So, we arrived in San Borja hot, sticky, dirty, tired, grouchy, sore, cranky, and of course more than ready to get on yet another 1950`s bus and go down yet another bumpy, rutted dirt road. Seriously, the roads here are unbelievable. They have to drive like drunken maniacs, swerving rapidly back and forth to miss the holes, and there`s always a set of deep ruts from the last time it rained on either side of the bus.
About five minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart, the bus driver hopped in and drove away. I approached the bus next door and asked what happened, to which the driver replied, “Oh, he`ll be back in just a quick little second.” Well, a quick little forty-five minutes later, after we had sweated out our most recent bottles of water, he rolled back up in an entirely different bus, and FINALLY we started loading. I should mention that this a process that is NEVER expedient. Once the driver and his cohort had stacked all our gear (how can 20 people have SO much stuff?) plus all the packages, spare tires, tools, bicycle carts, etc. on top of the bus (at a height of at least 1/2 the bus… a good six feet!) and after several shouted complaints from the other passengers (Vamos! Vaaaaaaaaaaamoooooooosssss!!!), we were finally on the road.
Pat got the sweet seat again (although I`m sure it`s slightly blasphemous to call any seats on these busses “sweet”), dead center with aisle leg room at the back of the bus. This bus was by far the most extreme we`d encountered. If you can remember back to your school days… the bench style seats covered in vinyl were the only thing on offer. Woohoo! Since we had to keep the windows open to avoid dying from heat exhaustion, we were immediately covered in dust and our lungs filled with lots of icky dirtiness. I`m still recovering three days post!
Our bus was blue, but this is a pretty good likeness to the vehicle we bumped along in for 10 hours sucking dust.
The locals were really awesome, and we were the only gringos. Despite the crappy ride, it`s actually great to be off the gringo trail. Going to places like the Pantanal and Uyuni and Machu Picchu isn`t really experiencing South America the way South Americans do, it`s really not a whole lot different than going to a beautiful resort in Mexico. Except for the fact that you can`t drink the water, everything is held as close to gringo standards as possible. After a few conversations with other passengers, combined with the slow realization that this crappy, bumpy, 10 hour ride was the norm for everyone else, I started to loosen up and enjoy being so much more immersed in another culture. There`s also something about going through a not-so-fun experience with people that sort of bonds you and makes it not so bad.
While the bus company sell tickets two to a seat, they definitely fit only 1.5 Jema`s, and only 1 Pat. So, across the back of the bus, in an area meant for 5, Pat took the middle, I took the right side, and we formed the “back seat alliance” with another guy on Pat`s left. He shared mandarins, and we shared potato chips inbetween clouds of dust and grime. In typical Bolivian style, we picked up anyone alongside the road with a thumb out. At one point, all the seats, save for one plus our back row, were full. A kid about 1/2 Pat`s size suggested that Pat scoot into one of the 1/2 spaces either next to me or our amigo so the kid could sit in the middle instead of away from his friends with the woman a few seats up. Not this time! Out the window went all the guilt from the previous trips. I thought, “There is no way you`re making my 6`7″ boyfriend cram into a space meant for a child.” I told the young man, “No. He has to sit here. Look at his legs. He`s over 2 meters tall. You`ll have to sit up there.” Score one for the gringos!
After a promise of “one more hour” to the half way town, we rolled into San Ignacio six hours after departure… only three hours late! The woman who sold me my bottle of water was really disappointed that I didn`t want to buy chicken from her. “There`s chicken. Are you sure you want just the water.” Yes I`m sure. “There`s chicken too, you know. You just want this tiny little water?” Yes, that`s all, thank you. “But, there`s chicken.” Just the water, please. “Well, okay.” Really rather comical.
We loaded back up on the bus after thirty mintues, ready for more brain rattling. We were five minutes down the road before the bus drove through some heinous construction sites and really deep ditches (our precarious top-load conspiring with gravity and tipping us dangerously) before coming to an abrupt stop. All the passengers started getting up, so we followed the leader. Outside the bus, a man was selling ice cream. He had dished it up and handed it over before we could decide whether or not to take the health risk (an ingredient of ice cream is water!), so we threw caution to the wind and downed our delicious vanillia, strawberry, banana, chocolate scoops. It didn`t take us long to realize that the reason the bus had stopped and all had piled off had something to do with the river we`d just arrived at. On the other shore, a fuel truck was driving out onto an early 1900`s wooden thing floating in the water. It was so strange to see such a modern (relatively) piece of equipment on such an archaic structure. Only a few more seconds were gone before all the pieces came together. “Wait a minute. That`s a ferry, I guess. And they`re coming over here. And when they get here, our bus is going over there.” Sure enough, one tiny little mideval canoe built of barn wood with a 10-15 horsepower motor mounted on back was hooked along-side the giant, rotting ferry. We loaded up. First the motorist slammed it into reverse to get the boat moving away from shore. Then a cohort grabbed the bow-line and hooked the canoe onto the back of the boat. Then they gunned it, and slowly, our bus and all the passengers trying desperately to balance on the one inch slats placed 12 inches apart (on either side of the tire pads, of course), ferried across the river. Once on the other side, as soon as the ferry touches dry ground, boys take chains mounted on either side of the platform-of-death and run like mad to wrap them around the grounding posts before physics makes the boat bounce back out into the river.
