Santiago is a big, sprawling city, so it is very hard to walk to most places. I have to ride the bus for almost an hour just to get to my university for class every day. Chile is like this as a country, too: It is very long and thin, so cities are far apart and travel takes a long time. When I visited Puerto Varas last week, I had to spend 12 hours riding the bus each way. It might come as a surprise, then, that many Chileans don't have their own cars!
In Santiago, many people take the metro, but the metro lines don't run near Ñuñoa, which is the part of the city where I live. Instead, I take one of the city buses (called micros) to and from school every day. The micros are used by people all over the city, and there are often street musicians and vendors selling candy bars, ice cream, or cheap electronics who hop on the bus for a couple of stops, make as much money as they can, and then leave to try their luck on a different bus. Last week, there was a magician performing in the back of the bus for part of the ride to my school.
The micros don't use coins or bills, so I have a card called a "bip!" that I can charge with pesos in the metro station. I scan the card every time I get on the bus and the machine deducts the cost of that trip.
