A cultural aha moment

Today, I started watching Easy Rider as a memorial to Dennis Hopper who died last week. I have been missing California a lot, and really enjoyed the scenery as they ride east from LA. While they're at the commune, they walk to a hot spring, an abandoned spa that I have visited. It was way cool to see a place I've been in a movie.

Several years ago, I was on my way to Death Valley with three other Sierra Club members for a week of hiking and sightseeing in the lowest place in the US. Our driver knew of a hot spring we could stop at on our way south from the SF Bay area. Of course we all agreed to make the stop. We arrived at a small turnoff from a dirt road, and left the van there. We clambered down a woodsy slope and at the bottom found an old limestone tub built into the side of the hill, with a sulphur spring filling it. Many meters below, we could hear the water of a stream crashing over the rocks. It was a clear night, we were far from city lights and the sky was filled with stars we never get to see on the coast. It was a wonderful sensual experience and one I know I'll never forget. However, as my friends and I were enjoying the pure California-ness of soaking in a sulphur tub in a 19^th century resort, our van was being robbed and all of our equipment for the following week's trip through Death Valley was stolen.

We had no real choice but to return home and blow off that trip. There was an up-side to my return, though. I got to walk across the Bay Bridge, a once in a life time experience, with a new lover.

WTF?

More problems related to my computer illiteracy or the user-non-friendliness of this site.

I lost the last four pararaphs or so of the ruteria post, and it's too nice a day to stay inside and rewrite it. Suffice it to say, it was witty, erudite and one of my better efforts. Take my word for it, and I'll take questions.

The Obligatory Post about Rutieras

This is the 3rd foreign country I've lived in during the past 15+ years, and it holds the distinction of having a form of transportation which defies the rules of customer service and any and all rules of running a small business and making enough profit to support oneself and possibly one's family. At least I think it does, not that I really know any of those rules.

A ruteria, and yes, dear readers, I do know that "rutiera" is actually an adjective not a noun, is a 12-16 passenger microbus, usually a Mercedes, usually white although there are red, blue and yellow specimens, as well as ones wildly decorated with advertising. These vans travel on defined and designated routes all over large cities and villages alike. There are inter- and intra-cityroutes, as well as international routes to the three surrounding countries. The fares are reasonable by local standards and downright cheap by western ones. They stop pretty much anywhere along their designated routes, and you flag them down with your arm outstretched perpendicular to your body. Mostly they stop; sometimes they don't.

In the capital, where I have lived for all but ten weeks of my time here, I can usually go anywhere in the city with one microbus, at most, with two. Their schedules are flexible but fairly predictable once you use the same one regularly. They are faster than the trolley buses and can avoid traffic by using a different route, something not possible for the trolley busses with their dependence on the overhead electrical connection.

So, what's not to like? I refer you to the definition of ruteria in the second paragraph. These are 12-16 passenger vehicles which usually carry a minimum of twenty or so passengers, and sometimes as many as 35. I have not actually counted riders on the most crowded rides. When you can't see beyond the body part of the traveler leaning (being pushed?) into one or more of your body parts, it's difficult to do the math. One T-shirt created by a local youth NGO says, "How many people can fit in a ruteria? Always room for one more!"

This country has a temperate climate with summer temperatures in the 30's (80's F) with relative humidity that reminds me of Bangkok in the rainy season, even if it's not raining. Imagine being in the rute, as they are not so affectionally known, with 30-40 odd people standing and sitting and holding their stuff in this barely breathable air, body parts covered or not, meeting your body parts, and none of the windows open. And air conditioning a distant memory of a country you inhabbitted long ago and far away.