Enter the public bus system.

For all of its faults, the transportation network, at least in Guatemala, is pretty great. At an average rate of about Q10 ($1.25) per hour of transport, you can get from one side of the country to the other for about as much as it costs to buy a Big Mac.

Of course, there are some serious problems with it, too. Guatemalan camionetas are purchased from the United States only after they fail to meet inspection and decommissioned. Typically, that means after 10-15 years of service, or 150,000 miles. On many, you can see the badly-erased origins (“Newark Dept. of Education”) still etched on the side.

Once the Guatemalan transportation company purchases them, most typically at auction, they ship or drive them south. When they arrive, they give them a facelift: sometimes they add more seats, or extend the length of each bench to accommodate more people. Almost always they give them a garish paint job and deck them out with flashing lights and decals of religious conviction.

As I mentioned, though, there are faults. Lots and lots of faults.

Without a lot of oversight, camioneta workers attempt to jam as many people onto a bus as possible, frequently disregarding such trifles as “recommended capacity” or “maximum weight allowance.” More than once I’ve gotten on a long-haul camioneta only to realize there are no more seats left, not even one that lets me rest just half a cheek. Meanwhile, the ayudante (helper) relentlessly shouts, “Hay espacio! Vénganse!” (“There’s space! Come!”)

Finally, because they are so packed, camionetas can act as easy hunting grounds for pickpockets. The heavy jostling and millions of stimuli keep you distracted by other things, and anyone can slit your bag with a razor, then reach their hand in and feel around for your wallet. There’s not a lot you can do if it proceeds to that point, but next time be prepared:

• If you’re a guy, put your wallet in your front pocket rather than your back. Girls, clutch your purse in front of you rather than behind or under an arm.

• Be very suspicious of that person who keeps allowing their jacket to “accidentally” fall across your lap or bag, obscuring your view of it.

• Consider getting a zipper lock, such as this one. While not perfect, often any deterrent is enough to convince a would-be thief to move onto easier pickings.

There you have it. Camionetas are cheap and convenient, but also less safe than other transportation. Still, they serve an important function in countries where many are too poor to buy their own cars, and nothing says “I’m a local” like a working knowledge of how to ride the bus.

Joe Sigrin is currently serving as a Peace Corps Health Coordinator in Guatemala. To hear more about his experiences, check out his travel blog.

The view of the first station on the line and the surrounding barrio

This weekend, I finally took a ride on the MetroCable, a rather unique mode of transportation that makes Caracas one of a growing number of cities around the world choosing to incorporate a gondola-style lift system into the general city transportation.  In the case of Caracas, the MetroCable services one of the poorest parts of the city, the barrio of San Agustín.  Apart from having a markedly higher crime rate than other parts of the city, most barrios here are built on steep hills, in ramshackle style, one concrete/cinderblock shack on top of another.

While this style increases the number of people who can live within a small area, it also makes these neighborhoods incredibly dangerous when it rains (erosion of the land during rainy season leads to homes collapsing).  Another geographical problem of the barrios is access to the ranchos (referring to the shack-style houses) at the top.  While buses and cars can access the base of the hills without problem, the only vehicles make it up the few steep and windy roads towards the top are 4×4s.  For those ranchos off the road, there is a series of never-ending staircases, with literally thousands of steps connecting the base of the barrio to the top.

The MetroCable attempts to make these isolated parts of San Agustín more accessible to residents, who represent some of the most marginalized members of the population.  The route consists of two connected lines servicing five stations which run from Parque Central in the city up the steep hill of San Agustín, and touch different parts of the barrio.  Each car holds eight passengers.  The system itself is a pioneer in lift-system technology, in that it is the first system to incorporate 90-degree turns for the cars.  The gondola cars offer a sweeping view of the city and are named either for states in Venezuela or appropriately patriotic ideas (sovereignty, humanity, liberty, etc.)  The system and its stations have been in operation for just over a year, and are a shiny new addition to an otherwise bleak landscape (San Agustín is also one of the most dangerous barrios in Caracas).

