Bolivian Bus Ride

First impressions should never be made on a public bus.

We boarded our dingy bus, without a bathroom, for our "18 hr" trip to La Paz. (in all the trip was 30 hours counting the Argentine side) The bus somehow managed to stay together, although I would have placed a bet that we would not make it without stopping for repairs, which seems to be common. The bus resembled that of a school bus with room for luggage underneath, a luxury here, and was packed full of passengers, plus some, a standing room only kind of deal. We were only about an hour into the trip when we pulled to the side of the road to let the intoxicated Bolivian in the back of the bus off to piss on the side of the road. He stumbled his way back on board, falling on a few passengers along the way, and we made our way back onto a dry dirt road, which threw enough dust into the cab of the bus to chew on.

There were only two babies on board, but of course they were both seated next to us sharing a seat with momi; and when they weren´t crying, the old guy in front of them was blabbering on in his loudest voice, or shouting commands at someone. He was especially happy to pick fun at the gringos and the bus driver, who was cruising along at a steady rate of 15 mph as the gears of the bus grinded ominously. The road itself was cut through the mountains, sometimes only wide enough for us to skim through the middle of narrow rocky pathways, and other times along a windy road, which instead of a shoulder, was only darkness, marking an obvious cliff. I kept thinking about the article I had just read, in which a bus had PLUNGED off a cliff killing the majority of the passengers the day before.

Nevertheless, we rattled and bounced our way into the Bolivian night, stopping again for what was this time a planned bathroom stop. Guys and girls alike, found a cozy peace of earth to claim as their own. However, it wasn´t 20 minutes later when the drunkard in the back, this time with a companion, came lumbering back to the front of the bus, somehow finding a way to make contact with every passenger in the process. However, the driver, and the old commander sitting in the front row, were not having another stop and so we continued on. Soon after there was some kind of commotion coming from behind us, and when the lights were illuminated, we discovered that one of the two drunk fellows had relieved himself in the aisle of the bus. The stream could be seen pushing its way up the aisle towards our seat, naturally I put my shoes back on and my bag overhead. Already fed up with the two that decided to continue drinking on a bus they knew had no bathroom, I was more than ready to throw these two to the side of the street, but none of the Bolivians seemed to be bothered by it, we pulled over again for these two.

To make things worse, one of the standing room only crowd, had decided that it was time to catch some zzz´s and laid down in the middle of the piss filled aisle, of course right next to me, and what the hell, I was not sleeping on this bus anyway, so I might as well have a stranger lying in piss invade my personal space.

10 hours later, and a broken ass, we pick up more passengers in the high plains. These migrant workers needed a hitch up the road, and why not add a few more standing passengers. Smelling like a lama, naturally, the farmer decided to put his butt on the headrest of my chair, to rub against my head as we climbed higher into the mountains. I tried giving him enough "unintentionall" jabs as to say, "hey, go put your ass in the face of someone who doesn´t mind people pissing on the floor and smelling like lamas," but to no avail. A couple hours later the workers had arrived at their workplace for the day, and exited, and that is when the music started.

It is hard to explain the beat, yet it is cemented in my mind forever, and is now the new theme of my nightmares. Bolivian folk music, rocked through the speakers at full blast. Nevermind that I was still trying to catch just a minute of sleep on this hellish bus ride. The Indian girl in front of us, dressed in the stereotypical gear, (wide skirt, wool sweater, and long braids, although missing the cute little top hat) as is quite typical, was singing along and having a great time. Only three songs on the cd, all containing the same beat, sounding like salt shakers with clopping horse hooves, were allowed to play for at least three hours, repeating, repeating, repeating. Sarah does a nice little impression. The music was turned up so loudly that I could not listen to my own head phones, because the music permeated with its repetitive salt shaker beat.

Finally we started to see the pueblos made of stone at a more constant rate, followed by actually buildings. Granted they were all missing glass in the windows, but hey it was something. But I saw no city. Then it appeared. Below in a canyon, we could see the entire city from the high plains as we wound are way down to the city.

