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Published: November 29th 2008
...you will be eating bread, butter and jam every morning, instant coffee included. But come on....Nescafe...NO ES CAFE.
...you will be spending more than the alotted time in the bathroom because you're folding and hoarding wads of toliet paper.
...the words "WHERE AM I?" fall out of your mouth all too often.
...you'll go on "fluid restriction" hours before boarding a night bus in Bolivia because you know it will be 5 hours before the first potty break, which in reality means everyone milling about zombie-like at 1am in the street (aka a dusty path), looking for the bathroom (aka the spot you choose to relieve yourself on)
...things are still found "al fondo."
...everyone will be assigned the same two setas on a bus, which of course leads to a lot of arguing.
...your clothes will ALWAYS be dusty or stained. Not a day goes by that we don't feel disgusting.
...protecting your head during the bus boarding process is essential because there's a 99% chance it will be bopped by a bundle, containing either a baby or a bunch of potatoes.
...you'll be "splurging" and ordering a cheeseburger instead of a hamburger, which we then have to split in half because we're on super budget mode.
...you will find a hair in every ham and cheese sandwich you eat (or anyting you eat, really....), but only if you are Liz, not Anne.
...sometimes you can't leave a town on a bus on time because the highway "se rompió" (broke).
...random teenage boys come up and ask to have their picture with you just because you're white. And female. A flat out "NO" is the appropriate response.
...every answer for a question asked in a bus station can be found "al fondo." We still don't know what that means...and it would probably be helpful if we did.
...you must always have toliet paper with you. Always.
...just because someone gives you a seemingly helpful answer does not mean that it's based on any knowledge.
...sometimes you and your travel mate take up all the space in the room you rented for $4/night.
...you can eat your dinner in dessert items, all for under $2.
...you can do your Christmas shopping in a store that's not Wal-Mart. Which is a good thing on so many levels, especially since we just read that someone died yesterday in the holiday madness that is Black Friday.
...you may be forced to listen to an evangelical dental product salesman for 45 minutes on a hot bus, while the man next to you intently chews his coca leaves, throwing his pieces on the floor, clearly not listening to the message about how chewing coca leaves stains your teeth green. And here he could've bought the deal of a lifetime, a package of teeth whitener for the "special low price for you passengers, only 10 Bolivianos...."
...you keep seeing the same backpackers over and over again, in various cities across various countries, as all backpackers have the same bible, The Lonely Planet guides.
...the cafe/restaurant will be closed when you want to eat there. That's a given, no matter what time of day it is and no matter what your blasted Lonely Planet book says.
...this list will continue to grow over the next two weeks, especially this next week, as we hope to make it out of Bolivia and all the way north through Peru, so we're sitting on a beach this time next weekend. Bus travels usually bring good travel tales, as difficult as those situations are to endure as they're actually happening.
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Kyle
non-member comment
I WANT TO BE THERE!!