Advertisement
Published: December 27th 2006
Battle Scars
The poor bus, it will take a while for him to forget the ditch that muddied him up early in the morning. The longest, dirtiest, most hilarious bus ride I have ever been on (yet) - read this epic with an open mind.
Monday, December 25th, Christmas Day. This morning, I checked out of my hotel and crossed the street to Encarnacion's bus terminal, now a desert when it comes to people, compared to the weekend's sweaty swarms that took all the space and air away. Ten minutes before 12, the winds picked up, the sky grew dim, and the doors of the station started flapping. Two minutes later, swaths of rain and wind attacked us, scattering litter everywhere, blowing hair in our eyes, pushing everyone to the walls.
12.00 PM.
My bus came, I hurried on, and got comfy with a book.
About 6 PM.
Arrived in Asuncion. THAT was not the epic bus ride....It's just nice to spend 6 hours on a bus before spending another TWENTY NINE...........don't ya think?
8.00 PM.
I confidently get on a crappy bus from the Stel Turismo company with about 15 others. I smile when we actually leave on time for this 23 hour journey, due to arrive in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, at 6PM the next day, which is actually 7PM
Camino Clausurado!
Ummm....yup, there's a tractor there! Paraguayan time. The bus has an odd smell to it. I catch a whiff of the bathroom all the way at the back, a mix of sanitizers and you-know-what. Then maybe, is that vomit? Body odor definitely falls in the mix. Hmm it's hard to say. Let's just crack the windows open a bit...
8.10 PM.
Our first stop, at the company's office, to pick up all kinds of packages, meats, milk, whatever, for deliveries along the route. While we wait, I notice my new friends, little critters,. German cockroaches (if my insect identification is correct), busily speeding back and forth along the curtain rod by my elbow. On the wall, too. All the packages are loaded and the bus guy (we'll call hiim Smiley from now on, he has an eternal impish smile on his face) literally hops on the bus. Meanie (he's another bus guy, a driver but never smiles...then there is tanother driver, he will be The Other Guy because he only has a secondary role in this story) shows his true colors when he whistles for The Other Guy to go ahead, even though he has just two minutes ago given permission to some Bolivian
women to get off the bus to talk to someone.
8.20 PM.
The bus pulls away, even though everyone is staring at Meanie, mouths open, because he just willingly left some passenger behind. Well, she got back on at the next turn, somehow...Luck? Nope, this continues throughout the trip, at times either Smiley or one of the knowing passengers (I am not included on that list, I am quite clueless about these Paraguayan/Bolivian bus rides) gets off for something, we pull off, then miraculously we stop again and there is Smiley or the lady in the pink pants or the bus driver's friend waiting to climb aboard again.
9.00 PM.
Wow, we've barely gotten anywhere. But it's time for a break, apparently. We stop at an almacen, a little food store, so that Meanie, Smiley, and The Other Guy can catch up on gossip with the proprietors, Meanie can buy his girly magazine and tabloid, and a few passengers can get their last needed supplies.
In between 9.00 and 11.00 PM.
The bus driver's friend starts to talk to me, sits down next to me, babbles on about Bolivia and fish and how good it is to
This is the Chaco.
It goes on and on and on. Covering about 60% of Paraguay's territory, this infertile and uninteresting landscape actually is home to some fascinating animals and Mennonite settlers who have cultivated fruit there...and not much else! meet foreigners. When he invites me to a fish dinner in Santa Cruz, that's enough. I tell him I want to sleep. That's tough to do when the bus seat doesn't stay reclined, the little roaches are more active than ever, and your legs don't have enough space to stretch. Finally I found a comfortable position for some fitful sleep but my lively dreams surely had something to do with the tiny legs that were probably crawling all over my feet...
Tuesday, December 26, The Next Day. 3.30 AM.
