Onibus - A Tale of Two Cities

Waiting to let people off before you get on is seen as a sign of weakness

About eleven years ago someone had an idea in Recife. Unfortunately the idea came from a man who wielded power. He was a transport man. A college boy and motorist. Sticking rigidly to Pernambucano custom he thought about it long but not that hard, pausing regularly for breaks so as not to raise the suspicion of his colleagues. Funds were tight and the mayor’s reelection plan of building another massive bridge bearing his name (but in essence ‘for the people’) needed to be addressed. His brainchild was simple. Turn off the air conditioning on all of the buses and instruct the drivers to open the windows and drive even faster. And, obviously, after a couple of hours when Recifences had tired of protesting or forgotten, up the fares. And if conditions were ripe, implement phase 2.

Phase 2

He’d recently been at a national bus conference in Curitiba where plans had been hatched to colour code the buses according to the districts they serviced. The Curitiban think tank also floated an idea so radical (cylindrical bus stops) that when he presented it to his bosses in Recife he induced a spate of strokes that rendered Recife’s transport mandarins incapable of even mild infidelity. He was a man eager to make a name for himself. The Curitiban initiative was thought dangerous, much too subversive to implement. * Surveys were conducted and all the results pointed to mass confusion and  fears that buses that were 'the wrong colour' would be torched by rattled commuters. **

Ventilation in 30° heat is necessary

It was decided that the current system whereby buses had random numbers and came and went as they pleased in the general direction of some barrio or other worked perfectly well. This complimented the convoy system, whereby four buses grouped together so the drivers could race each other and banter about the football when stationary at traffic lights (or more frequently not), was a well-oiled modus operandi. Today, Curitiba is a place Brazilians want to live. It works in a kind of boringly mundane fashion. There’s no madness and that’s because Recife hoarded all of it. But it works.

And while the two cities went their separate ways in terms of human development, it must be said that Curitiba lost something. Tourists go to Curitiba and get the bus and think

Lovely buses. Very efficient. Now, is there anything interesting at all here?


To which the answer is negative. 

Tourists in Recife get an altogether better deal. Taking the bus in Recife is like being in your own snuff movie. With drivers receiving bonuses for reaching 100km per hour between traffic lights a hundred metres apart and days in lieu for taking corners at 80km per hour, you’d be foolhardy not to quickly toss 50 centavos at the popcorn salesmen that swarm around when the bus is forced to stop. Hell, you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. *** Those in the know avail of the popcorn sellers that brave the erratic traffic to provide you with a snack to enjoy your impending doom. You can tell a rookie by his white knuckles. And it's not unusual for groups of youths to commandeer a bus and surf it while extolling the merits of their quite rubbish and provincial football team.

Wearing a jumper? Me hole.

To add to the excitement, occasionally a bus is hijacked and everyone robbed. But this is quite rare these days, as are the police stopping the bus and bringing on scary dogs to sniff the passengers for drugs, firearms or the heinous crime of having watches synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time. Even Johnnie Cochran once turned down a case saying it was

Just damned unwinnable.

Once you’ve accustomed yourself to the pace of your journey there is a veritable funbag of things to enjoy. You can tickle the teenagers that are hitching a lift on the side of the bus or wonder why Recife women shave their moustaches but not their arms. Hawkers are officially banned from annoying people but like Gary Glitters Vietnam visa, some do slip through the net. Naturally assumed friends of Jeebus make up the majority of the peddlers, who spiel off some guff and hand out pens, CD marker pens, authentic leather wallets and warm nutritional yoghurts. But sometimes someone sneaks in at a stop and is passionate about their product. When this happens it’s a good idea to have both hands occupied. Popcorn is good but that only leaves one hand free and unless you have a bible handy or a student textbook, reading is frowned upon. At times like these, most lads bury their hands in their pockets and scratch their balls, but that doesn’t always work.

Recife came out better in the driver exchange with Curitiba

One such occasion saw a well (enough) to do lady announce that she’d taken the day off work especially to share her amazing chewing gum with us (one part gum, eight parts chalk). She worked in office in the city centre and was heavily involved in the computers game, apparently. But on her way to work (she didn’t go too much into details) she happened upon an amazing opportunity and just didn’t feel right in passing it up. Deus inspired her, she said. **** She patrolled up and down the bus waving various flavours that were stuck between each finger, like a one armed kid trying to unstick a particularly sticky stickle brick by shaking it. If only there was a Brazilian version of The Apprentice I thought as I buried both hands deep in my pockets and hoped she’d pass. Hawkers are drawn to gringos like Ricky Teixeira is to shady dealings. I was put in an impossible position.

You can be shamed into parting with a few shekels, harassed – as being a gringo; you are obviously rich - or just plain SOLD SOLD SOLD! I bought two packs due to change issues. I wanted to just give a donation but she was in high heels, admittedly high heels that looked like they’d been swiped from a murder victim, but high heels nonetheless. And if you can navigate in those things on a Recife bus you deserve payment.

When you arrive alive at your stop, you alight and vow to wash your hands at the first available opportunity. Then you think that the Recife Tourist Board is missing a trick here. Alongside

- Beautiful beaches

- Year round sunshine

- Great music

- The Annual National Goat Congress

 - Carnaval

Chaos Tourism's guinea pigs

surely there is space for the untapped mine that is Chaos Tourism. Ship in the tourists, give them a bus pass and a bottle of Cachaça and Bob’s your uncle. And if the police would only come on and haul off all the hairy armed women and make them wax on the side of the road then, and only then could you say Recife is catching up on Curitiba on the Human Development Index.

* The Curitban Proclamation also included the introduction, on a trial basis, of bus timetables. At this point, the Recife delegation walked out in protest. Looking back with a cold eye of an agenda-less historian, it’s hard to look past the positive input Curitiba’s German heritage played. This pales in comparison with Recife’s Teutonic brigade, albeit seasonal, which was making inroads at this time into the burgeoning sex tourism trade.

** What if two red buses passed each other on the same street going in opposite directions? Is that possible? Being the main concern amongst those surveyed.

Get out of my seat or I'll eat you!

*** Rollercoasters are not common in Recife. Partly because the buses have monopolized thrill seeking and also due to the unspeakable horror of getting on a rollercoaster that was bolted together by local handymen. The 5° Rei being the exception of course.

**** If you don’t mention Deus at least once or twice, you lose customers.

***** A sign that Recife is catching up with Curitiba is the appearance of obese seats and signs on the buses. What is more troubling though is that people let them sit down where they can be nearer to the window and have easier access to wandering cake salesmen that may pass by the window, which is more common than it sounds. Wily street vendors are stocking up on cake and it's hard not to wonder whether there has been collusion with the Prefeitura and the cake baking sector. Corruption is rife in Brazil. However, this cannot be measured in terms of development as obesity here is seen as an affliction rather than a person gorging themselves on coxinhas & Guaraná and refusing to eat any vegetables. Further study is needed.