La Paz is an amazing city. I could not spend too much time here, but it may be my favorite stop since Bs As. The highest city in the world, we are very short on breath and careful not to push ourselves too hard. I found baseball on tv. some sort of S. American league, but there are far too many Yankees caps for my taste. We encountered a pick up game of soccer in the main concrete square, toured the coca museum, and learned quite a bit about this crucial plant that has been in their culture since at least 2500 years BC. And has now been "ruined by the white man" (close paraphrase)

We bought a few souvenirs, and ate a typical Bolivian dish. Now we are preparing to ride mountain bikes down the "worlds most dangerous road." However, it can´t be too much more dangerous than a Bolivian Bus Ride.

A

Chau Argentina

We are in Bolivia. There is no mistaking us now. After 4 months in the South of Argentina, where many of the people look like they could be American, we are most definitely the gringos now, and being treated as such. I guess that is what happens when I lug more posessions on my back, than most people here own period.

We are waiting for our bus to La Paz, the capitol city in the north, skipping many of the tourist destinations along the way, because our time is ticking, and ......well the accomodations here make Tijuana look desirable. So, after leaving Salta at 7 am to arrive here at the border, we will now board a bus at 6 pm, for a 18 hour trip to La Paz. Not exactly a luxury cruiser we will be without a bathroom, so I am hoping that the chicken we just ate passes through normally.

We also skipped one of the major tourist destinations in Argentina, Iguazu Falls in the northern Jungle of Argentina. This omission is due mainly to my underestimation of how big Argentina is. And with the amount of luggage we are carrying around, the traveling is not exactly as easy as we had planned, although I am not sure that we put much thought into the actually traveling part. Therefore we skipped the 60 hours round trip it would have taken to see the Iguazu falls in the North Eastern corner of Argentina, and continue "straight away" for La Paz after crossing the border.

I already miss Buenos Aires and the luxuries of the city there, especially after feeling the giant cockroach squish under my foot in our last room, at a hostel in Salta. This hostel, designed by Argentinas finest engineers, leaked water, allowing mold to cover the walls turning our "habitacion" into a musty den. Because it is "Semana Santa" (they arduously celebrate the whole week of Easter)the whole country is traveling and we had to stay with what accomodations we could find, and we paid twenty dollars a night for this. So much for the north being really cheap... dirty yes, cheap, not so much. However, the city was unique, as each city has been since we started traveling north about a month ago, from the end of the world. With each city, I began to feel more and more like I was in Mexico, and finally, in Salta, we were able to eat some tamales and find some real spicy salsa.

All in all Argentina was beautiful, the people are so nice, Bs As was too big to cover in the 3 plus months we were there, and the rest of the country cannot be covered in a months time of traveling. But we passed through myriad climate changes, and spent time on a ranch, which we nearly could not reach.

Becuase the small mountain road had been inundated by the flooding river,our taxi, which was a small honda model from the mid 80´s, twisted and bumped his way professionally through a muddy road that he had no business being on in his little coche. After almost getting stuck in mud twice, the trip came to an abrupt end as the road was impassable. The usual stream, which flows over the road is usually easily passable with the concrete slab, which facilitates the crossing. However, this is no bridge, and the stream had swelled to a raging river. So after 40 minutes in this little taxi we turned around to head back to the city, sure enough the taxi tried to charge us for the ride. This was of course after a 15 hr. bus ride which included a blown tire.

However, a man from town assured us we could make it through the river in his truck. Although I thought differently, we were determined to get the estancia, my thoughts were that there was no way we were going to pass, and it was one heck of an adrenaline rush when we plowed through a raging river in a pick up. But the estancia was beautiful, we had the place to ourselves, practiced our Spanish for three days with our gaucho guide Diego, rode horses, milked goats, cut up dead cows, drank mate, and caught some rays by the river.

And so now with more countries to see, we are ready to move on. So Chau Argentina, as well as the language of "Castellano," thanks for the good times.