The bus comes to a halt, all the interior lights go on, and Smiley calls out, 'Migraciones!' We sleepwalk down the bus steps, sleepily shuffle through the mud, inside the gates of a very military-looking installation, to wait at the door of a tiny rectangular building, the sleeping/working/eating quarters of the Migraciones guys. Mosquitos feast on me until a guy who resembles Crocodile Dundee calls me into the room, where his buddy makes small talk and stamps my passport Dundee sprays my ankles down with Off after I mention the mosquitos, then asks me, 'We Paraguayans are kind, aren't we?' Yes, very kind, but this whole thing has an uncomfortable
nature to it, like something isn't right. It's just too casual. These guys are in their pajamas, we're standing amid puddles, a guy gets on the bus to inspect it for about 20 seconds, nobody seems all that serious. But, okay, I have a stamp. Back to sleeping with the roaches. We pull away from Mariscal Estagarriba.
Around 7.00 AM.
I stir awake, the light is coming in through my window. The wheels are grinding, the engine screeching. We're not moving. I peer out the window and see four or five of our male passengers, plus Smiley and Meanie, pushing my side of the bus with all their might. Nothing happens. Looking down, I see we are stuck in a ditch, right up against a little hill that leads from our dirt road to a paved one.
One of the younger men starts to dig. He's heaping shovelfuls of wet mud onto the hillside, trying to get the front right wheel out of this muck. Another young guys takes over, then his friend uses a hoe to keep the mud from sliding back into the hole. All the other men (exceot for two who are still asleep on
the bus and The Other Guy, who revs the engine once in a while) are standing on the paved road watching. The women and children are all asleep, except for me.
7.55 AM.
No luck with the digging. All the men are standing on the paved road, deep in discussion. Then they start to mill about. 2 start building a fire. One guy is reading the paper. All very helpful, I'm sure.
8.05 AM.
Meanie is now lying down on his back on the paved road. He rolls over on his side, looking like he has gotten hit by a bus. All covered in mud, shirt untucked and unbuttoned, hair all over the place, big fat belly hanging out, pants all out of place by the ankles. Passengers one by one start to wake up. The guys go outside to be heroes once they notice what's happening, while the women peer out the window curiously.
8.25 AM.
The fire is ready (for what??) They start boiling water. No one is digging anymore, no one is even planning or scheming about how to get us out of there.
8.35 AM. Some of the local lady passengers go
Waiting
Germans talking by the door, The Other One and his buddies sitting in the shade of the luggage hold, drinking terere. outside with their towels and use the bus drivers' water jug to wash their hands, drink some water. The men start preparing mate. I know they can't live without their mate but, come on! We're stuck here!!! Get us out! Apparently we have been stuck since 6 something, before I woke up...
8.50.
Unbelievable! A tractor is here! Hallelujah! That's why they gave up, they had called a tractor! The tractor gets us out in 2 minutes AND the big thermos of mate cocido (prepared like tea, this one with sugar and milk added to the yerba) was for US! Breakfast. Delicious mate, with that campfire taste added, and some breadstick thingies. We're on our way again.
Along the way.
The Chaco, this vast ecological area we're driving through, is scrubby. Low growing trees mix with cacti and shrubs. Everything is flooded, the red earth giving way to puddles and messy grass. The landscape doesn't change, except once in a while we see a fat-trunked palo boracho tree (drunk stick tree) with its silly silhouette.
9.55 AM.
We are stopped next to some kind of tractor despository. Nobody knows why, one guy gets off to check with
My favorite Chaco tree
It's all bloated and drunk!!! Meanie, who is talking to the tractor guy by the side of the road, delivering soda and newspapers to him. Our passenger comes back on to say we can walk around until 12, because the road's closed till then. And so it is. A monster of a tractor is blocking the road in front of us. We amble off the bus, everyone in disbelief - I keep hearing everyone ask, 'So, really, the road is closed? We can't go until 12?'
I take a walk, snap some photos, but there is nothing to see, since the Chaco is just more of the same, either way you go. An SUV pulls up on our side, also annoyed by the 'camino clausurado.' He eventually takes his chances and just goes off-roading to get across. A bus pulls up on the other side of the tractor, facing us. Now, I wonder, if we have gotten this far, and that bus has come this far from the other way, why the hell can't we both continue along!?!?! Obviously it is possible. Then I am told by my new Ecuadorian biologist friend (it's easy to make friends when you're stuck like this...I talked to two German Jehovah's witnesses, played around with some little Bolivian girls, met some Paraguayan military men, there's an Italian guy who happens to be living in BsAs nowadays too...we're all in it together...) that the reason the tractor won't move is because its owner wants a bribe, and our bus drivers are too stubborn to give him any money.
