On the Road Again

Hello loyal readers, and there should not be too many of you since we have been pretty bad at updating this lately, but honestly our last few weeks were full of rather mundane tasks trying to wrap up our work with Environment Bolivia in Cochabamba and there wern´t too many yarns or funny tails to share. Of course being back on the road has quickly changed all that.

Taking our last experience of the so called "bus camas" here in Bolivia (literally bus-beds) we checked around before buying our tickets to Santa Cruz for a bus company that would likely have something approaching the level of service we saw in Peru. The recomendations and our own surveillance of the buses in the lot led us to the Bolivár bus company.

After tearful goodbyes to the Zemans family we hopped in our cab and arrived at the terminal with about 20 min to spare before our scheduled 8 p.m. departure. We checked our bags, crossing our fingers and trying our best to smile at the man whose responibility it would be to get them on the right bus and then proceeded outside to try and get ourselves on the right bus.

What a scene, the buses are all double parked and I consider it nothing short of miraculous that people are not crushed as the buses (called flotas) maneuver in and out of the "gates" while panicked Bolivians and tourists alike scramble aboard bus after bus in search of the one they are clutching a ticket for.

We picked a bus that looked promising and, lucky us, there was actually someone from the Bolivár company in the cargo hold who confirmed that yes this was the 8 p.m. "bus-cama" to Santa Cruz, a fact we dutifully reported to the elderly couple behind us who then passed it along to the couple behind them. The conversation went something like this.

"Is this the 8 p.m. to Santa Cruz"?
"Si"
"Is it the bus cama"?
"Si"
"Can we board yet"?
"No its closed".

This exchange was repeated again, and again, and again on down the line until at last a helpful employee decided to open the door and get all these poor confused passengers out of his face.

We found our seats and although we weren't too impressed with the "bus-cama" aspect of our ride at least our expectations were lower this time. And we also weren't the only ones to be disillusioned as we overheard other passengers complaining of the lack of leg room due to the false advertising of the whole "bus-cama scheme."

Just because we were now in our seats didn't mean the confusion was over, especially for poor Sepi who at one point awoke to the conductor announcing something that sounded like "La frontera! La frontera!" (the boarder! the boarder!). It turns out it was just some town whose name sounded a lot like "la frontera" but she still had her moment of panic thinking "where is my passport? and what boarder are we crossing again?" And then there was the midnight checkpoint where all the passengers disembarked so that drug sniffing dogs could be let on to do their thing. (Our route took us through the Chapare, Bolivia's main coca producing region and hence of some concern for the DEA). Oh and least I forget, at some point in the night, just after I had dozed off we stopped at a little roadside eatery and of course parked next to one of the apparently scarce REAL "bus-camas" of the type we had seen in Peru. Same bus line and all. Guess we got the short straw again.

There is something about a long journey via night bus that just leaves a body wretchedly confused the next morning, and this morning was no different. Of course after several months in the high and dry climates of Andean cities like Cochabamba and Arequipa, perhaps the shockingly hot and tropical climate here in Santa Cruz de la Sierra contributes to that.

Anyway we are happy to be here, checked in to a really nice place with a Toucan who hops around the garden, and ready for a good nights sleep stretched out on a real bed which lays no claim what so ever to having anything to so with a bus.