I'm enjoying so many things about this city. It has a Caribbean flair, unlike Rosario which felt like a very old European city. For example, here, fruit is easy to find for sale on fruit carts or in the grocery stores. In Rosario, it was easy enough to find in the shops, but incredibly expensive.
This morning, a pair of blue and yellow macaws flew over head on our walk to breakfast. It's my second sighting of a pair here. And you know how pigeons and black birds line up on power lines in cities? Well, yes there are pigeons on power lines here. BUT there are also green parakeets and yellow bellied song birds. The distinctive sounds of parrots and parakeets greets us every morning from the mango tree outside of our window.
There are many types of public transportation here, all available to book by various apps. There is an uber type service for cars, which is what we use to get around. There are buses, but someone explained to me that in many places the streets are too narrow for the buses to get to..reducing their effectiveness to a minimum. Motorcycles and jeeps are also available for hire. Eila talks about the "flocks" of motorcycles that move down the streets in groups. Daily we see three people on one motorcycle; Once we saw four! It was a family with two children. Jeeps are for the rougher neighborhoods. One funny incident happened as we were in our hired car while our driver was frustratedly trying to pass one of these jeeps. He nosed out into the oncoming traffic a couple of times but had to retreat. A seated passenger in the jeep in front of us was leaning out the back of the open jeep using his finger to tell our driver when it was safe to pull back out to pass. Luckily, our driver ignored him. Brian noticed that women and children were crossing the street at the same time the anonymous traffic director wanted us to pass.
With narrow streets, lots of traffic, multiple vehicle types (people on foot, on bike, on motorcycle, etc.) and hired drivers attempting to deliver quickly, Wild West type driving is common. When we finally did pull out to pass that jeep, there was a motorcycle coming straight at us, and another motorcycle driving to our left. They both had to swerve and almost stop to avoid damage. A different time while we were stopped in traffic, a motorcycle squeezed closer and closer to my driver side passenger door. Their proximity went from feet to inches very quickly, and abruptly the motorcycle handle hit my door with a loud thunk, and then they continued past without acknowledging the contact. Honking is also ubiquitous. We have taken up habit of counting how many times our driver honks during our travels through the city. Our family's highest is only 9 times. However, another family on our team had a fifteen minute ride with 60 honks!
To add to your experience of the streets, please refer to the attached pictures. At any given time, fruit carts (as pictured) or bike taxis (also pictured), or carts for transporting cargo (I've seen piles of cardboard, generators, grocery deliveries, etc.) are making their way down the narrow streets with cars veering around them, being pushed slowly across intersections, blocking driveways, and more.
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