How many Bolivians does it take to fix a bus?
Rather obligatory at this point, I finally brought myself to shower after the mine tour. Afterall, it was now a balmy 57 degrees in my room. I spent the rest of the day blowing dust out of my nose and coughing up black loogies. For dinner, I tried llama, which was pretty good. I managed to stay up a little later than my 7:00 the previous night as well, though not much. I have learned that turning the lights on in the room actually heats things up by a few degrees, which make all the difference in the world.
The next day I got my stuff ready to go, though admittedly slowly, and headed off to the bus station to go to Uyuni for my last tour in Bolivia through the salt flats. It turns out that I missed the 11:30 bus and would have to wait until 6:30. It was 12:30 now and just starting to rain, which always complements the cold in a miserable way. So, with 6 hours to burn I headed to an internet cafe. During my time there it started to hail, or just release something vicious from the sky. What happened to my Vacation of Eternal Summer? I was not prepared for this crap.
I left the internet place with hope of maybe finding something else interesting to do, but I had exhausted most of my options already. The hail remained on the ground in a layer of slush and it continued to rain. I was freezing, wearing something like 4 layers of shirts but without raincoat. I went to the bus station to seek refuge, but that place is crowded and not a very desireable place to be. I used the internet again and then ate some food, which I thought would warm me up, but the big open-air ambience ruined any hopes of that. Finally I went back to the bus office at about 5:00 and just stood there for an hour and a half.
I watched the man paint the wall. I watched some woman across the street try to hail down a taxi to help her take her two fresh sheepskins home (seriously, the heads were still attached and it was odd watching the bodyless skin and head getting thrown into the trunk of a car). I watched the rest of the bus passengers bundle up for the bus ride with hats, gloves, jackets, wool blankets. Man, it was going to be cold on this bus. Six hours…that’s all I had was 6 more hours and then this day of eternal freezing will be over. I put on my rain coat in an effort to trap in any heat my body still had.
I got on the little minibus and took my seat by the window, which I noticed had a broken lock and so the window remained slightly open. Nice. All attempts to close it failed. I curled my body up as much as I could, putting my face in my jacket and off we went. I did manage to warm up a bit, though not entirely. This may have been due to the broken window opening periodically due to the rattling of the bus on the dirt road.
I fell asleep and woke up slightly to notice that the bus had stopped and I heard someone say “20 minutes,” so I figured we were making a bathroom/food stop and would be off in 20 minutes, so I kept sleeping. A few minutes later, someone got on the bus and askd the rest of us to get off so there’s less wight when they jack up the bus. Oh man. I got off and realized that we’re in the middle of nowhere. It was dark outside and I noticed mountains in the distance, but where we were it was flat and all sand.
So we just stood around while some guys made clanking noises just below where my seat was. I went to go see what they were doing and found half of the bus standing around watching, sometimes shining their flashlights beneath the bus. It was as if everyone standing around was offering moral support to help the fixing of the bus pass faster. I never figured out what the problem was, but after a half an hour (and seemingly nothing done to the bus), we were off again.
I figured this set us back a half an hour, but we should only have 3 more hours to go. Three more hours to be cold. I fell back asleep hoping to just wake up when we arrived. I woke up at midnight thinking we would be there soon. I woke up again at 2am…still not there; again at 3:30….still not there. What the hell? At about 5am someone woke me up to collect my ticket – a sure sign that we were arriving soon.
When we arrived it was about 5:30 and I was bombarded with people asking me if I wanted to do a tour that day. No. I just want a warm bed, that warm bed I have been dreaming of during the entire 11-hour bus ride. I think we must have been going 20 miles an hour almost the whole way.
I went to a little hotel and stood in the lobby listening to a couple talking to the man about some sort of backpack that should be there but wasn’t. After about 5 minutes he asked me what I needed. Just a room for 1 person. He left and went to the back and then returned and continued talking with the couple while I stood there…at least it was warm inside. After a few more minutes: “I’m sorry señorita, there’s no space available.” Thanks, though he did tell me where to go to find more hotels.
I walked toward where he told me, in the dark lonely town and finally found a place and knocked on the door. Do you have a room for one person? “Yes, yes, come in. Where are you coming from?” Potosí. “You’re very late.” Yes, I know. We had… “problems with the bus.” He finished my sentence for me.
He gave me my room and told me that the hot showers wouldn’t b working until 7:30. Don’t worry. I won’t be getting out of bed for a while. I shut the door and threw myself under the covers, head and all, suffocating myself with my onion breath, but laughing histerically to finally have reached my warm bed.
P.S. The answer to the above question? I’m assuming zero because I don’t think the bus was actually fixed.
Tags: Bolivia, Tag Index
Tania