The cars each hold eight people and serve as transport from the barrio to the city below

However, the MetroCable, like everything in the city, is not without controversy.  Critics cite the astronomical cost of building the system and less-than-rapid methods of transporting people.  It certainly is an oddity, this pristine lift system costing tens of millions of dollars, in a portion of the city obviously in need of more basic necessities.  We rode the MetroCable on a Saturday, when there were few passengers; our trip was smooth and pleasant.  However, having suffered through the Caracas Metro at rush hour, the delays and virtual inability for everything to run smoothly, it’s easy to imagine how the MetroCable might suffer delays as well.  So, is the MetroCable a lifeline for some of the poorest and most geographically isolated citizens of Caracas? Or a merely a flashy way for the government to gain international attention and curry favor among their supporters?  Time will tell.

Lianne Gonsalves is currently a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at the Centro Venezolano Americano. To hear more about her experiences, check out her blog. This is not is not an official Fulbright Program blog. The views and information presented are Lianne’s own and do not represent the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

After attempting to bargain my way into a taxi and failing miserably — we finally settled on 15,000 colones ($20 USD) for a 45 minute ride — I jumped into the front seat of a banged up 94 Hyundai Accent with no signs of it being an official taxi. Although the taxista and his young son seemed very nice and generally amicable, the fur on the back of my neck started to stand up when the son got into the back seat. I didn’t really see any reason for him to come along for the ride unless they were planning on rolling me. I was breaking one of my own rules that I usually give other travelers: only use the red taxis in San Jose.

I was pretty nervous, so I started to make small talk with the driver. I asked him for a business card and pulled out my phone to show that if there was some ulterior motive, I could call for help if I wanted to. He didn’t seem to want to talk, which made me more nervous as I thought about the value of all my belongings in his trunk probably being worth more than the car. I had heard stories of people being robbed in Nicaragua and I was robbed last time I was in San Jose, which made me paranoid. The conversation warmed up after I asked him about the legendary soccer rivalry between La Liga and Saprissa, but I still wasn’t sure. He asked if he minded if we stopped for gas and I made a smooth joke about it being necessary if I wanted to get home.

While we waited, I slipped most of my cash into my sock. As we neared my house, the lights of his car went out which meant that it was pretty much pitch black outside — streets in San Jose don’t always have lights. I got nervous again but told myself I was just being paranoid. As it turns out, I was. When we arrived, the son put my bags into the house and his dad didn’t even ask to be paid, taking the broken light situation as an opportunity to teach his son a quick lesson in car mechanics. When I came back out to pay, the lights were on again and the taxista had a big grin on his face.

¨I love this car,¨ he said enthusiastically.

I gave him a one dollar tip. The moral of the story: I should take my own advice.

Sebastian Kindsvater recently returned to Costa Rica, where he is the Kiva Coordinator/Loan Officer for Fundación Mujer. For more on transportation in Latin America, check out “Conversations with Cab Drivers“;  “Day in the Life: Morning Commute“; “An Adventurous Routine“; “Where to Get Off the Bus?“; “Good Travel Karma“; “Traffic Circle from Hell!” and “All-Female Transport in Mexico.”

Parked tranquility: a typical Tico taxi in Cusco

During evening rush hour, the experience of traffic in Cusco harkens back to my days of commutes in Los Angeles: tempers flare, the cacophony of ear-piercing car horns pollutes everyone’s sanity, and drivers use dubious maneuvers to inch their ways forward or around the gridlock. As distraction from this claustrophobic chaos is clearly in everyone’s best interest, my cab drivers in Cusco will often solicit me for small talk to pass the time.

It is rare to see a female driver in Cusco, even in a private car, so inevitably my taxi drivers are always male. Should he fall between the ages of eighteen and forty, the predictability of the conversation’s progression is remarkable, and usually plays out in the following way:

The obligatory opening line acknowledges the cold weather overtaking Cusco, to which the respondent agrees that this time of year is, indeed, very cold. After a few more weather-related exclamations, he will usually ask where I’m from. Once a response is procured, the next logical small-talk questions are about, of course, my marital status and whether or not I have children. Talk about getting straight to the point.

