I have many a combi story and have heard many a combi story, whether it involves getting lost, felt up, pick pocketed, or finally figuring out the winding routes. Combis are dirty, sometimes rather uncomfortable, fast moving modules of transportation. And I take them whenever I can.
They’re small vans, usually from Japan, that have been gutted on the inside and replaced with several bus- like seats, but smaller. Sometimes the seats inside match, and sometimes they’re all different colors and it looks like someone went junkyard shopping. I’ll never forget the first time I was in Cusco and I saw a combi drive by, packed with Peruvians. I mean, there wasn’t an inch of room in that van.
Combis can be intimidating at first. There’s no convenient map, showing each combi’s route, like in New York. You just have to get to know it. Throughout Cusco, there are small blue signs with a picture of a bus on them and the word “paradero”- Spanish for bus stop. That’s where you get on. A speeding combi will come to a quick halt as someone hangs out of the open sliding door, shouting a flurry of words that would be indiscernible to the average tourist. “Ayacucho, Maruri, Calle Nueva”. The cobrador1 shouts out the combi’s stops so quickly the words sort of melt together. But after a while, you start to be able to pick them out.
Getting on and off combis can be sort of scary. First off, if the combi is packed and you happen to be sitting in the back, you better yell “bajo” pretty loudly because no one’s going to make room for you. (Bajo is what you say when you want to get off at the stop they’re yelling out). Instead, you have to squeeze your way past people, some sitting, most of them standing in the narrow passageway, and finally you make it out the combi. It’s like traveling through the birth canal. You also have to be careful not to hit your head on the low door way. Most combis are smaller than an average mini-van.
Then there’s payment. A combi ride is 60 centimos, less than 50 cents. Having change is crucial. In Peruvian currency, there is a 5- sol coin, a 2- sol coin, a 1- sol coin, and then centimos which are little gold coins (50, 10 and 20 centimos coins). From 10 up, the soles are bills. I usually try to have exact change. If not, any coin is acceptable. If you try to give them a 10-sol bill, they’ll usually give you a dirty look and then change it. Some passengers try to give them a big bill they can’t change, so they’ll pay less. The ‘ol “either change my 50 sol bill or accept the 40 centimos I have” routine.
One day I boarded a combi and half way through my ride, realized I only had a 50- sol bill on me. My stomach dropped, my hands got a little sweaty, I started planning my strategy. I didn’t want to give the cobrador my money too soon, because if she couldn’t change it, she’d make me get off the combi. I imagined her yelling at me, onlookers chuckling, thinking I was some dumb gringa who didn’t know anything about proper combi etiquette. Finally she asked me for my “paisaje” and I slowly handed it over. She said (in Spanish, of course) “you don’t have anything smaller?”, chuckling in disbelief under her breathe. “No” was my sheepish reply. She yelled up to the driver to change 50. He gave her 5- 10 centimo coins. No, 50 soles she replied. That’s when I heard a few chuckles. He handed over the change and she gave it to me. Not too painful. Once my face stopped burning.
But today I saw something that made my 50- sol fiasco seem like nothing. There were 2 gringas on the combi, and they tried to give an old, dirty, crumpled up 1-dollar bill to pay for their paisaje. The driver just looked at them, smiling at their stupidity and said “no”. The one gringa’s reply was “ es 2.80 soles”. The cobrador just shook his head again and said “no”. They had to get off the combi early. I mean come on, I don’t think any tourist is that stupid, especially not those 2 because they spoke Spanish pretty well. Any tourist who has the balls to try out the combi system has to know that no one in Cusco is going to accept an old dollar bill. Even a new one with a tear on the edge is unacceptable! I think they were just playing the clueless foreigner card and trying to get a free ride. But hey, who knows? Maybe some people really are that stupid.
I first became really reliant on the combi system when I was teaching English and Atreyhus and I moved kind of far from the institute. Too far to walk. Let me tell you, getting the combi system down made me feel like a bad ass. Within 2 weeks, I vaguely knew the route of just about every combi that passed my way. I want to go to the post office, I take Pegaso. For Molino, I take Satelite or Wimpillay. San Jeronimo, I take Chaska. ( I forgot to mention that each combi line has it’s own name).
Luckily, I live on a busy street, so there is a large selection of combis at my disposal. Little ones, even big ones that would qualify for bus status in U.S. terms. The best thing is hopping on a combi and knowing exactly where it goes, even the names of the stops before the cobrador calls them out. I’ve seen a couple of girngos on combis before, but it’s not something that’s too common. I, personally, try to take a combi whenever I can. They’re inexpensive, fast, and reliable during business hours. So the next time a taxi slows down and honks it’s horn at you, turn your head the other way and have a little adventure on a combi. Once you get it down, you’ll feel like you can do anything!
1 A cobrador is the person who works in the passenger part of the combi. They open and close the door, collect money, and yell out all of the stops. The person driving the combi is called the chofer.
