Chicken Buses

27 January 2010

The Camioneta (a.k.a. Chicken Bus)

So some of the people who were around while I was getting ready to leave may have heard mention that the main source of travel in Guatemala is by chicken bus, and I'd like to clarify what that means, now that I know. Let's be clear, there are no chickens on this bus (at least there haven't been yet for me). These buses are literally school buses from the United States that have been brought down to Guatemala and painted with new colors and designs. Occasionally the painter will have left the name on the side, so you can see what town the bus was originally from (the only one I can remember was from Newark, NJ). For those of you who haven't recently been in a public school bus, let me remind you what it's like. The ceilings are approximately 6 feet tall (which is 6 inches shorter than I am, for those of you who don't like math) and each seats is built to hold up to three elementary schoolers or two middle schoolers. I don't know if they've crammed in more seats, or if there was always this amount of space, but there is approximately 18 inches of space between the seats (which is about 4 inches shorter than my femur, for those of you who are counting). Also, there is approximately 8 inches of space in the aisle between the seats (which is about 3 inches wider than my calf). Then they've installed luggage racks above the seats on both sides (kind of like in an airplane except made entirely of metal and not close-able) All this information is nice, but not really relevant without this last piece: the driver and ayudante (the guy who takes all the fares on the bus and is absolutely insane, I'll have a section on him later) try to fit approximately 150 people into the bus for any major trip (meaning a trip longer than 10 minutes, which is pretty much all of them). This means that every single seat has 3 full grown adults (remember, of course, that "full grown adult" in Guatemala typically means approximately 5'1" ) smashed together, plus the aisle filled with people standing. Now that you have this lovely image in your head, try to insert me into it...

So yeah, I've gotten some aches and pains from these buses. Here are my options: sit down in a seat, get my knees bruised by the metal back of the seat in front of me; stand up, hit my head on either the ceiling or the two parallel bars for grabbing that run along the ceiling over the aisle. Now in reality there is a third option that I just discovered on Monday, but I think it's frowned upon...if there are only two people in each seat adjacent to where I am standing (because I'm usually standing) I can sit with half-a-cheek on each seat, and be comfortable with my knees between the seat in front of me. The problem is that I am then completely blocking the aisle AND taking up two people's sitting room AND taking up someone's standing room. So I can't do this often, but when I can, it's amazing!

Ok, now to the ayudante. So when you get on the bus, you don't pay anything, you just sit down. The ayudante then comes around to everyone who's new and takes their fare and gives them change. If he doesn't have change, he tells you that he'll bring you change once he collects fares from other parts of the bus where he will probably get change, and if you're lucky, he is nice and brings you your change without you having to ask. So this doesn't sound crazy, but then remember to insert into the bus 150 people smashed together (like chickens in a chicken truck...?) and imagine that this guy makes his way through all these people and collects money from all of them while the bus is moving (often somewhat crazily in terms of speed bumps and turns). Then, if the bus is REALLY full, he'll open up the back door and just hang off the ladder on the back of the bus. When the bus stops the next time he runs around and gets back in the front. Also, if someone has something big that they want to put on top of the bus for the trip, he climbs up there really fast and has them hand it up to him.

Now let me say that 150 people is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. I think it's probably a bit over 100. I'll count the seats soon and update this number. Also, there are definitely a lot of times where there aren't nearly that many people on the bus, but it really doesn't help my situation because sitting with just two people in a seat sucks for my legs, and standing still sucks for my head....