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I love traveling by bus in South America. There was waking up in the middle of the night with a small child laying across me like an octopus, while mom slept peacefully across the aisle. And then there was waking up to a beautiful sunrise behind my first sight of the Andes mountains growing larger in the distance. It's always memorable.
First place goes to Cruz del Sur company, who makes everyone feel like a VIP even in "Backpacker class". Thank you for your satin and fleece blankets, pillows, seats big enough for 2 of me, clean bathrooms that actually stock toilet paper, english subtitles, attentive service, and edible food.
If your lucky, as i was in Argentina and Ecuador, you catch the moving disco bus complete with black lights, disco balls, furry dashboards with trinkets attached, and really loud music varying between Latin dance and Lady Gaga. No one actually dances but if you arrive somewhere in the night, it puts you in the mood too.
There are eye opening experiences to watch out for that can slap you into reality despite how groggy you might be. Driving along steep windy roads dug into mountain sides in the blackness of the night and passing by bonfire circles of gypsies in the middle of nowhere. The notoriously dangerous Peru buses flipped over on the side of the road which my busdriver skillfully avoided at 80k per hour. In the desert in Chile, a man boarded the bus in full army gear with a bulletproof vest and a rifle and walked up and down the aisle staring us down. A teenage boy across the aisle looked at me and pointed insistently to a seat belt I hadn't known existed before. I put it on just in time. The man then proceeded to yell for a half hour, none of which myself or my travel friend Simon understood. We thought for sure we were going to be made to pay bribes as a few travelers I know had. But he finally left the bus, and I managed to get from the boy that it was all regarding seatbelts. I got the point.
Some buses provide meals on long trips, some don't, but you will never go hungry because there is always a group of adorable women selling home baked goodies that board the bus wherever it stops. Empanadas, alfahores, tamales, and more they carry in their baskets. If the bus won't stop, they stand in a line in the middle of the road until it let's them on. These women take "doing what it takes to make the sale" to another level.
In Ecuador I arrived an hour late and missed my second bus because the driver made a second income off picking up every hitchhiker along the way and dropping them off for a fee. This turned into a sort of speed storytelling game which made the trip much more interesting. The woman sitting next to me proceeded to cross herself every 5 minutes for the duration of the trip and I started to wonder if there was a cause associated with our bus trip that I might need to contribute to.
Every border crossing was exciting. In Chile, the man in front of me was interrogated and fined $200 for a forgotten apple in his bag, while the border official told me we would have beautiful children together and promptly stamped my passport.
It would be a horrible dishonor to forget the bus drivers, who drove me safely with all my luggage through five countries over five months. I love Bruno, who drove me to Colca Canyon while singing aloud to classic Madonna hits and plowing through rivers like he was driving an army vehicle and not a rickety old bus with bad suspension. The guy in Chile referred to me annoyingly as "Blondie", and offered me pot. Carlos was good to me, sat me up front so he could share an apple and his taste in music with me, man how I wished he would just watch the road. In Ecuador, the bus driver must have learned from the same school as my Grampa did. Never putting consistent pressure on gas or brake but pumping them consistently for hours around windy roads. I arrived in Cuenca green in the face and nostalgic.
The movies were great. The only one played in English in 5 months was "Shopoholic"....Hmmmmm. I watched the true story of the men trapped underground for weeks in the Chilean mines, while riding a few hours away from where it happened, and proceeded to ball my eyes out in front of 30 strangers. I have learned all of the Spanish words required to make gory R rated movies, and will now have nightmares of assassins and goblins.
And then there is always the buses that don't stop....ever. Trying to board these weighed down and cumbersome with your backpacks is an adventure sport in itself. Thank you to the many people who gave me the allie-oop.
I have appreciated every one of these experiences. Traveling by bus allows you to see sights you would miss if you took a faster route, allowing you the time to get to know the place you are visiting, understand it. I could stare out the window for hours at the beauty of the untouched, wide open spaces, and marvel at the diversity in the scenery. Time spent on a bus forces you to reflect on the past, and to plan ahead for the future. It means ample time to deal with goodbyes, to people and places you've become attached to, maybe to never see them again. Constantly moving means constantly opening your eyes to a place you have not been, there is no repetition, the thrill is addictive and I find it hard to do anything but sit there wide-eyed, soaking it all in.
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