el bus.

why take a taxi when you can ride the bus? for 20 cents!

if you are on a street and want to go somewhere, you can try and get a taxi, but seeing all the people leaning into taxicab windows and screaming robber! thief! you said 8 sol, not 10! seems like it's a lot of tiring, aggressive haggling.

so take the bus. 

they say the bus is a confusing and complicated affair. not really!

if you are on a street and want to go to another street, you stand where all the other people are standing and wait for a bus with the name of the street you want to go to. when that bus comes, it has the street you want to go to written on the side in 10 different fonts. and in case you are blind or illiterate, there is a guy hanging out the door, screaming the name of that street such as "arequipas-arequipas-arequipas!" and the bus slows down and as soon as you even think about maybe taking the bus the door guy is looking right at you, banging on the bus, which makes it stop for a millisecond and then you jump on as it takes off. the other people who want to get on, sometimes they bang on the bus, to make the driver think it's the door guy, but somehow it's not the right signal and the bus is going even faster and so those people are grabbing anything they can to get on, my hair, my bag, whatever. 

the driver usually has a co-pilot friend or whatever and doesn't even seem to be aware of anything, he's just chatting away, yet in some sort of telekenetic trance with the ticket guy and knows exactly when to stop. and the music is awesome. and he drives soooooo fast. 

so then you pay the ticket guy, you tell him a vague destination on the route. the best part is that he doesn't want you riding for free or anything so when your stop comes he'll call you out, as if the stop is your name, like hey you! square olivo, get off my bus! so you never miss your stop! that's not so complicated, it's fun!