Hurry Up and Wait
After taking a grueling overnight bus to the windy Argentine town of Comodoro Rodavaria (a town whose name is its greatest asset), I arrived to discover I would have to wait another eight hours for the next bus to my final destination: sunny Puerto Madryn. Since I view an eight-hour layover as a piece of cake (for reasons to be explained below), I decided to check my trusty backpack at the bus station so I could enjoy my day in this sleepy, non-descript town.
When I returned to pick up my bag however, I was informed that the man with the key had decided to go home and wouldn’t be back for hours. Helpless, I pleaded for someone to open the door to the storage room, but was assured that since there was no other key, I would have to wait nine more hours for the next bus, which would be my second straight overnight bus (a well-known traveler’s no-no). But though many would be overcome with frustration at such inefficiency, I am miraculously having quite a good time. Let me explain why.
I am a true time-killer; a layover lover. To me, twelve hours is not a long wait, but a wonderful opportunity. Over the years, I have made an art of anticipation. My cohort Laz and I have perfected our technique; as he once eloquently said as he sat in a boring Brazilian town in expectation of some female, “Farmers wait for rain; I wait for girls.” Usually, I find myself waiting for transport, which is quite a time-consuming hobby in itself. When my travels began seven years ago, before I had developed my present appreciation for time, I would complain when I learned of the “waste of time” I would often have to endure to continue my journey. My first instinct when I was told I would have to wait two hours for the agent to even arrive at the ticket window in Nanjing, China was overt dissatisfaction, manifested by a fair amount of complaining. But after a few more months in Asia, I quickly learned that getting upset and raising my voice not only worsened my situation, but earned me quite a few dirty looks and potential enemies.
By the time I got to the Middle East, I was developing a tolerance for time-wasting. In Egypt, for example, I learned that buying a simple train ticket required me to wait in not one, not two, but three long lines. It turns out that the “pointless bureaucracy” I experienced was actually the government’s attempt to create more jobs to keep unemployment down and since there wasn’t much demand for postal inspectors in the middle of the desert, I was forced to reserve my ticket at one window, wait to write my name at the second window and then actually purchase my ticket from the third window. Though I wasn’t thrilled to wait two hours, at least I did my part to help ease Egypt’s unemployment rate.
The next year was when I learned the true art of waiting, for I spent six months in the birthplace of the wait: Africa. Maybe it has something to do with man’s evolution taking place in Africa (in itself quite an exhaustively long process), but waiting to an African is synonymous with breathing. Sitting in a fly-ridden bus station in Malawi for seven hours one sweltering afternoon, I realized that if waiting was an Olympic sport, the Africans would definitely take the gold. My tolerance of anticipation rose to new levels on this magical continent as the stakes were suddenly raised, for I would have to wait in terms of days and not hours.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that time was valuable and enjoyable no matter what I found myself doing. Invariably, sulking and looking at my watch every five minutes transformed my wait into a punishing experience, while treating my time as a gift was the true secret to fun. After all, I reflected, it was the essence of free time, with absolutely no preoccupations or assignments to worry about, except for swatting the occasional fly or warding off relentless staring locals.
By the time I got to India, I was a waiting expert. This is a fine skill to bring to India, for let me remind the reader that the Indians are very patient people; for an Indian waiting generations and generations to reach a more favorable birth, sitting on a train platform for sixteen hours is a mere eyeblink. I learned from the Indians that waiting does not require a “waiting room” or even a bench. Many a night I arrived to a train station to find hundreds of people camped out in the middle of the station, awaiting a train with enough space (often in the overhead luggage rack) for their family of eleven. Until that moment arrived, they displayed their art of anticipation as they unfolded blankets, seated themselves, took out countless tins of wonderful food and enjoyed themselves.
It was during one of my double-digit hour waits on the subcontinent that I learned that for many people around the world, travel is a rare opportunity to leave one’s immediate environment; for this reason, the seventy year-old in Cambodia and the twelve year-old in Madagascar view every moment of travel as a time of wonder, an exposure to the world around them. Watching them, I realized just how much can be learned from every precious moment, even one we instinctively call a waste of time. Soon, my happy-go-lucky attitude was surprising even myself, as I adapted a philosophy of serendipity, wondering how I could make the most of my nine hours in a Venezuelan bus station.
