Getting around

You may recall that in an earlier post I mentioned that things are never as close, nor as far, as anyone says in Buenos Aires. That's probably true throughout Argentina, but my limited experience precludes me from extrapolating outside of the Capital Federal (Argentina's version of DC, only they have voting rights because they live in a democracy).

So here we are, living downtown, and staunchly refusing to get a car. Everyone says to us that we need a car. I refuse to believe this. I'm a big advocate of public transportation. I'm also a big advocate of not spending $10,000 to buy a car. Further, I'm a much bigger advocate of not driving in this city. Call me an environmentalist, or maybe call me scared, but just call me a taxi, please.

I figure the average cost of a taxi ride for us is around $1.50. A bus fare is about 25 cents. The subway costs a little less. Maybe once a week we will take a long taxi ride for about $10 each way. So I'm thinking that in a month we spend like $100 in transportation. Now I'm no accountant (well, I'm no employed accountant) but that's about a hundred months before buying a car pays off. Not to mention gas, or petrol - depending on which you get. And insurance. And parking (about $100 a month in our neighborhood). And the fact that I would have to drive in this city.

What's it like to drive in Bs As? Well.... Here's my favorite little example. One day we were riding with our cousins, and upon entering an intersection I innocently asked "How does everyone know who has the right of way?"

"What do you mean?"

Not a reassuring response. Not the kind of thing you like to hear as you pull out in front of oncoming traffic with your children sitting next to you. Not what you want to be thinking when you are staring at the front of a black and yellow taxi accelerating into the intersection.

So apparently they don't use stop signs here. And not every intersection has a stop light. So there are a lot of cars going through a lot of intersections at the same time, and as far as I can tell, there is just sort of an unwritten code that people coming from one direction have right of way at each intersection. How you are supposed to know this, I believe, comes only from experience. Or luck. Or if you are bus.

You see, busses don't slow down for anything except to pick people up and red lights. Maybe, if you are nice, or old, or have a small child, when you ask the driver to let you out. They certainly don't slow down for other cars, nor do they slow down for pedestrians. So the first time I took a bus, I saw a guy jump on the bus while it was moving and I thought "Hey that's kinda' cool - like a scene in Camus' unfinished novel." Only then I saw it a few more times and realized it's just sort of something people do. Then I had to get off a bus without it stopping. I didn't exactly feel like Camus, but I did feel like my novel was unfinished.

And then there are cabs. In every city in every world, wait, that doesn't make sense - anyway, cab drivers everywhere are notorious for their aggressive driving. Our housekeeper told me she was trying to get off a bus once and the bus couldn't (or wouldn't) get close to the curb, so as she stepped off a cab darted without slowing between the bus and the curb and barely missed her. I'm sure the cab driver started swearing at her for stepping out in front of him. And probably the passenger, too. In fact, I think I was the passenger, and I couldn't believe she had the audacity to step out in front of moving traffic. What was she thinking???

Add all of this to the excitement of living only a few blocks from the world's widest road. It's about as wide as a big city block. Actually, it may be wider. It can easily take you three stoplight cycles to walk across the street (there are little pedestrian islands to make it possible to walk across the street). Oh - and the lines painted on roads to signify lanes - they are more of a suggestion than an actual lane. Kind of like an afterthought. On another road two blocks away, there are like 8 or 10 painted lanes going in one direction, but I've seen at least 14 or 15 cars side by side. Reminds me of a great movie quote "Lanes? We don't need no stinking lanes!" Or maybe it was badges they didn't need. Maybe they needed lanes, but only had badges. Whatever.

So the point of all this is why buy a car when I can have the milk for free?

And if you haven't gotten enough of reading about driving in Argentina, a friend of a friend wrote a really good blog here http://ayearinmendoza.blogspot.com/2006/03/driving-miss-mendoza_29.html (I hope he doesn't mind...)