If I don’t feel like enshrouding myself in a complex web of lies, there will certainly be further questioning regarding whether I have a Peruvian boyfriend, do I want one, and eventually, “Can I have your number?” The fact that I’m 23 and not thinking about marriage or children often causes confusion.

More recently, I’ve learned to play the good politician and completely ignore the marital inquiry, launching instead into an unrelated topic of my own choosing. I like to pick their brains about their homes and how they came to be taxistas. Some come from cities or towns hours outside of Cusco, but have moved to the city in search of work. Others are students, barely eighteen, who are using their taxi gig to support themselves through college.

Yesterday, I asked my driver if driving around Cusco at this hour didn’t give him anxiety. At this he laughed out loud and grinned widely, then stepped onto the accelerator and swerved briefly into a lane of oncoming traffic. Leaning on his horn to shove his way back into the original line-up, he nearly swiped off the mirror of another taxi, all to gain a position five cars ahead of our previous spot. Classic Cusco.

Kimberly is currently serving as Program Manager for GirlSportWorks, a US-based NGO that seeks to enhance the lives of Peruvian girls through athletics. For more on transportation in Latin America, check out “Day in the Life: Morning Commute“; “An Adventurous Routine“; “Where to Get Off the Bus?“; “Good Travel Karma“; “Traffic Circle from Hell!” and “All-Female Transport in Mexico.”

A passerby stares as one of Panama City's colorful diablo rojo buses zips by

A rarely heard utterance: “My favorite thing about the city was the buses.”

A Dutch traveler said it to me about Panama City before I left. I inwardly scoffed; she must just think that because they use bikes so much in the Netherlands.

But then I got there, and she’d nailed it. Sorry, Karlijn.

Calling the buses diablos rojos is only partly accurate. Some of these second-hand U.S. school buses are red, sure, but they are also green and purple and pink. They have murals of castles or churches on the front and back. You’ll see paintings of world luminaries ranging from Jesus to Hugo Chavez, with accent designs featuring unicorns playing guitars.

Go inside, and it can be like a dance club or lounge. Samba or reggaeton will pound out of a custom stereo, while red or purple lights set the mood. Streamers are optional but encouraged.

I don’t know if each driver has his own bus customized, a la goalie masks in the NHL, or if they drive whatever bus they get that day. (Drivers aren’t the chatty sort, and it’s tough to find out if a bus is going close to your hostel, let alone delve into its aesthetics and iconography.)

Panama City can stagger the brain of a Latin American traveler. Restaurants touting Lebanese, French, and Thai food can be seen on one city block. Rush-hour traffic jams are choked with luxury cars, and rush hour itself was a concept I’d forgotten. Skyscrapers soar overheard, and where there’s not a skyscraper, there’s probably a crane building one.

In a city that is so developed and modern, it was a relief to see some of the flair and slapdash magic that has given this corner of the world so much of its charm for me.

Kent most recently left his post as an English teacher in Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica and is currently traveling. To see what he’s up to, check out his blog or follow him on Twitter. For more on transportation in Latin America, check out “Day in the Life: Morning Commute“; “An Adventurous Routine“; “Where to Get Off the Bus?“; “Good Travel Karma“; “Traffic Circle from Hell!” and “All-Female Transport in Mexico.”

Transportation: MapRed and the Intendencia of Montevideo’s own map help fill in Google Maps gaps. Tres Cruces, Montevideo’s central bus station, has a website which contains timetables for routes to and from the city. Buquebus or Colonia Express will ferry you across to Buenos Aires, and Carrasco International Airport is the portal for destinations further afield.

In Montevideo, weekend plans are just a wall away.

Housing: Finding short-term housing, particularly furnished housing, can be tough, and real estate agent fees are high. BuscandoCasa and Gallito compensate for Craigslist’s Montevideo scarcity. Mercado Libre can contribute the tchotchkes.

