In another installment of STN “Routes Around the World” blogger Anson Stewart’s travels through South America, we get to see how newer school bus models sometimes stand out from the rest.
While the buses within Guatemala City are mostly older transit-style former school buses, the inter-urban buses tend to be newer conventional models. These newer buses, serving places like Antigua, are the most highly decorated ones I’ve seen in Central America. The paint jobs tend to be bright and polished, and I even saw a couple of buses with scrolling LED head signs where they used to read “School Bus.”
One reason for their relatively good condition may be the national government’s law prohibiting the importation of buses more than a certain number of years old (the bus owner I interviewed wasn’t sure of the exact age).
STN’s Stewart is a graduate of Swarthmore College and a recipient of a 2010 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a grant to study abroad. Stewart’s project is “School Bus Migrations: Recycling Transit in the Global South. Follow his blog and see more photos from his journey.
