All aboard the crazy bus | April 22, 2013

Position: 26°06’N, 80°10’W – Riverbend Marine Center, Fort Lauderdale

There’s a gaping hole on the list of Top 10 things to do in Fort Lauderdale. Sure, there’s the beach and the Everglades and the many riverboat tours along Millionaire’s Row. But these don’t tell you much about your average Fort Lauderdale resident. For an up close and personal experience with the locals, you need to take a trip on the #1 bus.

Everyone in America has a vehicle of some sort. The roads are filled with pick-up trucks, SUVs and people carriers, the bigger and louder the better. As a result, public transportation seems to be used mainly by the unemployed, the crazy people and visiting sailors - some would argue these are one and the same :)

The #1 bus runs from central Fort Lauderdale to Aventura in the south, serving workplaces, hospitals and shopping malls. It is one of many bus routes in the city but somehow it attracts the most colourful spectrum of passengers. Like the crazy man who leaned too close to the lady sitting beside him until she roared “Dude, you need to not be touching me or I’m going to beat the f@#k out of you” and then went back to sleep. Or the lady in her wheelchair who refused to strap herself to the wheelchair bar, rolling up and down the aisle at every stop. Or the man in the back seat talking to everyone within earshot that “African soldiers - from Africa - are comin’ to sort out all this slavery in the USA!”

We’ve travelled the route at different times of the day, from different stops, even sitting in different places and still we get a show. It is scary, funny and unbelievable all at the same time. After one too many close and crazy encounters with the locals, we decided we’d seen enough of the locals and have invested in two fold-up bicycles. It has made life much easier, albeit a little less entertaining.