El viaje: boletos, vuelos y hoteles
Two words carry this lesson, and neither is the one a Spain-based book hands you: the ticket is el boleto or el pasaje, and the hotel booking is la reservación. Around them stands an airport — el vuelo, la maleta, el equipaje, documentar, la sala de abordaje — a bus terminal, which is how this region actually crosses long distances, and a front desk whose answer to your question is el tercer piso and el desayuno está incluido. The grammar is small and worth getting right the first time: viajar a takes you to a place, viajar en takes you there by something, and when you miss a flight this morning you say Perdí el vuelo — the plain past, not the compound one.
El boleto, el pasaje, el tiquete
The ticket is el boleto in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and much of the region, and el pasaje in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Both are understood everywhere, so learn el boleto, answer with el pasaje where you hear it, and recognize Colombia's el tiquete and the borrowed el ticket. What el billete means here is a banknote — the paper money in your wallet — so ¿Me da un billete a Cartagena? asks a stranger for cash; the word does double duty in Spain and single duty here. One way is de ida, both ways is de ida y vuelta, and Mexico has its own name for the round trip, viaje redondo: un boleto de viaje redondo a Mérida. The fare is la tarifa, or el pasaje again — ¿Cuánto cuesta el pasaje?, and in the Southern Cone ¿Cuánto sale el pasaje? You buy it at la boletería or la taquilla, and the whole polite sentence is ¿Me da un boleto para el vuelo de las siete, por favor?
En el aeropuerto
el aeropuerto holds el vuelo and el avión, and the sequence is always the same. You go to el mostrador of la aerolínea and check your bag, which across most of the region is documentar el equipaje — a Mexican verb that traveled well — with chequear and registrar used alongside it: Voy a documentar una maleta. They hand you el pase de abordar in Mexico, el pasabordo in Colombia, la tarjeta de embarque in writing everywhere. Then migración — the word this region uses where a Spain-based book says control de pasaportes — and la aduana on the way out, where the sign asks ¿Algo que declarar? Your gate is la puerta or la sala de abordaje, and the verb is abordar: Su vuelo aborda por la puerta doce. The plane despega and later aterriza; a flight with no stop is un vuelo directo, and one with a stop hace escala: El vuelo hace escala en Panamá. If your country needs one, carry la visa — feminine here, and shorter than Spain's word for it.
La maleta y lo que va adentro
la maleta is the suitcase everywhere; Argentina and Uruguay also say la valija. Filling it is empacar, the everyday verb in this region — Todavía no empaco, Empaqué anoche — with hacer la maleta and hacer las maletas equally correct. What goes with you into the cabin is el equipaje de mano, usually la mochila or a small bag; el equipaje itself is uncountable, so it is mucho equipaje, never muchos equipajes. At the counter, the sentence nobody wants to hear is Su maleta tiene sobrepeso, and the one you wait for at the carousel — la banda in Mexico and Colombia, la cinta in much of South America — is your own bag coming out. When it does not, the airline says se quedó or, more formally, la extraviaron: Perdieron mi maleta, Mi maleta se quedó en Bogotá.
Terminal, camión, bus: how the region really moves
Long distances here are covered by air and by bus, and the bus station deserves more of your attention than the train station. It is la terminal de autobuses, la central camionera in Mexico, el terminal terrestre in Peru and Ecuador, el terminal de buses in Chile, la terminal de ómnibus in Argentina and Uruguay. The seats have classes worth knowing: primera clase and el camión de lujo in Mexico, semicama and cama in Argentina, el bus cama in the Andes — an overnight seat that actually reclines flat. You ask for un asiento de ventanilla or de pasillo. Rail is another story: la estación in daily speech is nearly always la estación del metro, because long-distance passenger trains survive only in a few famous places — el tren a Machu Picchu, el Chepe through the Barrancas del Cobre, el Tren Maya. Where there is a platform, it is el andén, the same word Colombians use for the sidewalk.
Salir, llegar, durar: the verbs of a timetable
salir is the verb of departure for everything that moves — El vuelo sale a las diez, El bus sale de la terminal a las seis — with partir kept for signs and announcements. Its opposite is llegar a: Llegamos a Cartagena a las once y veinte. Length of time is durar: ¿Cuánto dura el vuelo? and the answer Dura hora y media, or El viaje dura unas ocho horas en bus. Late is retrasado and, just as often here, demorado: El vuelo viene demorado, Hubo una demora de dos horas. The four questions that get you through any counter are ¿A qué hora sale?, ¿A qué hora llega?, ¿Cuánto dura el viaje? and ¿De qué puerta sale? For buses, add the one everybody asks: ¿Cada cuánto sale?
viajar a, viajar en
Two prepositions split the whole idea of a journey. viajar a plus a place is where you are going — Viajo a Lima el jueves, Vamos a viajar a Guatemala en diciembre — and viajar en plus a vehicle is how — en avión, en bus, en carro, en tren, en barco. The one exception is on foot, which takes a: a pie, and for the same reason a caballo. A third preposition covers wandering: viajar por means around or through, not to a single point — Viajamos por Centroamérica dos meses. Origin is de: Salimos de Bogotá temprano. Coming home is regresar de, which this region reaches for more often than volver de: Regreso de Quito el lunes. And the set phrases around the noun are hacer un viaje, irse de viaje, estar de viaje, plus the goodbye you will hear at every counter and every front desk: ¡Buen viaje!
Perder el vuelo — and which past tense
perder plus a form of transport is to miss it: perder el vuelo, perder el bus, perder la conexión. Two everyday alternatives say the same thing: No alcancé el vuelo and the wonderfully passive Se me fue el bus, which puts the blame on the bus. The tense matters more than the verb. Talking about something that happened today, this region uses the plain past: Perdí el vuelo esta mañana, ¿Ya comiste?, ¿Qué pasó? The compound he perdido is alive and useful, but for open, unfinished time — Nunca he perdido un vuelo, He viajado tres veces a Cartagena este año — not for this morning. Keep the two jobs apart and you will sound like you live here. And note the second life of the same verb: Perdieron mi maleta is the airline losing your bag, not you missing anything.
En el hotel
The booking is la reservación across most of Latin America — Tengo una reservación a nombre de Ríos — while la reserva is understood everywhere and is the usual form in the Southern Cone; the verb behind both is reservar. Arriving is registrarse or hacer el check-in, and leaving is dejar el cuarto. The room is la habitación in writing and el cuarto in half the conversations you will have about it; sencilla is a single, doble a double, matrimonial one big bed, and the sizes are asked about exactly like that: ¿Tiene una habitación sencilla para tres noches? They give you la llave or la tarjeta, tell you el desayuno está incluido or that it is not, and point you at el elevador — el ascensor in the Southern Cone. One warning about floors: in Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay the street-level floor is la planta baja and el primer piso is one flight up, but in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela the street-level floor is itself el primer piso. So el tercer piso is two flights up in Bogotá and three in Buenos Aires — worth asking. And tercero loses its ending before a masculine singular noun: el tercer piso, but la tercera puerta.
