirely relevant information about OTHER bus stops -
Question: ´Hello, would you know where the 59 stops, in the direction to Palermo?´
Answer: (helpfully) ´The 59? No idea. But two blocks away from here there is the bus stop of 3 and 112.´
Question: ´Do these go anywhere near Palermo?´
Answer: ´No, no, no.´
But to be fair, if you are lucky, you do meet people who actually take the same bus as you do sometimes, and they help you. The best people to ask have so far proved to be the policemen - they seem to be singularly well informed about where the different buses stop.
Another challenge which taking the colectivos presents is the constant need of change. Coins. Everyone wants them, nobody has them. I think the Central Bank of Argentina ought to give this matter some attention, and perhaps consider issuing more coins. You can only pay for a bus ride by throwing coins into a machine. If you don´t have coins, too bad. Asking people on bus stops for change seems inappropriate (they need it themselves; I have been given a peso for my bus ride, rather then getting it in change of my five pesos bill, because the lady needed the coins she had for tomorrow!).
Nevertheless, impossible as it seemed at first to get enough coins for the public transport, it soon became a kind of a game which I cheerfully joined in with the locals.
The waiter, saying with a pained expression, when I payed a 13.50-pesos bill with a 20 pesos banknote: ´Have you really got no change?´ (a 20 pesos banknote, mind you; it´s not like I wanted to pay one beer with a 100 pesos banknote - which an American tourist at the next table did; and since he spoke no Spanish, the waiter didn´t have a choice and coughed up the change!) ´None at all, I am so sorry´says I, careful not to jingle the 1 and half peso coins in my wallet. ´Ah... all right then...´ he sighs, handing out the change he had had all along, of course.
The rules of the game are: never admit to having change, always ask for it. My man thinks it is a silly game and laughs at my recent obsession with coins, but I now have plenty of coins in my wallet (so many that I will occasionally break the rules and actually give change to someone who needs it:), while he gets to walk a lot:)))
Thursday, February 21, 2008
los bondi
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8 comments:
I once left change as tip for the waiter at a milonga - a woman swiped it. I later learned because she desperately needed coins for the bus. If I had known, I would have exchanged coins with her in exchange for peso bills. I had no idea it was that difficult to get change. But it did bother me that the waiter was deprived of his rightful tip. It's a moral quagmire.
Your description is so lively, one can’t help but laugh :-). It also reminds me of Italy: not the coins maybe, but the temperament and the helpfulness of the locals.
I have two small wallets, one strictly for coins and the other that I buy things with, so that when they ask for monedas, I show them the wallet and say ¨Sorry, no tengo.¨
This article was apparently in The Economist City Guide:
Small change
The chronic shortage of coins in Buenos Aires has created a small black market in loose change. Although the central bank insists there are enough coins in circulation, news-stands and shops regularly put up signs requesting exact payment, and some metro lines have been forced to let passengers travel free for lack of change. The shortage has led to accusations that bus companies are hoarding the coins they receive in fares—a suspicion reinforced by the recent appearance of opportunistic salesmen offering hundreds of pesos’ worth of change to small businesses for commissions of 6-8%. However, only one bus company is being investigated at present.
one guia has the streets listed for each route in each direction. it's pretty damn cryptic but eventually i figured it out. i remember a lot of times glancing back and forth frantically between the guide and street signs as we went toward our destination and i tried to figure out where in hell i was. aaah those were the days.
Hah, Bus 59 passed through La Heras. I took it to Pla. Italia to take the subte. I still have no clue where bus 95 goes on the other direction.
It looks like we are sharing the same problem with the large bank note. The ATM gives you 50 and 100(unless you want to withdraw money 40 peso at a time), but nobody else seems to be willing to take it. And they alway give you this attitude whenever you pay with a large note. "Don't you have anything smaller?" It is really not my fault that I have this 100 peso bill.
Coins are so rare here that there are counterfeits! Can you believe the trouble to make coins that value 17 cents u.s.?
As far as the ATMs go, sometimes it works to ask for, for example, 290 pesos instead of 300. That way you get some smaller bills. IF the machine happens to have some.
:)I see this strikes a chord..
Yes, the Economist City Guide article makes a lot of sense.
Cherie, I can totally understand that people WILL go through the trouble to counterfeit coins the value of 17 US cents; I would myself, if I knew how to do it.:)
yes!! i have heard so much about these amazing buses! i can't wait till i can hop on and ride inside of one....
are they are fantastic inside as they are on the outside?
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