The Modern Bus: Smell The Magic - Latin America

The Modern Bus: Smell The Magic
Latin America

The very first motorized bus was created by Sir Goldworthy Gurney in England in 1830. It was a big stagecoach powered by a steam engine, and was capable of moving people between London and Bath at 15 miles per hour. Right from the start, people were enthralled with their new freedom to travel inexpensively to distant locales in the pleasant company of their fellow citizens. Then the bus started moving.

Neighbor found it impossible to keep from rubbing against neighbor in a most un-Pre-Victorian way as the bus lurched from side to side. Citizens realized how badly their fellow citizens smell as they found themselves unable to move their noses more than six inches away from a previously unknown armpit. The drool flew thick and wild through the engine exhaust-saturated air as passengers fell asleep on strangers’ shoulders, then jerked violently forward when the bus hit a farm animal or child. After half an hour, Sir Goldworthy was referred to by the green-faced Londoners as Sir Silverworthy. By the time the bus was halfway to Bath, he was Sir Copperworthy. And by the time the bus reached its destination, he was openly mocked as Sir Not So Bloody Worthy After All.

Although engineers have not been able to match the heady speed of Gurney’s bus with subsequent models, buses have remained true to their original ancestral form in virtually every other way. Nonetheless, the bus family is a diverse group in terms of color, cost, and odor, and there is no place this diversity can be better experienced and enjoyed than Latin America.

The most expensive, luxurious buses are made in Brazil, but can be found in many countries throughout the region. Some of these luxury buses have Rolls-Royce engines and purr like kittens - giant, mutated, disease-ridden kittens. Others seem to be powered by a couple of midgets turning a crank. The buses’ unique fragrance, a cross between new car smell, rotting fruit, and an immense, heavily soiled urinal cake, pervades all. By night, the high-powered air conditioner keeps you numb enough to not notice the excruciating pain in your extremities as you twist your limbs into positions that would impress a professional contortionist in your effort to find a position you can sleep in. By day, you are forced to watch America’s Three Most Annoying Films of the Year over and over again. Like Alex during his brainwashing sessions in A Clockwork Orange, your screams for mercy go unheeded.

At the other end of the spectrum is the worst contribution to transportation in the history of mankind - the American school bus. Originally designed as a practical joke, school system administrators quickly realized that these death traps on wheels could solve a lot of their problems. Every American looks back nostalgically at their old, yellow school bus - the cute little bench seats, the windows permanently stuck open or closed, the unmistakable aroma of school bus vomit permeating the air. Some of you may have wondered whatever became of that old school bus, after 20 or 30 years of hard use and abuse, after the brakes and steering were beyond repair. Surely the school system that made you use textbooks written before color was invented must have come up with some way to make a quick buck off of those old rust heaps.

Your suspicions are correct. Your school system sold your old bus to Guatemala. Or Nicaragua. Or some other impoverished Latin American country, where it now proudly forms the rheumatic backbone of the national transportation system. Sometimes these buses are repainted, sometimes they still bear the name of your old school district but a luggage rack has been secured to the roof. Other than that, your bus is just as you remembered it - the windows are still stuck and the vomit smell is still as strong as ever. Actually, there is one difference. That bench seat that seemed so roomy when you were sitting on it with a fellow 6 year old and you were four feet tall is no longer quite so roomy now that you are 6′2″ and there are two 250 pound, sweat-soaked adults sharing the bench with you.

Sometimes people ask me, “Dave, you’ve been on a bus or two. Which would you say are the best seats on a bus?” Actually nobody has ever asked me that, but if somebody did, I would reply that there are no best seats on a bus, there are only not-worst seats. So, the more important question is, which are the worst seats on a bus?

One set of worst seats is comprised of the rows at the back of the bus, also known as “The Puking Rows.” Not only is this the part of the bus with the most violent rocking motion and least fresh air, but, on the more luxurious buses, it is also the part of the bus inhabited by the dysfunctional, putrefying toilet. If you sit in these rows, you can expect to get to know that toilet up close and personal when you get to the windy part of the road.

Another group of worst seats are those located directly over the wheels, since most buses are cleverly designed so that the wheel well protrudes through the floor of the bus. These seats are meant to be reserved for handicapped people with no legs, and it is considered rude if a legged person occupies one.

The third group of worst seats is formed by the rows at the front of the bus, also known as “The Deathwish Rows.” Due to the fact that the failing steering and brakes that caused the bus to be sold to Latin America in the first place have surely not been fixed, and the fact that virtually every bus driver in Latin America counts on Jesus to be his copilot (according to the sign at the front of virtually every bus), and sometimes Jesus has to go take a leak, the chances that your bus will run into a large, hard object at some point are extremely high. If you are sitting in The Deathwish Rows when this happens, you will spend the last moment of your life serving as a human airbag for everybody behind you.

So, the least worst seats are in the middle of the bus. There are two schools of thought as to whether the seats on the left or right side of a bus are less worse. Adherents of the right school say that the inevitable crash is most likely to involve a head-on collision with another vehicle, and therefore you are better off not sitting on the side of oncoming traffic. Leftists believe that the bus driver will look out for number one first, and because he is on the left side, if one side has to be sacrificed, it will be the right. Researchers have yet to come to an agreement on this important issue.

Good times await (and await…) at the municipal bus terminal in Leon, Nicaragua

In accordance with United Nations Resolution 1306, all bus terminals must be placed in the least desirable part of town. In the U.S., downtown areas are usually considered to be the places where visitors are most likely to run into serious trouble, and therefore the obvious place for the bus terminal. However, the downtown areas of most Latin American cities are nice places to hang out. Therefore, Latin American bus terminals are typically placed on the outskirts of town at the most geographically distant location from any potential site of interest or lodging possible.

In the larger cities, Latin American bus terminals are built on the shopping mall model, complete with multiple floors, food courts, overpriced stores, and well-hidden public restrooms. In small towns, the bus terminal is usually a dirt lot behind a market, a dark, treacherous maze of obstacles that must be navigated well before the Dramamine wears off. This is to ensure that everyone in town will instantly hate you as you struggle to maneuver your 60-pound backpack through aisles you could just barely squeeze through even if you weren’t carrying anything, knocking over fruit bins, ceramics, and little old ladies in the process. Surely every market has some remote, dead end passages with dusty skeletons of tourists who took a few wrong turns and never found their way out.

Whether your feet are resting on the phlegm-covered floor of the bus terminal or the phlegm-covered floor of the bus itself, there is no better way to learn about the special little habits that make each culture unique than by spending 22 hours with that culture’s sharp, sweaty shoulder in your spine.

I hope this brief introduction to buses will help you to appreciate their majesty and relish their mystery on their 175^th Birthday. Happy busing!

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