On Sunday morning I woke up at 6am to see my parents to their taxi to take them to the airport. Then I had a few hours until I need to be to the bus station. I took my time and packed and then got in a combi/taxi to the bus station. I got on a nice Pullman bus that was headed to La Paz, but they were going to drop me off in another town to get another bus to go to Cochabamba, easy enough, I thought.
On the Pullman bus I sat next to a little man who is from Taiwan, but has been living in Bogotá, Colombia for a few years selling motorcycles. He was proud to tell me he had eight cars and was now traveling to Bolivia to expand his business. He was nice though and I found his Spanish accent to be funny since it had an “Asian” sound to it.
I was told we would get to the town where I was to switch buses at 3pm, but of course we didn’t get there till 5pm. Patricia, the SIT secretary, who I was suppose to call told me not to arrive late in Cochabamba and to call her if I could when I switched buses. Well, I got off the bus and was told it wasn’t a normal bus terminal; actually it wasn’t a bus terminal at all. I would be riding on real Bolivian buses: crowded to the max, no bathrooms, and no frills. I had very little time to process this, as a huge gust of dust came out of no where and invaded my already hurting eyes. Great. Then I dragged my backpacks to where I was to jump on a random bus marked for Cochabamba.
A little shoe shining boy came RUNNING across the street, first asking if I wanted my shoes shinned, then asking if I needed to change money. I asked a woman in a food stand where the bus for Cochabamba was, she pointed to where some people were standing so I dragged my things over there. By that time the little boy knew I wanted to go to Cochabamba and was trying to help me with that. Out of nowhere a bus marked Cochabamba pulled up, and practically never stopped. I threw my backpacks onto the bottom and ran to jump on the bus that was still moving. I got on it and it was FULL, they told me to move to the back. There were three ladies and a little girl sleeping in the back along with a man who wasn’t sleeping. He told me the little girl’s seat was my seat and I would need to wake up her mom to move her. Well there were quite a few bags of things between me and the lady and I really didn’t want to wake a stranger up. So the man woke her up and then she woke up her daughter, but that wasn’t so easy. Her daughter wouldn’t wake up for anything, at one point I wondered if something might be wrong, it took a good minute of shaking the little girl to wake her up. She woke up enough to pass out on the floor of the bus. I squeezed into her spot.
Then it was time for me to pay. And guess what? I had no Bolivianos, only Chilean pesos. And no one would change it, I think because they didn’t know the exact exchange rate, which I guess is good they didn’t try to rip me off. So the lady next to me took care of me. She paid my $25 Bolivianos fare (about $3 USD) and took my $10,000 pesos (about $20 USD) to change when we got to Cochabamba. I thought that was really nice of her.
The bus ride to Cochabamba was suppose to be five hours, I think it was about that long, but it felt like 24. I have failed to mention that the lady sitting next to me also had a two month old son, Christopher. He was a good boy and didn’t cry too much, but he took up some room along with the little girl who didn’t have a seat. It was cramped in the way back of the bus. We had one 15 minute stop where we could buy food and use the bathroom. All I had was 1 Boliviano, enough to use the bathroom. No food. I did find half a pack of chocolate covered almonds in my bag, which I was very happy about.
It was getting dark and my choices were to try to sleep or watch the movie. Happily they did show a good movie, Air Force Once. Which brings me to my next observation about South American buses: every single bus company has men working for them as drivers and attendants (except Cruz del Sur). And you can tell by which movies are shown. When I was in the Cruz del Sur bus they showed chick-flicks and every single movie played by men attendants have fighting in them, it’s just truth.
Well Air Force One was good, I hadn’t seen it before, of course and it passed time very quickly. After the movie was over we were practically in Cochabamba, or so I thought. We had a good half hour before we got to the city and it was hot. Ricky and Megan can relate to this, buses get hot in the night time for some reason. It was like a sauna between this lady, her baby and this man who had been sleeping for hours. I couldn’t get sick though, that was not an option. Then we got to Cochabamba and I guess this is a pretty big city, we drove around for another half hour before we got to the bus terminal. When we got there the lady and I tried to find a money exchange without any luck, everything was closed. What to do? I spotted and ATM and told her I could get money out of there and then pay her back in Bolivianos. Good plan. Well of course I got four 100s out, so now I needed change. I went to a little snack bar to buy a soda and get change and all of a sudden three kids walk in saying Jacquelyn? Jacquelyn? I was really confused because the plan was for me to call Patricia when I arrived. However I was much later than I had said. I was really confused like I said, why were these kids saying my name? I responded that I was indeed Jackie they all kissed me on the cheek and well if you can imagine 3 strangers coming to your rescue while you were trying to pay back another lady that came to your rescue you would just be a little, um, surprised? I explained to them that I needed to pay the lady back and they reached in their pockets and paid for me! AMAZING. Then at the same moment they called Patricia and I had to talk to her, I could tell she had been worried and I was so shaken up that I couldn’t explain in Spanish what had happened. She just told me to go with Pedro to the hotel, so I did.
These kids were funny. We never had a formal introduction and when we were walking out to the car I asked in Spanish, “So who are you guys?” That got a pretty good laugh, followed by responses, “Bin Ladden, terrorists, etc” I could tell these kids would be fun. We talked as Pedro drove, he asked me if I was hungry. Well I was, but I was also sick after that bus ride. Plus I new I wouldn’t be finding any good vegetarian food. He suggested a hamburger and I admitted to not eating meat, they thought I was crazy. Then they suggested ice cream and I agreed. Chocolate ice cream for dinner was amazing. And I changed my 100 so I could pay them back for paying the lady on the bus. Good deal. We had a few more laughs on the way to the hotel, where they dropped me off and we said goodbye. I got in bed around 12 midnight, what a day.
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