Guest Poster: Greg Smith

FEET, CARS AND SCHEDULES

A PIE (on foot)Because of our hotel’s wonderful location in the middle of Buenos Aires (BA as we now experienced Vicious Travelers call it), we find ourselves doing a lot of walking. In BA, this requires a certain amount of concentration when traversing a crowded center city sidewalk. Take, for example busy Avenida Corrientes, a main thoroughfare and our home address. Not unlike the loop area in Chicago USA, there are different categories of folks making their way: slow-moving tourists and others who are simply not in a hurry, locals speeding along (see also endnote #1), street vendors, shoe-shine experts (see endnote #2), individuals handing out “advertising” material, and couples smooching, to name a few. As mentioned in one of the travel guides, there are also unexpected pieces of pavement missing or in serious disrepair, similar in size and variety to our Wisconsin potholes, but in the sidewalk (see endnote #3). There are also a lot of dogs in BA, and while they seem to prefer the potholes, their, um…"matter" is often strategically placed to complement the hazards presented by the potholes.

So, a trip via foot, involves navigating and avoiding a variety of obstacles that require the wary Vicious Traveler to keep his or her eyes on the walkway ahead. Look up at a building, across the street, or into a store as you pass, and a pothole, other pedestrian or dog mine will be sure to come in play. Thus far the group appears to have avoided any severely twisted ankles. Not so sure about clean shoes, however.

The flow of foot traffic is is another variable, too. Pedestrians always hurry to the next corner. If it’s in “don’t walk” status, they crowd forward to be first in to cross. Leave three or four inches between you and the curb, and someone will quickly and expertly squeeze in front of you. As the light changes, all surge forward from both sides of the street and a great step and dodge ensues as the two phalanxes meet and the flow continues.

So when walking in BA, one needs to think ahead, pay attention to what’s in front of you, hurry up, wait, and be ready. It’s all kind of like living in a video game.

EN EL TAXI (you figure out the translation)

Then there is the traffic and driving practices. The Vicious Travelers have often had occasion to make use of the many, many, many, many (did I say “many”?) taxis scuttling through the city (see endnote #4). The drivers are all pros, take pride in what they do, and most are glad to share their observations on any topic the curious rider may raise. Most of the roads in “our” part of the city are one way, with the main arteries at four to five lanes. However it has quickly become evident that these carefully painted signals are merely suggestions, as the traffic weaves and flows all across the lanes as if the roadway is a hockey game played with fifty players on the ice at any one time…for each team, with everyone trying to skate to one end of the rink at the same time.

The traffic is a mix of:

trucks

personal vehicles

taxis

busses

motorcycles

emergency vehicles

I place them in list to show their order of aggressiveness in the application of the rules of the road. Some of which appear to be the following:

- Pedestrians have immediate and absolute right of way when the light is their way. Drivers with their front bumper six inches into a 15-foot wide cross walk have been observed backing up to assure they are completely clear.

- Vehicles have immediate and absolute right of way when the light is their way. Pedestrians will dash across. Those infrequent few who dally are unceremoniously “tooted”.

- The group goal is to keep the flow moving.

- The individual goal is to do whatever you can to get ahead of what’s in front of you.

- Do not leave any space in front yourself when in stopped traffic.

- It’s OK to cut someone off. It’s also proper to let them in to keep the flow going.
- Toot your horn to let everyone know you’re there or about to do something (see endnote #6).

- Road rage is a waste of time. Just go with it and don’t get your undies in a bundle. Everyone wants to get where they’re going and the best way to make this happen is to keep the flow going. (It may also be that road rage is easily engaged, see endnotes #7 and #8)

- If the driver on your right wants to make a left turn in front of you, that’s OK. (It apparently gets them out of the way so everyone can move ahead. There’s also a common move where two left lanes make the turn and merge into single file during the turn. I think we used to do something like this in marching band.)

- The motorcyclists are, in a word, “nuts”. They zip around in any space they can find. They commonly use dirt bikes and dress the same, although this is street riding. (see endnote #9)

- Headlight use is optional, particularly after dark. If even on, many vehicles have very dim lights, like their alternator is about to fail. This includes busses, taxis, and ironically the power company service vehicles. Some vehicles have specially-colored lights, a dim green is common, which appears to be some sort of vehicular fashion statement.

A taxi ride then becomes an experience similar to that of the walk. Please to enjoy a video below documenting one of our more tame taxi experiences.

Having used a taxi at least a couple of times each day and other than one unfortunate scene of a downed motorcyclist, Anna and I have yet to see a vehicle collision in all this chaos. One taxi driver proudly stated he’d been driving for 28 years without an accident. I believe him. They are all pros. They are also quite entertained when Anna describes her brief cab-driving career and how she earned nickname “Crash”.

