Argentine Armageddon

This past July, Los Angeles’ media portrayed the 53 hour period of which the 405 was closed as Carmageddon. In other words, Los Angeles’ officials and its occupants were comparing the closure of a major traffic artery to the supposed end of the world. Histrionic though it seemed, , many Los Angelenos decided to either flee the city (myself included) or lock themselves in the house for the two-plus days. Though I was not in LA for those fateful days, the frantic attitudes of everyone surrounding me was enough to convince me that LA was going to be brought to its knees.  It turned out to not really be true.  No matter.  Having grown up in LA, where public transportation is more of a joke than anything else, it had never occurred to me that shutting down a subway system would be viewed as tantamount to Carmageddon.  

Argentina is known for constant public protests. Today, the Subway system’s (the Subte) workers were protesting. This means that the 2 million people who use the Subte each day to get to and from work, school, or wherever else they may be going needed to find another way to get there. The lines for the colectivos (buses) were exponentially long, and when a colectivo would finally come, they frequently wouldn’t stop due to insane amounts of overcrowding. Not only that, but the roads were overly congested due to the amount of people that decided to drive today. Also, did I mention that it was raining?

When I walked out of my apartment and went to get in line for the colectivo, I happened to run into my Spanish teacher. He informed me that he was planning on walking to school to avoid the tumultuous colectivos. So we walked--it was a lot closer than I was expecting--and we were only 45 minutes late to school. It did seem that we were moving a lot faster than traffic.

The most surprising part of this experience is that apparently it happens all the time.