Medios de transporte en español para principiantes

What does “guagua” mean in Spanish?

In most of Spain and Latin America the bus is the autobús. But in a few places it is the guagua (said “wa-wa”): Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Spain’s Canary Islands. So in San Juan or in Tenerife you wait for la guagua, not el autobús. Same vehicle, different word, tied to a clear set of regions.

The clip lists transport words and notes that the autobús is called guagua in some parts of the Americas. One warning for travellers: in parts of the Andes (Chile, Ecuador) guagua comes from Quechua and means “baby,” not “bus” — so the same word points to two very different things depending on where you are.