When we arrived at the San Gil bus station last Friday, we immediately set out to buy return tickets, because we were not able to get them in Bogota, and since it was a puente, we were afraid maybe we wouldn’t get seats to come home. But it turns out there were a lot of options, so we bought tickets with a different bus compay, called Copetran, because they had the most convenient time for us.
But when we got to the bus station the next Monday, it turns out there were lots of companies trying to sell tickets to Bogota, and it would have been possible to get a 20-30% discount if we were buying the tickets on the spot. Out Copetran bus didn’t show up by the time we were supposed to leave, and the way things work in Colombia, it could have been many more hours before it showed. In fact, they were advertising a 2:00PM trip, when our trip was supposed to be at 1:00PM, which was pretty much admitting that they never intended to leave at 1:00.
Mark was getting irritated, and when that happens, his pigeon Spanish suffers. So I told the Copetran people that we wanted a refund so that we could take another bus. They said no, because that’s basically not done in Colombia, but I insisted, because in Colombia when you insist, it turns out there are no rules after all. The clerks promised that the bus was 10 minutes away, so we made a deal that if it didn’t show in 10 minutes, we could get out money back. Of course, in 10 minutes, there was no bus. So, they swore the bus was stuck in traffic because of an accident, and would be just 5 minutes more (another rule in Colombia–make up any story to cover yourself). Five minutes later and no bus, so I went out to talk to the driver of a bus from a different company to arrange a ride to Bogota. Now the Copetran clerk got nervous, and came out to get me, and he put us in a taxi (which Copetran paid for) to deliver us to our bus. It turns out out bus was about 1/4 mile down the road, in NO traffic. So we got on, and looked for our seats. In Colombia, buses have assigned seats, which are issued when you buy the ticket. There were only two random empty seats on the bus, and the three that we had bought were all taken. So, we told the drivers (there were three of them) that we wanted to go back to the terminal. They kept trying to convince us there were enough seats, but that’s a hard argument to make in light of the fact that there were only places for TWo and we had THREE tickets. There was some discussion with the people who were sitting in our assigned seats, and it turns out they also had tickets for those seats, because selling the same seat twice is common practice at Copetran. Still, all we wanted was to be taken back to the station, but now the driver started to ignore us. Jose, who’s really mild-mannered and always happy, started to lose his cool. Since he’s the Colombian, he was much more articulate about it than Mark and I, and he wanted to call the police. I called a secretary at my job who speaks fluent English and takes care of the Americans at work, and she called me back with a number where we could have reached the police and gotten them to stop the bus. Basically, it was like we were kidnapped. But, considering the ordeal we would have had to go through in that case, I decided not to call, and the bus driver at that point was making some ladies shuffle around and share seats so that we could sit. Mark then lost his cool, calling the driver grosero (rude), so I had to calm him down as well. When the bus got to the dinner stop, a guy sitting in front of us turned around and, in broken English, said basically the following:
“Welcome to my country. It is a beautiful country. But, unlike America, we do not have good businesses here. They do not treat people right. I know you are used to being treated better. I apologize and I hope you like my country, because it is beautiful.”
So, what could we say to that? I thanked him, and told him that we live here and we do like the country, but that the bus company was out of line and they needed to be held responsible for their mistakes and their rudeness and lack of service that we had paid for. He agreed, and then said (mostly to Mark): “And, congratulations for calming down.”
So, we got back to Bogota, but besides the horrible service of the day, the bus was also a little dirty feeling, and had a filthy bathroom. Therefore, I can enthusiastically say: DO NOT USE COPETRAN if you have any other option (and there is always another option).
This experience points out a few things, though, about how things work in Colombia. Customer service is often, often bad, with businesses abusing the people they serve. Colombians just take it. When I want to compain, and I’m with Jose or some other Colombian, they always want to say that I should realize that that’s just how things are in Colombia, that everyone lies and everyone is mistreated by businesses and you have to just take it. But I’ve usually found that putting up an argument will get you somewhere, since there really are no rules in the end.
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