The Bus to Safety

Travel wise, Jo and I have adopted pretty much the same approach: half planning, half get on the next bus and enjoy the next neighborhood we end up in. The exception to that rule: Boca. We had been warned to visit, enjoy and get the heck out of there before dark. So after a few morning excursions, we made our way to Caminito in Boca.

Caminito is filled with rainbow coloured walls, beautiful artisan crafts and tango dancers at every corner. We shopped, we chatted, I fed the horses and Jo got in a fight with the rowdy neighbors. What!? Those last things really happened! Finally we settled down for some food and wine and enjoyed the live music all the while thinking of the impending need to grab change and figure out which bus would sweep us away to safety when the sun set. Little did we know that the transition in Boca from tourist hot spot to locked down gang neighborhood takes .5 seconds. I left a bustling street, busy restaurant and overall lively place to visit the ladies room only to come back five minutes later to see a white faced Joanna sitting at our table in a completely empty patio and shop keepers putting down their steel gates quicker than I can finish a plate of fries (for anyone that doesn't know that is pretty quick). As soon as I got to our table I was met with a "we've got to get the heck out of here dude."

We counted our change and were truly unsure if we had enough to get back. (In Buenos Aires you tell the bus driver where you are going when you get on and a number pops up on the screen telling you how much your ride is going to cost). On the way to where we could see any buses, we tried to stop for change and this proved so much more difficult than we expected. (BA is also notorious for making it impossible to get "monera" or change.)

At this point we conferred and decided rather than risk walking further into what we had been told by everyone is a virtual gangland, we should put our coins together, get on the next bus that said Avinda de Mayo and pray we wouldn't get kicked off because we didn't have enough money. While waiting to put in our money Jo actually whispered to me. "Once you put it in you don't even get your money back, so if we don't have enough we are doubly screwed."

We boarded, I told the bus driver where we were going and felt the seconds counting down a la Jack Bower as I literally dropped in ten peso cents at a time and prayed it would be enough. When the machine spit out our white little ticket I breathed a sigh of relief and waited for Jo to meet me in the seatless middle of the bus to get jostled all the way home.