This is a much newer, way less shoddy version of the ferries we took across the rivers.
Our river crossing, combined with seeing the teams of brahma bulls pulling carts with yokes straight out of the 1800`s made me feel like I was in a dream world. The different technologies we saw ranged anywhere from medival (the ferry, the cart and cattle combos) to modern day (cellphones and backhoes) to everything in between (the bus, the ferry motors, and the huts or mud/brick houses).
After another hour or so of dirt roads, there was a commotion a few seats up, and the driver pulled over and got out. At their leisure, passengers started to get off. We decided to join the fun, and found the driver outside loosening lugnuts on the left duals. I asked the woman standing next to me what happened, and she told me, as if I was the owner of a mere three brain cells, “It went flat.” Oh. Well, it didn`t look flat, so it must have been the inside tire. Pat was called upon to use his superpower and get the spare down off the top of the bus. I wish I would have gotten a picture of all of us standing around, the men (plus one Jema) watching the action, and the women standing on the other side of the bus cracking cocounuts on the ground and inviting us to partake in the surprisingly delicious fare.
We arrived finally in Trinidad, not too much worse for the wear, save my poor ragged throat. I felt like I`d just come home from a hot summer day at the mine on the blasting crew with no airconditioning. Pat said I looked like I`d just come home from two. Pat`s superpower was again enlisted for the unloading phase while I talked to people about which hotel we should stay at and how we should get there (MOTO TAXI!!!! I love these things!). The only down side is having to ride on seperate motorcycles… we often can`t stay together in traffic, and our drivers take different routes, which has left Pat wondering where the heck his girlfriend is a time or two. I usually turn up (or vice versa) just seconds before his mind (or mine) turns to imagining the worst.
Our hotel room was kind of weird. One double bed with eight other singles, but the owner promised we`d have the whole thing to ourselves. Trinidad is hot, hot, hot, and more hot, so the walls, save for the cement support walls, were only waist high, the rest made of mosquito netting. The vaulted ceilings made me feel like we were in a theater, onstage. The shower didn`t actually produce hot water, but this time we were thankful. The woman explained that the water got a little heated as it waited in a tank on top of the building to be used, but that`s a hot as we were going to want it. She was right. I delighted in two refreshingly crisp showers while we were there.
Exhausted from all the travelling, we went immediately to sleep (at 8:30), and didn`t move for 11 hours (who could in all that heat?). We woke up feeling miserable, cranky, head-achy, nauseous… mostly just awful. I couldn`t bear to choke down more than a few pieces of dry white toast and butter while Pat ate his ham and eggs. A few aspirin later, we were feeling a little better. We inquired at a travel agency about our river options, but they said (as did the guide books) that we`d have to go directly to the river. So, we hopped some moto taxi`s to Puerto Almacen. Upon arrive, I asked for the Transportes Fluviales office. The drivers said, “Oh. That`s another 5 km upriver at Puerto Varador.” One glance at the river (or do I mean muck hole) was enough to know no boats were leaving from Almacen. I explained our plight to the drivers, and after much muddled conversation, I deduced that there was no water at the other port either, and that if we wanted to travel by boat, we should go to the other port and talk to the captain about our options. The drivers were quite certain that 50 kms (2 hours in a the back of a truck or on a bus on the bumpy dirt roads) away there was a river flowing that we could take north. They REALLY wanted to take us to the other port (there was 30 bolivianos each in it for them), but our luggage was back in Trinidad, so I had them return us to the plaza.
At this point, these two travel-worn gringos had three options. 1) Pack up our bags, buy hammocks, walk two miles to the gas station, hitch a truck two hours to the river with water, and hope a boat was departing soon. 2) Go to the bus station and find out when the next miserable 30 hour bus to Guayamerin is departing. (don`t get me wrong… the busses are a good character building experience, but my character could use a rest day). 3) See if, on the off chance, we might be able to afford a flight.
We looked into option 3 first, and after finding out the flight was $70 USD, we decided to splurge and hooked up with the following day`s departure to the Brazil/Bolivia border. Alleluia!
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