I have a travel disability with riding buses while I travel. (And I probably would at home, too. Except I don’t ride busses at home.)

And it’s not because I’m female and I can’t read maps. I’m actually great with maps. I love reading and using them.
And I’m also great riding the subway as well as walking the streets. But ask me to figure out how to use an intricate city-street bus system, if the 52 is faster than the 76 and if you should transfer 15th and 9th or 23rd and 7th, I freeze. The mere sight of a bus transit map with red, blue, yellow lines criss crossing each other as if it were a web created by a derranged spider makes me want to sit down and cry.

So why such a nervous reaction to bus maps?

It’s a symptom of my real problem: actually riding the busses. About 9 years ago I did a study abroad to Madrid, Spain. I was 18, and it was the first time I was living in a big city, first time using public transport, and basically the first time on my own. One day I wanted to meet up with some other students in the city. I decided to take the bus. I was heading the direction but to failed to make a bus change at a stop. About a half-hour later, as the scenery was changing from city to countryside, I realized something was very wrong. I was lost. I was scared. I have been forever scarred from riding a bus by myself.

In my subsequent travels I’ve relied solely on the subway system and my feet (and at rare times, cab rides). I love the subway, the metro, the tube, whatever it may be called.

Anyway, for today I thought I’d practice my bus skills. I headed north to the city Osorno and worked my way down the side of the lake back to Puerto Varas. This was peanuts compared to navigating Santiago, Buenos Aires, or even New York City.

Well, darkness set in while on my way back to the hostel, I got really tired, and i kind of zoned out to my iPod. When I started to wonder why this was taking so long, I checked the GPS on my phone and I realized I missed my stop!!! A flood of bad words broke thru my mouth and I wanted to cry. Anyway, I changed buses, where I sat wide-eyed in the front seat, and finally made it home.

This did not help my cause. I hate traveling by bus.