San Juan has a less than adequate bus system, although to be fair we hear it was much better a few years ago before Puerto Rico began defaulting on debt. The fare is 75 cents for young people like De Anne and us old farts over 60 pay 35 cents. Our "pratice" runs have been single leg jaunts into Old San Juan; however, yesterday we planned to attend a luncheon with the San Juan Newcomers club out in the suburbs.
We both devoted hours of planning the various buses, schedules, and routes necessary to make the 11:00 am event time. De Anne felt we needed to ride 2 buses to the subway station, get off at the third stop and take another bus. I argued for a route that only required 3 buses. De Anne and I seldom argue about anything other than transportation.
We arrived at the first bus stop just off our street at 8:45 am. A local man asked where we were heading and hearing our destination said "Oh no, you do not want this bus". at that moment his cell phone rang and he held up a finger pausing our conversation. Concurrent to that the bus hove into view. We boarded, secure in the knowledge that a local did not think we should be on that bus.
As the bus continued it's journey a couple tourists quizzed the driver how to get to the mall. We listened intently since our path was past the mall. The driver stopped the bus, climbed out, disappeared behind the bus, then reappeared and told the mall-seekers to follow him. De Anne jumped up motioning me to follow. We all boarded a small jitney bus stopped behind the main bus. still no clue as to what we doing or where we were going. All I could contemplate was the line from the play, A Street Car Named Desire - "I rely on the kindness of strangers".
The Jitney bus dropped us at the subway station, and walked our little group over to another bus stop and turned us over to another driver on another bus. By this time conversation identified one man in our make-shift group as a former Indianapolis resident who had renovated a home in Woodruff place. It is a small world.
The bus driver, previously informed of our desired stop, called out to us and pointed the way. Having allowed 2 hours travel time we arrived with an hour and twenty minutes to spare. We passed a pleasant hour at La Ceiba, panaderia y reposteria (bakery and cake shop) with a glass of juice and a cup of incredibly strong coffee.
At the appointed hour we joined the group of about 50 people at the luncheon and enjoyed a long, leisurely meal.
Just to keep things interesting we took different buses home, but suffice to say 2 buses over 45 minutes were all that we required. All our planning, discussion and disagreement was meaningless. The old saying - “No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy” is so true.
