When I first tackled the task of figuring out how to take the bus using the Guia T, it was like impossible detective work but I love it (you can check out why in Los Colectivos Part 1 )! It’d take me a good 30mins. to find out my route and brave it in the streets! Don’t worry though, once you know how to use it, you’ll get a hang of it very quickly. I hope my little guide here will also make this less of a mystery to all of you. So get ready with your copy and vamos!

1) Find your starting point – There are 2 ways to locate your starting point. A) Go to the second page of the Guia T, find the box that your starting point is in and go to the corresponding page number which is at the right top corner of that box. Or B) Find your street address by alphabetical order in the following pages from page 4 and up.

For example, let’s say we are at Defensa 1300. In method A) you find that you are in box 25, so you go to page 25 to look for your location. In method B) look for ‘Defensa’ and under the street name, you will find the 2 listings ‘101-850…17 – C5’ and ‘851-1850…25 – C1’. Since we are at Defensa 1300, the latter is the right one; thus, 25 is the page number and C2 is the coordinates of the square on Page 25.

2) Next, find your destination – Repeat Step 1. In this example, let’s say we are going to Coronel Díaz 1736. That will take us to Page 16, square A1.

3) Now, look back on the page of your starting point. The map is on the right and there are all these numbers in boxes on the left. Remember you are in square C2 on the map? Look for the C2 box on the left and that’s the box with all the bus lines that run through the area of C2. Then, do the same thing for your destination point.

4) Compare the bus numbers in the 2 boxes and see if there is any in common. If there’s one, BINGO! That’s the bus to take. If there’s none, then look in the surrounding squares and see if there is one that matches up.

In our example, we actually have 2 bus lines available to go from Defensa 1300 to Coronel Díaz 1736: #29 and #39. woohoo!

5) You may now wonder, ok, I got the bus lines but where is the stop? Good question and here comes the fun part! With the bus number, you go to the last section of the Guia T where all the bus routes are listed. This could be quite a tricky part as I’ve mentioned in my last post that a little knowledge of Buenos Aires streets would come in handy at this time, but don’t fluster, you can still do it. It’ll just take a bit of time and patience. Start looking for your starting point street and then check which street the bus turns from and the street turns onto next. From that, you’ll have a good idea of the section of the street where the closest bus stop is located.

6) Lastly, where to get off? You already found your destination point at this time. Check the street number of the block and remember that, so when you are on the bus, you can look at all the door signs and judge how close you are to your destination. Or you can always ask the bus driver and he could tell you where to get off. (Note that in general, bus stops are around 2 blocks away from each other so if you got off a bit earlier or a bit later, you won’t end up too off track. I’ll explain more in the next post.)

So there, take your time to digest all these and just fire away if you have any questions! More useful tips to come next time.

Isabel