12.00 PM.
It's time to go!!!! PLEASE. Already, it will be nighttime when we arrive in Santa Cruz, well past our 6.00 plan. The Chaco at this hour is steamy, with flies of all sizes buzzing around us. The sun beats through the cloud screen, reflecting off the asphalt onto us. Some folks retreat to the bus to sleep. I stay outside to watch the action unfold...
Impatient (what a trait to pair with stubbornness), our bus drivers and those of the other bus have come up with a plan. The other bus drives off the embankment, into the mud, then pulls around the tractor to try to come up onto the road on our side. Our bus moves back, clearing the way for him. But he gets stuck, wheels spinning in the mud as he tries to pull up on top of the road again.
We have a new plan. They whip out a thick metal wire, which they proceed to tie to the undercarriage of the fronts of both buses. Our bus valiantly reverses with all its might, pulling on the other bus. It's not enough. He's still stuck. And guess what. Now our bus is broken, it won't even start up...
12.20 PM.
The others try their luck and cruise off through the muddy path beside the road. They make it back onto asphalt! They're off, hopefully not to get stuck in our favorite little ditch. And here we are, the unlucky ones, our bus tried to be a hero and now we can't move at all....
12.40 PM.
I'm sitting on a log with the two German girls, the Jehovah's witnesses, eating rice and feeding half my disgusting meal to the hungry dogs who live at the tractor depository. Funny enough, a peccary also lives there, he is the funniest thing. Normally a wild animal , this pudgy brown thing on skinny legs with a pointy snout follows the employees at their heels like a puppy! The Other Guy is sitting in the baggage compartment, drinking terere (cold mate, more common here in Paraguay than the hot version) with a coupole passengers and reading the tabloids. Smiley and Meanie are nowhere to be seen. It seems like they are not in the least bit concerned about getting out of here. I begin to wonder if maybe they get paid by the hour...
2.10 PM.
I opt for a change of scenery and get back on the bus to read. Meanie and Smiley come out from the tractor place with a little metal car part. I hear banging from below. Then I hear 'Oooowwwwww!' Then more banging. Then just the whispers of the little girls up front, a German couple talking behind me.
2.20 PM.
I hear engines!!!! And I see the tractor guy move the tractor! It is a miracle.
2.35 PM.
We are now driving. Meanie looks even worse now, a total mess after spending the last hour or so alternatively trudging through the mud and lying under the bus. He looks slightly insane, I might add.
3.30 PM.
Still going. But we have already stopped 3 times, to deliver meat and cheese, to allow Bolivian customs to check our bus, and one time I can't figure out what for.
4.50 PM.
We arrive in Ibibobo, where the Bolivian immigration post is. We have to fill out a form, get our passport stamped, then walk to another part of the military compound, under the eyes of about 20 soldiers doing nothing, to tell our name to another guy who checks it off on a list. Once everyone is done, we're off, still going through the scrubby Chaco, but with hopes of better roads ahead.
7.25 PM.
Things look greener, more lush. I see mountains running along our left side, in the distance. The clouds crown them to bring nighttime closer.
Sometime after reading for a while, I drift off to sleep, not even worried about the roaches.
Wednesday, December 27, Arrival! 1.10 AM. (12.10 Bolivian time)
We have arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The city is completely asleep and not even the bus terminal is open. A line of hungry taxi cabs waits to scoop us up because they must know that, by this point, we are putty in their hands....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0574s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mom
non-member comment
To laugh or to cry?
Well, Natalie, you are spoiling us - three stories in one day! Very diverse stories, no doubt. Only knowing that you got to your destination safely, I could read it laughing. Thanks for the great sense of humor in your portrayal of various characters and events. I am sure humor was the only thing that would help you survive such a trip.