Daniel Tunnard, a British expat living in Buenos Aires, embarked on a rather ambitious project: to take every one of the 141 bus lines in Buenos Aires, then write a book and shoot a documentary based on his observations and experiences.
With irreverent humour, Daniel writes about his adventures on his aptly named blog Colectivaiseishon. (Buses are called “colectivos” in Argentina). Since Daniel is fully bilingual, each entry is written in English and in Spanish. Take, say, his hilarious description of the 59 bus route, The 59 – Fake giraffes and a variety of faux-leather headboards, whose version in Spanish is El 59- Girafas falsas y colectiveros calientes.
Daniel’s original project earned him recognition on both local and international media, like a special on CNN Go (in English), an interview on Argentinean TV (in Spanish). He also has a weekly column in an Argentinean online newspaper La Razón (in Spanish).
Daniel’s random observations and sarcastic comments are a glimpse into the universe of a colectivo, and, by default, into everyday life in Buenos Aires.
(As a side note, I’ve taken a few of those buses. Daniel’s accurate descriptions are so vivid that they took me back to my time in Buenos Aires.)
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This sounds very interesting. My experience travelling by bus in Buenos Aires is rather outdated by now, but the world of the “colectivero” and the passengers has to be full of adventures and anecdotes, not all of them good, I suppose. I’ll watch the interview. Thanks for sharing this!
Sometimes you see interesting things and sometimes you wish you were in a place where people didn’t squish you!
He had a cool idea – I guess that he’s not been doing this during the rush hours, especially if he wants to relax and write during the rides! 🙂
It reminded me of that soap opera ages ago, “Un mundo de veinte asientos” 🙂