I’m boarding a bus to get home after an eventful day on Miami Beach - one of the most popular beaches in Barbados - and wondering what the ride is going to be like today. Will it be one of those small vans racing at breakneck speed with half of me sitting on someone’s lap, oblivious to the blaring music? Or will I be rocking to and fro while clutching the overhead bars on a blue bus? A word to the wise: in Barbados, travelling by bus is quite an adventure.
Bajans* claim all you need to know is that there are three types of buses:
- Large public blue buses are not very frequent but theoretically run regularly and cover every single location on the island, no matter how remote. Music is not allowed, not that anyone would hear it over the roaring engine anyway. The only pickup and dropoff points are official stops, and the buses are usually packed.
- Small private white vans, or “ZRs” if you go by their licence plates, are also called “reggae buses”. Reggae, you wish... More often than not, like torture for the ears. Drivers make their own rules and stop where they want. No standing allowed. You need to be seated or half-seated.
- Last but not least, semi-private, yellow buses. They’re a cross between the other two categories, medium-sized, often painted in psychedelic colors and equipped with mega loudspeakers inside. You can stand or perch on half a seat.
“Avoid the little white vans”, I had been warned, “they drive like maniacs”. Turns out travelling by bus – any bus – is always tantamount to riding a roller coaster!
I had also been assured that there were well-run terminals and even timetables for blue buses, just like in Switzerland. Splendid! As a methodical Swiss, I start making inquiries, such as where I can get a map of bus routes. “A route map?? What for? Just ask any passenger or the folks at the terminal.”
Talk about bus terminals. Bridgetown has three of them, there’s no shuttle link, and it’s a 20- minute walk between No. 1 and No. 3. Don’t get me started on the number of times I walked from one to the other before I understood which bus left from what terminal.
And what about timetables? My Swiss side can’t do without one! “Excuse me, what time is the bus coming?” Invariably, no matter where I’m waiting, I get the same answer: “On the hour or at half-past”. At every stop? In every direction? How is that possible?
The truth finally hits me: the bus leaves the terminal on the hour or at half-past and it’s up to me to figure out which terminal it leaves from, how far I am from the starting point and how congested roads are at this time of day. In short, it’s science.
But wait. Other variables come into the equation:
- Blue buses are often “challenged”, in which case they might just be cancelled and you’ll need to wait an extra hour. Let it be a lesson in patience.
- The driver of a yellow bus might decide to drive around a round-about three times until a passenger arrives.
- White mini-van drivers may take an alternative route to drop off an elderly lady in front of her house, or to pick up a friend.
So what if punctuality sometimes loses out to the human touch? I’ve learnt that there’s no point in running to catch a little white van or a yellow bus : if the driver sees me, he’ll wait.
Once I’d mastered the theory, it was time for practice. A few trips later, I had shed all my beliefs and embraced new ones:
- Bus walls do stretch.
- Do not board a bus unless you are a muscular contortionist and tightrope walker.
- I probably am a sardine.
- Sardines do not smell, even if you cram them in a tin under a blazing sun.
- Safety belts really are overrated.
- Eardrums do not puncture easily.
- It is possible to be squeezed tight between one guy’s chest and another one’s knee and not experience any groping.
- There is a God whose mission is to keep bus riders safe in Barbados.
It would be a mistake to think bus rides are nothing but unpleasantness. They actually allowed me to witness numerous funny or touching instances of Bajans simply looking out for one another. I’ll be telling you about it next time.
*Note: Bajan (pr. bey-djun): noun or adjective, derived from ‘Barbadian’
Translated by Edna Setton
June 15, 2020