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Published: September 9th 2014
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Travelling on a long distance buses for hours and hours is part of every day life in South America. In fact, it's the transportation backbone of the continent.
The quality and condition ranges from eyeball rattling, zero suspension lumps of metal on wheels. To top end luxury with individual tv's & on-demand movies, free non alcoholic drinks, good food and dedicated stewardesses (Peru and Argentina). Some have bingo games mid journey (Argentina). Some serve champagne and whiskey (Argentina) and even the cheapest buses will show a movie but of course in Spanish. No matter your budget there's a long distance bus to suit everybody.
So how do you prepare for long distance bus travel?? After spending, what feels like, hundreds of hours on buses I have become a wizz at setting up home in my chair and then packing it away in the blink of an eye. Below is a list of essential items to survive long distance journeys.
Survival kit;
Loo roll - key!!
Water
Snacks - fruit (pre washed), carrots (pre washed), crackers, biscuits etc.
Travel sick pills
Inflatable pillow
Torch - some bus toilets don't have lights
Eye mask
Ear plugs
A few layers of clothes (buses in northern South America have one Air Con setting - Antartica)
Jogging bottoms or leggins - jeans are hell!
Hand sanitizer - most buses don't have running water to wash hands
A plastic bag or two - for rubbish or...... vomit
A book and/or music
Face wipes (maybe more of a girls thing)
Moisturiser for face and hands
Some small bills or coins in case they stop at a decent toilet - 9 times out of 10 you have to pay.
Tooth brush and paste
Mini mouth wash in case you can't clean your teeth.
Remember;
Even if they say they will stop for food, pack some snacks just in case. In our experience, with the exception of Argentina and Chile, buses will stop for dinner.
Don't show off lots of flashy gadgets - be cautious when taking photos, especially if you are travelling alone.
If you think some food will make you sick, don't eat it!
For shorter journeys always take the day bus. You'll see some spectacular scenery.
Avoid using the overhead compartments. Its best to travel with your belongings at your feet.
Here are some of our memorable experiences;
Our first long distance bus was in Colombia, 12hrs from Santa Marta to Medellin. The last few hours of the journey, as we made our way into Medellin, was incredibly windy. I got very sick. The image of trying to aim into that little dirty hole while we twisted our way through the mountains will never leave me. Lesson learnt....take pills!
Every bus we took in Colombia and Ecuador was freezing. One particular journey we ended up wearing two pairs of trousers and 6 tops/jumpers/jackets. When we stopped for dinner we had to ask the driver to open the luggage compartment so we could grab some more layers.
During a trip from Quito to Manta in Ecuador the bus drivers chair breaks. Now if this was in the UK, the bus would have been put out of service and we would have been delayed/stranded for hours. Not Ecuador. We take a minor detour to a house where a young guy runs a small welding business out of his front garden. For a few coins he hops on and gets to work. Instead of asking the passenger's to get off, we sit there watching the sparks fly, breathing in the horrible fumes, while the young guy saves our journey. Within 10 minutes we were back on the road!
Speeding drivers is common. One particular driver thought he was Colin McRae and sped through the corners without taking his foot off the gas. Thankfully and ambulance saw this and radioed through to a police car. The police pulled us over and told him off. After that the driver drove at a much safer speed.
Our two most recent memorable experiences were this week in Bolivia. We left Iquique, Chile on Sunday morning only to arrive at the Bolivian border and be told that the Bolivian government had introduced a new holiday called Pedestrian Day. This meant no vehicles could travel the country for 26hrs. We were allowed to continue our journey up until 25k's out of Oruro where we met a huge queue of traffic all waiting for the new holiday to finish at 7pm. We sat and waited in the queue for 4.5 hours. Dull.
Later that same Sunday, we boarded another bus from Oruro to Potosi. Because of the Pedestrian Holiday, all of the fuel stations had been closed. So our journey begun searching for a fuel station. When we arrived at a fuel station the bus driver told us to close our curtains. Everybody followed his instructions and when Tomas asked one of the other passengers why, they told him it was illegal for us to be on the bus while filling up petrol!
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