The Wheels on the Bus...

(April 24, 2013)

This morning at 6:00 am, I walked out of the house with my purse, laptop bag, and rolling suitcase. I rumbled and rolled down the driveway & out into the street, where the neighbours poked their heads out to ask where I was going. I told them; they wished me well; I kept going, feeling very conspicious. I waited at the corner for the city public transportation van to pick me up. One of these vans was parked a little further up the street. The driver evidently noticed me standing at the corner for  few mintues, so he backed all the way up the street to where I was & picked me up!

 I rode the van to a major intersection in town, where I dismounted & waited for the bus. The bus here is a little different than the Greyhound. You don’t need to buy tickets in advance, wait at a bus stop, or be anywhere at a certain time. You just stand along the bus route and flag one down as it comes along. I flagged one down and climbed aboard as the bus driver’s assistant grabbed my suitcase & swung it into the bus next to the driver. We pulled away from the curb as I made my way down the aisle & found a seat. Once we left town, after picking up others along the way, the ticket man came through the bus, collecting the fare from all the new customers. I paid him and asked for help figuring out where to get off.

 

 See, my friend had explained that some buses go on a toll road and go past a certain point (“Krapyak”) which is close to the airport. If my bus goes there, I should get off there & catch a taxi. If my bus doesn’t go there, I should get off at another place & catch a taxi. I asked the ticket guy about this “Krapyak” and he said we would not go there. OK, so I told him I wanted to get off at the other place, but I’d never been there, so would he please tell me when we were close? He assured me he would.

 

 We had ridden a fair distance when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the ticket man. He wanted to let me know that there was a bus behind us that would go to “Krapyak.” If I wanted to go there, I could get off this bus & get on that one. I hesitated. “Come on,” he urged a minute later, as the bus pulled over. So I got off the bus, and my suitcase did too. My bus roared away, and I stood there at the side of the road, not sure what to do next. The next bus pulled up and I called out to the driver where I wanted to go. His assistant leaped out, grabbed my suitcase, and I followed it into the bus.

 

 Again, I explained my situation to the ticket man: that I wanted to go to “Krapyak” and then take a taxi to the airport, and I asked him for his help in knowing when to get off. Oh yeah, no problem. We rode a little further, and then ticket man told me we had reached “Krapyak.” The bus driver was honking his horn excessively, and then I realized he was trying to catch the attention of a taxi two cars in front of us! We were still driving at this point, although I was now standing next to the driver. We stopped at a red light and the assistant leaped from the bus, ran past the car in front of us & began pounding on the trunk of the taxi. The light turned green; the taxi and the bus pulled over. The bus assistant dragged my suitcase off the bus & jammed in backseat of the taxi, then held the door for me as I climbed in after it.

 

 In conclusion, I made it safely to the airport, and in very good time, thanks to the diligent attention of the bus assistants who could tell this foreign girl could use a little extra help.  J