Buses to Rio

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My journey started at 6am on Monday morning. The local bus to Ilheus was not monumental in any way. The only concern I had was that I didn't remember the route we took and it seemed to me that we were traveling a lot more in the town of Ilheus than the first time but I had nothing to fear as we got to the bus station before 8.

At the bus station I bought way to much food and a coffee and engorged myself.

The Sao Gerardo bus boarded at 9:15 and I got to my seat. When I got there, I noticed a mother in the aisle seat next to mine and her daughter in the window seat on the other side with an unrelated man in the aisle seat between. The mother tried to trade with him but he said no to switching aisle seat for aisle seat. He wanted a window seat in order to trade at all. The bus staff came in and tried to negotiate but did a very poor job. I offered to switch seats with the child to which the mother was grateful but as I moved across, the man slid over into the window seat. I told the staff that I was trading window seat for window seat. He said that he was going to take window if I traded. And the staff accepted this. I told them that he has no rights in the trade as he is not a party to it but they disagreed and sided with him. I was in shock, first at what a jerk this guy was and second at the staff accepting his claims to a seat that he never had. I felt like I was in Bizzaro World. I said fine that I would take the aisle seat to let them have their way, knowing that this was not a smart situation being incensed next to the reason that I was so. However, the mother offered to take the aisle fo window swap the man offered and I was left really confused. Oh well, not my business. Actually it didn't last long as within a few hours the bus had some matriculation and the man on the other side got his own two seats, the mother and daughter got to sit together and I was given my own two seats.

About noon, a mother and daughter boarded. The daughter was screaming. Through my limited Portugese, I came to understand that the daughter was unhappy about leaving her father behind. They were in the seats behind and across the aisle from me. The girl cried and screamed at the top of her lungs for an hour. My iPod was much appreciated and working at full blast. During this time another little girl from the bus came and sat next to me, asking if she could listen to music with me. We shared my headphones for about 30 minutes before she got bored and left.

At around 5 a woman took the seat next to me. She was on the phone for about 15 minutes before she started crying. I couldn't tell but it seemed to me that she was talking to her significant other and she did not like what he was saying. She only stayed on the bus for an hour or so but she was in various states of crying throughout. I wished there was something I could have done to console her but not speaking Portugese really put a damper on that idea.

We stopped at a stop along the way to get some snacks and let people use the restroom. It was pretty insignificant. However, when I got back on the bus, the driver walked down the aisle and saw my backpack at my feet. He told me that I needed to put it up top in the overhead rack. Having a laptop in it and buses having a reputation for theft. I did not think this was the best idea. So I told him that I did not want to. He said I had to. I pointed out that my bag fit easily under my seat. However, he said this would not work. I was not happy about the situation as this had never been an issue in all of my other bus travel. When he saw that I wasn't happy, he tried to explain it to others but this did nothing because he said nothing but you have to. Finally, I did but this meant that I was going to have to keep my eyes on it, which was not what I wanted to do.

We ate that evening at a per quilo place owned by the bus company as all the stops appear to be in Brazil. After dinner, we changed drivers for one who seemed a little more laid back and I snuck my bag under the blanket I was using to cover my legs. I slept alright that night but my butt was not enjoying bus travel much and I found it difficult to get comfortable.

I woke up the following morning around 6am. The bus was supposed to arrive a little after 7 but given that we took a 15 minute stop at 7, I was guessing that we were still a few hours to go. Once getting back on the bus, I found out that there was karaoke. Unfortunately, there was no music accompaniment or words and only one man was singing for two full hours. The fact that he couldn't carry a tune and that it was so early, did not seem to bother him. It was a tribute to how tired of the music on my ipod I have become that I didn't drown him out. I was very tempted to sing my own songs but luckily there was still an ounce of sanity somewhere deep within my soul telling me not to tempt a bus full of South Americans after 22 hours on a bus.

We made it to Rio at 9:15.

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