Rush Hour

The gentleman next to me leaned in and asked, “¿Es Malabia, no, la estación?” “Si señor, la proxima es Malabia,” I answered before closing my eyes again. It was five thirty in the afternoon, and the collective sway of the subte red-line crowd was rocking me to sleep. To my left, a kid in an Argentina jersey with a backpack on and headphones in; to my right, a little old lady with bags of lettuce and onions; in front of me, a mom with her daughter of maybe three dressed more fashionably than me; and behind me, it seemed, the rest of the city. Four weeks in, and I still could not get used to the sheer number of people in Buenos Aires. Rush hour on the subte was always an interesting experience: hundreds and hundreds of people crammed into thin trains on tracks zooming underneath the main avenues of the biggest city in Argentina.  
Where I live, there isn’t much public transportation. Actually, in all honesty, there is no public transportation. No buses, no trains, no subways; we don’t even have taxis. Buenos Aires, on the other hand, runs on public transportation. The subways, buses, and taxis are cheap and constantly busy. When it rains and the streets become rivers, the subte shuts down and all of a sudden the 50,000 taxis driving around turn off their “libre” lights with the sudden onslaught of porteños trying to get to and from work, the supermarket, or school. However, when the sun is shining and the subte is open, it is a beautiful thing. There are six main lines in Buenos Aires, each with its own letter and color. Four of the lines run straight from the Plaza de Mayo area out of the Microcenter; there are two lines that cross perpendicular to the other lines. It is 2,50 pesos a ride, either loaded onto the sube cards purchased at the post office (that can also be used for the buses and trains to the suburbs) or given to you on disposable tickets bought at the subte stations. The trains themselves are works of art: graffiti covers most of the outside of the majority of the trains, sometimes even covering the windows so you cannot figure out what stop you need to get off on. Swirls of blue and green cover a painting of skull that is next to a drawing of a mother and child upside down, which points to a yellow sun partially smeared by someone’s name in a heart. Each train is unique and interesting, sometimes beautiful and sometimes a little creepy. 
I opened my eyes as the doors slid open at my stop. People streamed by me, pushing through the masses trying to get on the train. I just wanted to stay where I was, keep riding the train until I couldn’t anymore. There was a type of peace, a calm, that came with being pushed between so many other people that were simultaneously swaying to the rhythm of the train. However, it was my time to depart; there would always be tomorrow to rejoin the crowd of people, all with different stories but in the same place at that one time. 


Sources:
1. http://www.subte.com.ar/contenido/home.asp
2. http://www.metrovias.com.ar/v2/html/mapa_subte_ampliado.htm