Food: Salir a Comer helps mightily to locate that apocryphal sushi joint, or to try a new resto-pub that breaks away from the chivito-pizza-pasta mold.

Arts: Want access to 80+ film screenings a month for under USD$10? Join Cinemateca. Or check out other events on offer here or here. Or browse the vast expanses of poster-plastered walls around town.

News: Radio station and media outlet Espectador offers extensive online content. Of the newspaper dailies, El Pais trends conservative, La Republica tends to the left of the spectrum, and La Diaria falls somewhere in between.

And of course….

Volunteering: Uruguay as yet doesn’t attract the number of international volunteers that neighboring countries do, and consequently there aren’t many online mechanisms to connect potential volunteers with institutions. Organizations in the Montevideo area which accept volunteer inquiries include: Un Techo para mi País, El Abrojo, Gurises Unidos, DESEM, and the Fundación Niños con Alas.

Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.

Unlike the real Batman, the drivers and door attendants feel no sympathy for the civilians of the city. With shouts of “Sube, Sube” to board the Batmobile or commands of “Baja, Baja” to depart, riding in combis is an aggressive way to start the day. Old women will throw elbows in an attempt to board and other passengers will have cheeky smiles from their comfortable seats. Just when I think that I am the last possible rider that could fit into the combi, now at standing room only, another six people will get on. Unlike in India where the drivers believe in reincarnation and therefore have no qualms about driving in a manic manner, the conductores in Cusco seem to do it only for the rush. For a culture that at times completely disregards punctuality, the drivers of the combis refuse to drive in ways in which our mothers would approve.

Nothing starts my day like a frenzied combi ride. Being a six-foot male and standing in vans designed for a nation of people with an average height of 5’3” blinds me to the perils of the ride. And for the cost of 20 cents and the feeling of being a legitimate peruano, I arrive at Arariwa confident for my next round of interviews.

Jonah Brill is currently living in Cusco, Peru as a volunteer Field Researcher for Arariwa microfinance bank. For more on transportation in Latin America, check out “An Adventurous Routine“; “Where to Get Off the Bus?“; “Good Travel Karma“; “Traffic Circle from Hell!” and “All-Female Transport in Mexico.”

As we step outside, the sound of bus breaks and motors gets louder, and the smell of gas is strong.  Lost-eyed travelers cock their heads to better hear the bus attendants as they shout out the destination of their bus: “¡Cartagena!”, “¡Atacama!”, “¡Constitución!”  I hear the “chug-chug-chug” as the buses pull in from overnight voyages and watch the passengers from within wipe the breath-fog off the windows so they can sleepily peer out at the view of Santiago in the morning (if it’s clear, which it rarely is, there’s a spectacular view of the snow-capped mountains!).  Finally, as I exit the station and head towards the office, a gaggle of cab drivers holding steaming Styrofoam coffee cups offers to ferry me away.  I pop my earphones in and jam-out towards the fruit stand to buy my morning apple.

My daily routine, mixed with the adventure of the travelers at the bus terminal, is quite symbolic of my time as a Kiva Fellow.  Sometimes as a volunteer, change is the only constant.  While this is exhilarating, I am thankful to have found a steady rhythm spending every day at Fondo Esperanza.  The Fondo Esperanza staff and the micro-entrepreneurs they serve are so dynamic that some days I feel like we’ve traveled over continents together.  So for the first time in a long time, I’m not absolutely squirming with travel fever.  Though I can’t lie: more than once I’ve been severely tempted to hop onto the bus after a studly “mochilero” I’ve seen adjusting his backpack before he steps on board!

Kati Mayfield is currently a Kiva Fellow in Santiago, Chile. For more about other Kiva Fellow’s experiences, check out entries by La Vida Idealist bloggers Meg Gray, Rob Packer, Sheethal Shobowale and Suzy Marinkovich.

I bought my ticket earlier that afternoon, so after handing over my mochila (backback) to the bus company,  I pay to use the bathroom.

I find it odd that there is no terminal use fee in Santa Cruz.

I join a group of frustrated tired people who are waiting for the bus to arrive, which it will, but late.

