Worst Belém Bus Ride To Date

I just had a maddening experience on Bus 323. It thankfully didn’t reach the level of “Ônibus 174,” and I had far worse bus/taxi rides in Cameroon. Even last summer’s daily commute in Brasília, with the running “stops” for me to jump out into opposing traffic, was probably worse. But this was still pretty bad.

I had dinner with two friends at the Amazon Beer Company (post forthcoming) and left the restaurant complex around 10 PM for what should have been a 10 - 15 minute ride back up to my apartment in the São Bras neighborhood. Catching a bus in Belém can be a bit tricky since I’m only familiar enough with the numbers between my house and the university. The huge lettered end points on the main window are essentially meaningless since there are only a few start and stop points in the city; at least half say "Presidente Vargas," which is downtown. So, to indicate the route, all buses have a list of streets the bus takes located on the side by the door. What you have to do is read the list really quickly, recognize something close to your destination, and then hopefully flag the driver down before the bus peels away.

Since the first two buses that went up Mundurucus, the street I wanted, blew past the stop without slowing down, I decided to take one that said “Gentil,” a street about two blocks from my house. The ride was fine until we passed the city docks, but then we took a turn towards the river and into the Jurunas neighborhood. I thought, “great. This IS going to be like ‘Ônibus 174.’ I don’t want to be here.” In Jurunas, the bus driver picked up two extremely annoying girls who would not shut up but at least took my mind off getting robbed. At this point the driver turned the lights in the bus off and ripped down one of the avenues. The driver then headed close to back to where I boarded, turned the lights back on, did a loop or two, and then finally headed in the right direction, but very . . . . .very . . . . . slowly, with the doors of the bus open and no one getting on or off. I could have popped out for a snack and returned had I wanted to as there were several snack shacks by the bus stop. After a route that looked something like this:


I got off the bus two blocks from my house, 35 minutes after leaving the restaurant.