Public Transportation

Have you ever been in a place where you had to take public transportation? And was the system easy or difficult to navigate? Were stops clearly labeled? Did the routes make sense?

That has not been my experience thus far! Public transportation here is crazy. I can barely tell where I am most of the time when I'm on the bus.

The first time Josh and I tried to take the bus by ourselves, we got on the wrong bus, but figured it out within seconds. The bus we wanted (the same number, just going the other direction) happened to be passing by right at that moment. The bus drivers talked to each other and we were able to switch buses easily. Then we ended up getting off the bus too early. Oops. Once we figured that out, we had to wait at the bus stop for another bus to come and take us further.

The next time we tried to take the bus by ourselves, we got on the bus going the wrong direction! But this time we didn't figure it out. Until we reached the very end of the route and we were not anywhere near where we wanted to be. Which we only figured out after a very difficult conversation in broken Portuguese. It didn't help that the part of the city we were in was Rocha Miranda and we wanted to be the part called Rocha. Here's a hint, they aren't anywhere close to each other. Once the bus driver understood where we were trying to go though, he said the best option at that point was just to stay on the bus we'd been on and wait for it to get where we actually wanted to go. We eneded up being on the bus for 2 hours and 15 minutes. And we missed one of our classes in the process. Oh the joys of city life!

Trying to get back home that same day though we did perfectly! We got on the right bus and stayed on it until we actually wanted to get off! Looks like the third time really is the charm.

If I'm being honest though, I blame our host brother for all the problems. Both times we got on the bus going the wrong direction he was with us to make sure we got on the right one. And he said he knew. When he wasn't there Josh and I figured it out. Hahaha, I'm just joking...mostly. He's a great host brother and has been very helpful so far! I've just decided that no one really knows how to navigate this bus system entirely. It's way to huge and confunsing!

Yay for public transit!