Various people walk by selling canapés (yummy yuca and cheese balls), water, soda, gelatina (jello), chicken, sweets, candy and anything else you could imagine in the departure area and on the buses waiting to leave.

Once I get on the bus and waiting for it to leave, a man boards and starts playing guitar and singing a song about Jesus followed by a young boy who boards the bus to sing a song about Jesus.

Once the bus leaves, I try not to notice women breastfeeding.  I hear babies crying, cumbia and reggaetón from cellphones (which people listen to like a mini boom box without headphones) and lots of snoring.

Without air conditioning, the humid Santa Cruz air is hot, thick and sticky.  I put my arms and face out the window to grab some fresh air.  I do some writing and listen to my iPod.  I try to sleep – fitfully at best.

Fifteen minutes before we arrive in Cochabamba, someone expounds the merits of fresh fruit, quinoa and maca, all traditional Andean food.  Turns out he is a traveling salesman selling powdered maca.  After him comes another salesman selling toothbrushes and some magical toothpaste.

Finally, we arrive and I get off the bus.  I couldn’t be happier to be on solid ground again.

This was my 9-hour (well actually 11) overnight bus cama (sleeper bus) experience from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba.  This has been my typical South American bus experience, as I have had a lot of them during the past 6 months.  Seems normal to me now.

Just a small list of what to expect when traveling on buses:

• Leaving – The bus rarely leaves on time.
• Arriving – The bus rarely arrives when they say it will.
• Tickets – You can get a cheaper ticket if you ask around to the competing companies and buy the ticket at the last minute if there are empty seats left.  This works best for well-traveled routes.
• Tickets, cont’d – But remember, in 3 fila (3 seats to a row, more comfortable) buses, if you want a seat on the side where you don’t have to sit next to someone or want to sit next to your traveling companion, you may want to buy your ticket earlier.
• Seats – Check what the seats look like before you buy.  Some will say bus cama but really won’t be the seats that recline flat like a bed.  Others who are more honest will say semi cama or normal if that’s the case.
• Terminal Use Tax – Most bus stations I’ve been to have a terminal use tax that you need to pay before you leave.  There will be an attendant checking for a payment sticker.
• Bathroom – Likely there will be no bathroom or or the bathroom may be either disgusting or out of order.  Make sure to go just before you get on.
• Food – Bring food or drink to keep you going but keep in mind the above advice about the bathroom before you drink two liters of water.
• Music – Charge your MP3 player to avoid hearing snoring and crying babies.  I got through half my battery in the 11 hours but you may find yourself on a 20-24 hour bus ride.
• Stops – On long bus rides, the bus will stop for a meal for half an hour or so and for the bus driver to take a break.  I consider these safety stops – even chewing coca leaves can’t keep the bus driver awake and concentrating for hours at a time.  This is your chance to use the bathroom.
• Food on the road – People will get on and off selling stuff if the bus stops at different towns along the way.  This is a good way to try foods from different places.  (Actually I’m interested in doing a bus tour just for the food sold along the way.) But be careful if you have a weak stomach.
• Climate – It may be either be freezing or extremely hot on the bus.  Or you may be going from a hot climate to a cold one.  Prepare for both.

Enjoy the ride and of course the destination!

If you have any other suggestions or funny bus stories, please share below in the comments!

Colorful, though not particularly comfortable, buses in Nicaragua

Still it takes a certain level of trust to get on a bus with only the name of your desired stop in hand. First I ask the bus driver and/or his helper (if he has one): “You stop at ______ right?” When he responds in the affirmative, I ask him to tell me when I should get off. Usually (but unfortunately not always) this is enough, thus I move on to step two and try talking to/asking several people around me where my stop is. The trick is to ask around without making yourself look completely lost and clueless (which makes you seem like an easy mark for a future mugging). With any luck, either the driver or a fellow passenger will tell you when to get off.

This method rarely fails (but I make no guarantees), though I sometimes feel stupid asking the driver “Are we close?” fifty billion times. And once you know the route, its not so bad.