Twenty one hours by bus turns out to be not all that bad. Especially when the bus is a smooth riding, air conditioned, seat reclining beauty like we experienced through most of Brazil. The stops were regular, sleeping was not too difficult and traveling by bus was a terrific way to experience the less traveled paths and mingle with locals from all across the country. After logging our first 45 hours by bus, Tyler and I were very pleased with our decision to travel this way overland. And then came the bus to Corumba. No need for all the details, but let's just say eight hours of the same cheesy Brazilian folk-pop album was not good for our heads. Our next trip was projected to be fourteen hours from Corumba, Brazil to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We tried to purchase tickets in advance, but not trusting the overly pushy salesman, decided to buy tickets at the last minute. Turns out we probably should have trusted the overly pushy salesman. Tickets were sold out for the ride we'd planned on and our only remaining option was in an old, un-airconditioned, non-bathroomed beast of a bus. We were assured by our new pushy-but-trying-to-play-it-cool saleswoman that the road wasn't too bad, after all, it's not the rainy season, and it should only be about a fourteen to sixteen hour trip. Get on the bus, go to sleep, wake up and you're nearly there. Without another option, we bought the tickets and took the ride.
Actually, we bought the tickets, sight unseen, and they found us a little later wandering the streets of Corumba in the hands of a strange man on a motorcycle. No joke, we were literally walking down the street when a man rode up to us and passed us off our tickets without ever turning off his bike. When we arrived at the bus station, after being ripped off by the Bolivian custom officials (we could only argue for so long with the heavily armed men), we stumbled into some friends we'd made in our hostel who also had tickets for the same bus trip. However, it turned out they payed almost half the amount for their tickets. Guess we payed extra for that special moto-delivery service. Tensions were a bit high at this point and we still had the ever-important decision to make of who gets the window seat.
One look at our bus and our nerves were far from settled. She had to be pushing 30 years and smoke hurtled from her tailpipe in chunky blows. The inside of the bus was no better; the seats were thinly padded, reclined to an 85 degree angle and were lined with metal bars preventing any kind of comfortable shifting. But at least we were lucky enough to have seats; many passengers bought tickets to stand in the isles for the entire trip. As bad as our beastly bus looked, smelled and felt, she sounded even worse. Any shifting past second gear caused her to scream a cringe inducing plea for help but our driver was unsympathetic to her pain. After the first mile, Tyler was convinced this would not be the bus that would bring us into Santa Cruz.
I think it was an hour before the beast came to a halt. The driver veered her to the side of the road and with a handful of tools, spent about 15 minutes tinkering under her hood. Our crowded bus was not happy with this stop and seemed to blame the Bolivian president, Evo Morales for the problem. EvoEvo! Evo! the men yelled, shaking their fists in the air. The driver remained calm and climbed back on board, starting the beast up with a sense of pride. We clamored on, the bus still screaming with its' riders bouncing along happy for the changing scenery. Night came and Tyler and I fell into a strange half awake-half asleep state. Eyes shut, mind and body uncomfortably awake. The road grew increasingly rough and I heard the mother and her two young daughters shift in their seat next to us. About 45 seconds later, our bus hit a big bump and a body came flying through the air and into our laps. One of the little girls sitting next to us had caught wind with the bump and flipped out of her shared seat and across the isle. We were full awake at this point but confused with the body flopped on our laps. Of course the little girl was even more confused and we quickly passed her back to her concerned mother. However our midnight encounter emboldened her and her sister and from that point on, operation entertain the gringos was in full effect. Faviola the night flier and her toothless younger sister Alejandra were fascinated by us. At first they just wanted to touch my arm, which was glowingly white in the moonlight compared to their golden brown skin. Then came the interest in my hair, face and of course Tyler. We played every kind of patty-cake game possible, then rock-paper-scissors, and of course, the quick-punch game we should have never started. Alejandra was small but she packed a decent punch. We talked about our families, pets, homes and lives. Us through broken Spanish, Alejandra in a toothless slurry, seven year old voice. As the fourteenth hour turned to twenty and twenty to twenty five, Faviola and Alejandra became our new best friends. The rest of the bus grew increasingly interested in our relationship and often joined in, telling us about their country and wanting to know about ours. Throughout it all, our bus struggled to maintain a 25 miles per hour pace. By the time we finally made it to Santa Cruz thirty hours later we were dirty, tired, hungry and stiff. But amazingly, not unhappy. This we can only credit to those two sweet Bolivian girls who overpowered the screams of a beastly bus with little punches, sloppy kisses and giant monkey hugs.
