Always an adventure

So transportation is a bit different in Peru, as I have experienced very well. There are the usual taxis, and buses, but to add to that, there are also "Combi" and "Mototaxis." Now Combis are basically small buses, but instead only holding enough people as there are seats, combis tend to want to cram as many people as possible inside them.

There are also no designated stops. If they see you walking on the street, they will honk their horn at you and want you to get on. The same goes for when riding one, you have to tell the driver when to stop, but it gets tricky when you don´t exactly know where your stop is. A few times the driver has overshot our stop and we ended up backtracking quite a bit. Combis are apparently privately owned, so the "Cobrador" wants to fit as many people as possible on the combi, so that he can make a few extra bucks. He even goes as far as flagging down people in the street to come and get on his combi. Just the other day, the "Cobrador" was bringing more and more people on the combi, when there was literally no more room to be had. He kept on saying "There´s more room, move back," when another woman and I just rolled our eyes at each other. I was practically on top of another passenger trying to hold on for dear life as the combi zoomed ahead to the next stop.

Most of the time, you end up standing up since there are no empty seats. Empty seats are hard to come by, and you are certainly lucky if you snag one...especially on a long ride. It´s also best to hold on tight in a combi if you don´t want to end up in someone´s lap. Since they are private, they also try to compete with each other about getting more passengers, often disregarding speed laws (if there are any) and lines in the road. They´ve also get within inches of each other on the road. Peruvian drivers are seriously not afraid to get close to each other. There have been a few times where I think we´re going to come in contact, but we always scape by untouched (barely...)

I take the combi everday to get to the training center, and every day is different. First, there appears to be two prices: one price for Peruvians and the other for gullible tourists aka gringos. Now, since I am niether a tourist or a Peruvian, it´s been difficult to talk down the price everday. Now we aren´t talking a big difference in price. It may be .50 soles for Peruvians and .70 soles for gringos, which is basically only 8 cent difference in American dollars, but it´s the principle of the whole thing! And since I´m being paid mere dollars a day, every little bit counts. I usually have to either set the price before I get on the bus, or risk being haggled by the "cobrador" once on the bus. I´ve learned a few tricks of the trade though, from my host sister. She said that as long as you have exact change, they won´t cheap you out of your mone, which they do a lot. 

So this last week, we had our first trip to Lima, which was super excited since I have been living in a town of only 1,000 people. Lima is the capital of Peru and has about 12 million people living there, way more than New York City even. On Friday, we went with our language teachers to get a lay of the land and to practice our spanish (por supuesto...of course). We went directly to the Plaza de Armas, which is basically the downtown of Lima. The Palace where Alan Garcia is situated on side, the municipality building on the other, and churches surrounding the rest. We learned how to bargain down a taxi ride, and even saw the Pacific ocean.

The final test of the day was to get home by ourselves, which is what I think to be a big joke had by all the spanish professors. We were given 6 soles for the day (which is about 2 dollars) and had the choice of taking a combi, a taxi, or a collectivo. My group elected to take a collectivo, which was 8 soles for each of us, since they said it would be shorter than taking a combi. Little did we know, that we would be hitting Lima traffic on a Friday night. We realized this only after we crammed 4 people in the back of the car, and ended up going 5 mph for about an hour. Needless to say, we weren´t the happiest of campers, but after having talked to some people who took combis back...we got home a few hours before them.

The next day, Saturday, we went back to Lima, only this time to la Universidad de la Agraria, where we are going to learn about composting, home gardenting, and animal husbandry. Again, the teachers let us find our own way home. Having fully realized how little we do make, We decided to take the combi this day. The only problem was we had such a big group, that not all of us were going to fit on the same combi, so we then split up in half. We had to take one combi to the main highway and then find another one that goes towards Chosica. We had to split up yet again becuase not all of us were going to fit, so eventually we were down to 3 in a group. The combi we happened to choose was jam packed (lucky for us), so we had to stand for a bit. Lucky for me, I found a seat right away and got to rest my poor legs for the hour long ride home. We made is safely home in about an hour, when we all celebrated by eating ourselves sick.

So next time you drive in your car to get to work or use the public transportation in your town, just thank you lucky stars that you are able to get to your destination without a worry...as for me, riding the combis is always an adventure.