By mfretes93
I'm used to public transportation ruling my life. As a life-long city girl, I'm one of those people that gets raised eyebrows from people when I tell them that I don't know how to drive a car, and that I'm fluent in all things subway (or metro, when I'm in D.C.)
In any case, my reliance on public transportation everywhere in the States translates to an equal, if not even bigger, reliance on public transportation abroad. After all, as someone with an incredibly limited amount of funds, I'm not able to take a cab everywhere I want to go, and as I've stated, I'm about as adept at driving as I am at speaking Chinese.
Luckily, over the past couple of months, I've come to realize that Rio de Janeiro has a surprisingly useful system of public transportation that allows me to get from Point A (usually my couch) to Point B (usually food), even if it took some getting used to at first.
First of all, Rio de Janeiro is far more vast of a city than I originally imagined. It's one of those cities that you can travel around in for more than hour, maybe even two, and still really have gone nowhere. There are entire zones of the city that I still haven't stepped foot into, not because they're of no interest to me, but because they're on what is essentially the other side of the planet.
That being said, the transportation system in Rio de Janeiro does a good job of making the city seem less expansive than it actually is. It's comprised of a Metro--which, while fairly fast and clean, only has two lines that don't cover much ground as it should--and a lot of bus lines. And by a lot of bus lines, I mean over 400 of them. So even though the metro is much faster than buses, I usually end up on a bus because it'll take me exactly where I want to go.
I'm usually wary of buses because if I don't know exactly where I'm going, I spend the entire ride freaking out about missing my stop before, inevitably, missing my stop. And at first, I was scared of Rio's bus system given how many lines there are, and the endless number of places--all unknown to me--that the bus can take you. And I can't exactly ask for directions very easily, given my limited skills in communicating effectively in Portuguese.
But for what is essentially just over US$1, I can go just about anywhere in the city. Yes, you have to do some asking to make sure you're getting on the right bus, but there are signs at every bus stop that label the neighborhoods that each bus that passes by that stop drives through.
The hard part about riding the buses, however, isn't figuring out which bus you need to take: it's riding the buses themselves. Rio has a very unique system for paying for bus rides, in that there are two workers on every bus. There's the driver, of course, but then there's also someone sitting behind the driver to collect money from every passenger. Once you've paid your fare, you then pass through a turnstile onto the seating-portion of the bus.
Keep in mind that this--searching for fare, handing it to the worker, receiving change from said worker, and passing through the turnstile--all happens while the bus is in motion. So you will literally be thrown around the bus, from window to wall, at least four times before you even make it near a seat.
If you don't get a seat, at this point, you'll be thrown around the bus for however long it takes for you to reach your destination. After all, drivers around here have no respect for traffic laws, so bus drivers will weave between lanes and cars at breakneck speeds, with absolutely no regard for the laws of physics, until someone requests a stop, in which case, they apparently only use the emergency break.
And even if you do get a seat, well, you're still not safe from the manic driving that will undoubtedly occur for the duration of your ride. Your face may hit the window, you may fall out into the aisle. Who really knows?
That being said, the newest fleet of Rio's buses are not only clean, but they're also equipped with television sets that show the latest news and weather reports, in addition to short recipes, fun facts, trivia questions and yes, the latest Brazilian entertainment gossip. So at least you'll be able to distract yourself from the pain of your broken hip when you're sent flying halfway across the bus.
So while it's sometimes painful and confusing, I still believe that buses are the optimal way to get around Rio de Janeiro, especially since, in its current state, the metro simply doesn't go everywhere you need to go. It may be a long ride, depending on where you want to go, but for what it costs--just about nothing--it's efficient. Buses come often, seven days a week, and are relatively safe. Traffic can be annoying sometimes, but while you're on the bus, you not only have the great sights of Rio outside the window to look at, but informative television. What more could you ask for?
So as a lover of public transportation domestically and abroad, I'll highly recommend that you try out the public transport wherever you end up going, for the convenience and the cost-effectiveness, even if it costs you some pain in your tailbone.
And who knows, maybe you'll even learn something. Thanks to Rio's buses, I now know how to make strawberry jam. Que legal!