Bus Travel in the streets Colombia, proves to be a game of survival and adventure for a young visitor.
If you watch the news, you've probably heard a lot about the problems of Colombia. This country has its traditional issues, such as trade in drugs for the mafia and its famous cocaine industry in the world. But there are problems smaller, less visible, which can make you know the country. I'm talking about the "war of the cents." Term used to describe the situation in which there are public transport workers, while trying to "scrape" their livelihoods in the dirt, smog, the stones, and dangerous private car drivers, all of which makes it challenging the culture of city traffic.
All public transport workers, including drivers of taxis, buses, and minivans registered, they are combatants in the war of the cent. All this because no one gets in this area will pay a fixed salary for hours worked. They get a commission paid by the number of passengers to rise. These workers, hungry, poor, have to work 12 to 16 hours a day, to have, barely enough money for monthly bills, and spend a few hours a week with their wives and children. So to compete, because their bread is on the sidewalks, in waiting to get on the first bus, taxi, or collective. It is quite worrying to see these vehicles, large and small, especially buses, literally compete on the streets and roads, desperately trying to get a pull up a gear, just to stop at the next stop one block down the street. I imagine he has seen cars cross the freeway, but have seen somewhere that provided school buses cross, or stopping cross repeatedly throughout the day in a busy downtown street?
Buses are a story in themselves. Have the form of American school buses fully colored and color names, neighborhoods, food and animals. Names such as Calypso, Toucan, the Fields of Sugar Cane, The Blue Plate, The Creole and Red, and other interesting names.
When you upload has to pay directly to the bus driver, which is expected to count the money to secure the amount correct, and you back the change if appropriate. Then walk through a rotating pinwheel to take into account the number of passengers. This is how the driver gets paid. Now if you do not have enough money, you can always offer to take the driver and jump over the turnstile, or climb back. Once I saw 20 teenage boys go for 5,000 pesos, when the normal travel costs 1,200 pesos per head. If you pay
feel, or is held stationary, and pleads for her life, because now in the middle of a war. The ride is always uneven, due to poor roads, and worse, if sitting in the back of the bus, come down with bruises insurance in your butt,
The peak hour traffic at the end of the workday, show complete buses full of passengers standing. Steep and abrupt stops to pick up passengers, it is that, while the hips left and right range, their hands grasping the handles tightly. I never used these out there. I constantly felt the urge to shout: "you are wrong man!", Or "What's wrong man?" Before walking off and happy to be alive. Bus Accidents happen all the time. On December 24, two intercity bus collided head. One tried to pass a car on a two-way street. Both were complete. Twenty-three lost their lives, and 50 people were injured.
But buses are not all bad news. In fact, they are a vital source of employment for the poor vendors. People, especially young men, who often ask the driver permission to sell some smaller products, sweets, incense, keychains, pens, and entertainment magazines. A man walks around the crowded hall, give a fiery speech, two people only hear the front, and distribute the goods, shooting and jumping among the passengers. It is considered lucky if two people will buy and can make 200 pesos. Cent
War has created an ugly reality in the streets of Colombia. The survival mounted on a bus, literally, for the driver, passengers, and microentrepreneurs. The old women with arthritis should be athletes while crossing the street. Are civilians caught in the battle field in the urban war of the penny. By Miguel Gonzalez
, Silicon Valley Debug . February 10, 2005 .
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