So when driving in Buenos Aires, one needs to think ahead, pay attention to what’s in front of you, hurry up, wait, and be ready, or better yet take a taxi. Either way, it’s all kind of like living in a video game.

NUESTROS AMIGOS ARGENTINOS (our Argentinean handlers)Working with our KelzFiesta contacts for the past week is also starting to show some patterns and what may be cultural practices and values for timeliness.

For example: Say the Yid Vicious musicians have a performance at 7pm. We haven’t heard a specific time, but are planning to a 6pm departure. However, in the early afternoon we receive a call to be ready at 5:30pm. However at 4:00pm we receive another call to be ready at the 5:00pm. However the bus shows up at 4:45pm and we are asked to hurry up, rush, rush, rush! We get to the venue at 5:45 or so. The show starts late at 7:20pm without a chance for a sound check, and we’re on last anyway. Troopers that we are, Yid Vicious nonetheless pulls off the show with great aplomb.

We’ve since planned to just be ready way ahead of time, stay ready to adjust to what comes at us, and to carry a concept forward from the BA driving experience , not get our undies in a bundle with all the vagaries (see endnote #10).

So when working with our KlezFiesta handlers, we’ve learned that, we Vicious Travlers need to think ahead, pay attention to what’s in front of us, hurry up, wait, and be ready. It’s (you guessed it) kind of like living in a video game.

ENDNOTES (this is an English term)

#1: That is until they find the need to use their cell phone, at which point some of them may suddenly slow to a stagger or even stop right in front of you or even stop in place, without warning.

#2: The gentleman on the corner near our hotel has quite a system. The shoe shine he applies is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. The shine itself is lustrous and virtually epoxy-like in its durability. And it is applied with such vigor your feet feel like they’ve received a mini-massage, right inside your shoes! And when it suddenly begins to rain, as it does here every couple of days, and the pedestrian flow changes its priorities to keeping dry, the man quickly closes up shop and begins selling umbrellas to the passing throng.

#3: Depending on the part of town there may be just a few, as in the rich areas, or one or more every 20 feet or so, and even some of 20 feet or more in length. Many appear to have been there a long, long time. However, our group of Vicious Travelers has reported two separate instances seeing crews actually fixing a sidewalk. We have been unable to confirm if it was the same crew or not, but there appears to be at least one crew deployed for this metropolis of 13 million pairs of feet.

#4: We have also made use of the subway system. I leave it to my compatriots to regale you with their subway (aka SubeT) adventures (see endnote #5). My one experience included being the last Vicious Traveler to struggle onto a very crowded car and almost having my shoulder bag removed by the closing door. Kind of scary. We nonetheless continued that trip stuffed together as Yid Squishious and reached our destination efficiently and safely.

#5: Including Kia’s experience with the flood of Friday the 13th.

#6: The vehicle horns here are not very loud, and in general, neither are the people. The vehicle operators also seem to have a much more sophisticated horn dialect than Wisconsin’s three stock phrases: (1) “howdy” as in the familiar to a friend, (2) “Look Out!”, and (3) #$%&*! . In Buenos Airesian car-horn-speak, there a wide variety of signals, few of which seem to infer mounting anger or rage. Eexamples and apparent translations of some common expressions may include the following:
- “toot-toot” approaching an intersection: “Hey you pedestrian types, the light’s green and I expect you don’t want a special ride on the grill of my vehicle.
- “toot” in traffic: the aforementioned: “Hey, I’m about to do something” or “Hey, I’m here”, which message depending on what’s going on in the immediate area.
- Group “tooting” from back in the pack in stopped traffic: “Hey, what’s going on up there, the light is green and we’re not going anywhere?”
- Group “tooting” in moving traffic: “Hey, there’s an emergency vehicle back here, time to make holes to let them zoom by. (But nobody pulls over. They instead make spaces so the ambulance can weave through traffic.)
-

#7: Just ask Daithi about his encounter with a taxi driver at a crosswalk.

#8: A note on traffic jams: Most of them are very short-lived. The keep-it-moving-moving-moving mentality seems to contribute to this.

#9: Anna and I asked a taxi driver if there was a common name for these cyclists and their apparent subculture. He used a swear word. Research on this topic will continue as time and opportunity permits.

#10: Yid Vicious appears to have been very fortunate with all the vagaries. Several groups have had concerts canceled. Our show on Friday November 13, followed a similar trajectory to that described above, except we ready early and the bus came about an hour late. The concert line-up was not decided until just before the show, which started 30 minutes late. I asked a local musician if it was common for shows to start this late, and he confirmed it was not unusual or problematic. We played last, and there appeared to be more people there than at the beginning.