The worst bus trip ever

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Ironic that our last bus journey in Bolivia should be the worst...

We asked at our hostel in Potosi for the name of some reputable bus companies which go to Uyuni, and chose the one which left at midday. After enduring a breakfast with loud and rude English tourists talking about bodily functions, we made our way to the place to get the bus. When a little rattly pile of junk clunked up to the office, we exchanged a few "no, that can´t be our bus" looks, only to be told that, duh, yes this is your bus. Once again the backpacks went on top as well as all manner of things such as hay and buckets. We squashed into our seats and I was up again as quicky as I had sat down - some kind of liquid had seeped through my jeans, the seat evidently wet (luckily no smell!) Fortunately I had a plastic bag in my small backpack as the 14 year old bus boy didn´t seem to pushed to try and do anything about my situation.

The 14 year old bus boy turned out to be our driver. We took off and stopped less than 5 minutes down the road for petrol, and were barely out of the petrol station when there seemed to be some aggro going back and forth between our driver and a taxi driver. All I could see out the side window was every single person in the vacinity looking our way. Evidently we had had some kind of an accident with the taxi, 5 minutes into a 7 hour bus ride.

It gets better. Along came a policeman and ordered everyone off. Our driver, surprise surprise, was unlicenced!! All hell then broke loose, there were women on mobile phones ringing the company and gringos calling their hostels where they had booked the tickets. Voices were raised and fists shaken in anger. Finally another driver came along, and off we went, the original adolesent driver and his toothy sidekick also coming along ("toothy" as he was the first of such boys I had seen on this trip with a full head of teeth.) I thanked my lucky stars that we had actually had that little prang as God knows how we would have made it to Uyuni otherwise (and God himself was watching us all the way, a giant poster of him tacked up on the glass which separated us from the driver, as well as one of Jesus on the cross on the back of the drivers door. I don´t know if this was in the name of holiness or in order to block out being able to see any high jinx of the unlicenced in front of us....)

That was only the start of the drama, apart from the fact that I was wondering what would stop the trio from stopping the bus down the road and letting the teenages get their kicks behind the wheel out of sight of the police. The roads were absolutely terrible, and as John said later, they looked like they had only been bulldozed through last week. It was basically dirt roads the whole way, some parts mud, other parts waterlogged or scattered with rocks. We made it to the first stop which was a muddy little town, and when we asked for a toilet in the restaurant were met by a drunk local couple sucking down local beer and saying "yes there is a toilet, no there isn´t, yes there is" until we got fed up with their shenanigans and went around the back of someone´s house and peed in what could have easily been their backyard (John had to hold my jacket around me for modesty as a main kind of a road went past right where I chose to squat.)

2 minutes down the road the bus stopped again, and there was all manner of tools clanging and banging going on somewhere within the bowels of the bus. The three amigos were yelling "13, 13" (hopefully not an omen I thought...) but which John figured must have been the number of a spanner or tool (which they evidently didn´t have) A bus came by in the opposite direction and one of the teenage trio asked the driver for the elusive 13. The driver obviously didn´t have one but thought possession superfluous anyway, hammering his fist in the air and furrowing his brow as if to say "just bash the hell out of it, you don´t need a number 13!" Meanwhile I wondered what this number 13 was needed for....brakes?? Obviously not an emergency, we carried on.

And on.....and on. Locals got on and off, sat in the aisles, music blared on the speaker right above our heads and even earplugs couldn´t block it out. On and on. And then we stopped again, this time there was a tremendous hissing sound and all of us on the bus moaned as we tried to imagine what else could possibly go wrong. One of the boys then stuck his head out behind Jesus on the cross and asked us all "who has water"? "Jesus Christ Almighty", was John´s response as we both rolled our eyes and he thrust our 2 litre bottle (virtually full because of the lack of toilet facilities anyway) towards bus boy. He disappeared behind Jesus and in around 10 minutes we were off, our bottle of water never to be seen again.

It started to get dark and our ETA of 7 soon came and went. We strained our eyes to see any glimmer of light, anything which might resemble a city coming into view. Finally at 8.30 we rattled into Uyuni and I could have kissed that poster of Holy God, thinking it was indeed a miracle that we had made it. We rushed straight to our hostel and with our new-found Irish companion, straight for food and wine and beer. Life seemed to be normal again and what a relief to be off that bus.

Uyuni itself is a tiny little place with not much to do, not many places to see, and not a lot of decent places to eat, even less on a Sunday during siesta time. Still, we put off booking our tour for an extra day in order to have more time here and less in Chile because of the economics - it´s at least half the price here for everything than it is in Chile.

After consulting 5 different tour operators here and also looking at some feedback on the internet we booked our tour to the salars for 3 days leaving tomorrow, where we finish the tour in San Pedro de Atacama, the desert in Chile. On the tour we´ll see the salt plains, coloured lagoons, hotsprings and volcanos. The scenery by all accounts is meant to be amazing and some say the highlight of their South America trip. There is a maximum of 6 people in the jeep, so far there is one German and one Mexican on our tour. On Wednesday we´ll be meeting up with John´s sister, her husband and their 3 year old son who we´ll be spending around a week with in the north of Chile and Argentina.

So hasta luego! Hopefully I´ll be able to put up some pic´s next time!!

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