My reformed attitude got me thinking. Is our dislike of waiting a universal truth or just a cultural phenomenon? Why is it, I wondered, that wait is a word with such a negative connotation? It turns out that attitudes towards waiting do seem to be influenced by a number of factors, including religion, history and even linguistics. In a country like India, for example, where time is measured not in months and years but in millennia, what’s a few hours in the grand scheme of things? And do you think the Kurds, who have been waiting hundreds of years for a homeland, really complain when the bus is half an hour late?
In Latin America, people also seem to be resigned to the fact that more often than not, things don’t seem to run on time. In Mexico, for example, ahora, which translates directly to now, actually means when I have nothing else to do (I learned this after waiting for three hours for a friend who told me over the phone he would meet me at a bar. When he finally arrived and met my flood of insults, he explained to me the true meaning of ahora and the more pressing form of the word, ahorita). Among Spanish speakers, there are other lingual differences, as the word esperar in Spanish has two definitions: wait and hope. It is obvious this connotes a much more positive definition of waiting, maybe because with all their transportation problems, a delay is not just a determined wait, but an embodiment of hope that the bus will actually leave at some point and complete the journey without a 3am breakdown that requires the passengers to get out and push the bus out of a monstrous mud puddle.
So what does a seasoned time-killer such as myself actually do to pass so much time? The options are endless, but let me recount some of my favorites:
- Observation
Maybe it’s the cultural anthropologist in me, but I have learned so much by just watching people’s behavior, the way primatologists spend countless hours watching monkeys. Whether it’s viewing a family of seven sit patiently in Guatemala or watching a seven year-old sell foodstuffs in an Indian train depot, there is much to be learned from non-active participation, as the anthropologists would say. Or to switch roles, as many will realize in a place like India, it is actually the traveler that is the one being watched intently by hundreds of curious eyes. (Hint to those in this position: my friend Wolf actually made a few rupees walking through a staring crowd with an upturned hat, seeking donations for the entertaining ‘Look-at-the-tourists-Show.’) - Reading
Ah, the joy of a good book, or at least one in the correct language, no matter how cheesy a romance novel it may be. During a twelve-hour layover in the Manila Airport, I actually purchased an outrageously over-priced Grisham novel, finished it and returned it for another. Also falling into this category is the art of killing a few hours in a newsstand reading every English publication I can find. - Internet
I remember the day before this technological innovation, but now I am thankful for the ever-present cybercafe, as I now have access to an infinite amount of pointless information, no matter which corner of the globe I find myself. - Drinking
As the English would attest, hitting the piss is one way of passing the time, but has faded in rank for me. My most famous wait-inspired alcoholic binge involved my friend Laz, a bottle of cheap Philippine gin and an ensuing overnight adventure on an over-crowded ferry, which involved sleeping on top of a semi-trailer and awakening to find my new Nikes stolen, but that is another story altogether.
- Sleeping
In between exhausting legs of long journeys, a little shut-eye is the perfect refresher, though finding a suitable spot is an acquired skill. Just today when my Canadian friend and I discovered our undesired wait, we sought out a cheap motel, but when I asked the hotel proprietor if he rented rooms by the hour, I was not surprised when he looked us up and down, sneered in disgust and retorted, No! “No, sir,” I tried to explain, “we are waiting for a bus and just want to rest. Really, we’re not gay!” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, to quote Jerry Seinfeld).Perhaps the greatest lay-over sleep on record took place in the Mauritius Airport in the middle of the Indian Ocean, when my cohort Laz and I found an empty terminal and laid out our sleeping bags, took a few sleeping pills and faded off to dreamland. I awoke to a bustling terminal full of travelers staring at the two strange guys sprawled on the floor, one of which (Laz) was scantily-clad in a pair of tattered boxer shorts with a giant tear up their backside. High class.
My objective here is not to boast; after all, my waiting abilities will not gain me fame, notoriety or job offers. And sure, there are some waits that are just too long to bear, such as the time I arrived at a port in Malaysia to be informed that the next ferry was not to leave for another four months. But the lesson I would like to pass on is this: The next time you find yourself cursing Delta because your flight is fifty minutes late (and no free drink vouchers are offered), keep in mind that around the world 15% of the world’s population is always waiting for transportation. For anyone counting, that is roughly one billion people, most of which are waiting for a 16-cylinder engine to be fixed with a rubber band and a can opener, or a bus that has been held up by an avalanche, a mudslide or herd of stubborn oxen.
So, if you have time to kill, take a deep breath, thank the heavens you are alive and try to enjoy yourself. Whether that requires sharing a hotel bed with a stranger, reading an excruciating Sidney Sheldon novel or just downing a bottle of fine Philippine gin, relax, the wait will soon be over.
