Justin Rydberg considered himself a veteran South
South American Bus Veteran
Ecuador
As long distance bus rides through the Andes go, this one started off better than several others that I had endured. Besides, it was only going to take eight hours to get from this small mountain town of Banos to the coastal city of Guayaquil, the largest urban area in all of Ecuador. And eight hours, as bus rides through the Andes go, is nothing. Yup, this was going to be a piece of cake.
Thinking back on the trials and tribulations of previous trips, I figured that by now I was a seasoned veteran on the South American bus circuit. One of those trips in particular stood out in my memory: the epic journey two weeks earlier that took me from the central highlands of Peru to the Pacific coast. It was after this trip that I concluded bus travel in South America is quite similar to Forrest Gump’s description of life: “…like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get.” It was supposed to be a simple overnight ride that left at five in the afternoon on Wednesday and would drop me off at seven Thursday morning, just in time to enjoy the entire day on the beach. Perfect, right? There would be no “lost day” spent on a bus, rather maximum travel efficiency would be achieved by riding at night when I would be sleeping anyway. Just perfect.
It turns out that perfection can turn to purgatory just as fast as the rear axle of a bus can snap in half. All of a sudden my time saving overnighter became a thirty-five hour disaster, sixteen of which passed with no consumption of food or water. Now, months later, sitting here comfortably in the computer room of my air conditioned home with a can of coke and a bag of chex mix easily within reach, I smile and consider the whole experience a positive one; one of patience testing and character building. Hindsight and reminiscing are great like that, but I know that patience and character were two virtues of no importance to me whatsoever as the bus driver handed out stale sweet bread and three ounce paper cups of Fanta that our replacement bus had brought to tide us over. As I salivated and licked my lips waiting for my rations, I was concerned with a couple virtues that offered more instant gratification, namely ingestion and digestion.
Whether that trip was a positive experience or just a big pain in the rear is debatable, but one thing is for sure: it was not enjoyable in the least. As for the trip that I was about to embark on, I had already convinced myself that it was going to be far less taxing, both physically and mentally. As far as I was concerned it was already going better. I was in the front row aisle seat with limitless legroom in front of me. Being in this relatively luxurious position was especially satisfying because it proved to me that I was finally learning a thing or two about the in’s and out’s of bus travel in South America. One might say that my three-month learning curve for a process so seemingly basic as obtaining a comfortable seat on a bus is a little ridiculous. Maybe so, but I never said I was a fast learner, and in reality it’s much more complicated than it sounds, full of variables that are uncontrollable for even the most cunning passenger.
Basically what it boils down to is that a pleasant, comfortable bus ride is not attainable by my standards. With that in mind, I was aiming for bearable.
I arrived at the bus terminal early enough to select my seat via an actual physical inspection of the bus. This is the only successful method of seat selection I have encountered. You can’t let the ticket guy at the terminal show you a picture of a beautiful new bus and bamboozle you into believing that all of the seats have enough legroom for tall gringoes, because nine times out of ten the bus in the picture is not the one you will ride on. Furthermore, the highly subjective term “enough legroom” means something completely different to someone like me who stands 6 foot 4 inches than it does to a five foot tall Ecuadoriano. You also can’t reliably pick a decent seat by looking at a seating chart because more than likely it is not the seating chart for your particular bus. This can lead to a most unpleasant situation where, based on the chart, you pick the one seat on the bus with what appears to be a reasonable amount of legroom. Then you board and find that your seat, just like all the others, has another seat bolted to the floor six inches in front of it. At that point your only recourse is to sit down and bury your knees into the seat back in front of you, hopefully far enough into the kidneys of the poor soul sitting there to ensure that at least one other person on the bus is as uncomfortable as you.
Considering such prior misfortunes, I smiled to myself and stretched my legs out straight, almost looking forward to the next eight hours. As an added bonus, the woman sitting next to me had obviously bathed within the last week or so and was not emanating any offensive odors whatsoever. Why do I consider this a bonus? I don’t care where you are in the world, as a general rule, a non-stinking (or in the most rare and wonderful circumstances – nice smelling) seatmate on public transportation should not be taken for granted. Another bonus was that her little three year old daughter, who was as cute as anything sitting quietly on her mother’s lap, was better behaved than I could have possibly hoped for. She didn’t grab at my discman. She didn’t try to touch and pull on my strange blonde hair. She just sat there peacefully, observing me and the rest of her surroundings with those huge and wondrous dark brown eyes.
Between the endless legroom and my pleasant immediate company, I wasn’t even bothered by the one disadvantage that my seat location brought with it. Being in the closest seat to the three-step stairway that led down to the bus door, I, or more specifically my knees and lower legs, were repeatedly being used as a railing by boarding passengers to balance and pull themselves up and onto the bus. But this was fine with me. I had learned and accepted months earlier, aboard a Toyota minivan with twenty-four other passengers, that my personal space was something that was going to be neither recognized nor respected on public transportation in this place. It’s just one of the many things that you get used to after a while. So I was smiling even as the tiny Quechua Indian women, each one more ripe in odor than the last, passed by, grabbing and pulling with weathered hands. As they walked by, just before hitting me in the shoulder or head with a ridiculously heavy and swaying load that even I would have trouble controlling, they would send a toothless grin my way in appreciation for my services. No problema senora, I thought to myself.
It was only about fifteen minutes after the scheduled departure time when we finally rolled away from the terminal, which would actually be considered on time (if not a little early) by South American punctuality standards. Looking out the window as the driver revved the engine, I could see that we were leaving behind a handful of waving family members along with our huge black cloud of carbon monoxide. Although I am not a mechanic by any definition of the word, the bucking motion and grinding noise that accompanied our initial forward motion gave me the sneaking suspicion that a little bit of the engine’s flywheel and clutch plate stayed at the terminal as well.
We weren’t more than five minutes into the drive when the vendors went to work. There are two types. Type I vendors stand at the front of the bus and give a two or three minute speech about the merits of the little kit they are selling. It’s usually something that includes several completely unrelated products like a shaving razor, needle and thread, scissors, and a calculator. Not only will the entire kit fit in your pocket, but this nice man will give each passenger one for the rock bottom bargain price of $3 apiece. Then, after not selling enough the first time down the aisle, the nice man announces that the price has now dropped to $2.50. What a deal. I quickly learned to ignore Type I bus vendors, mainly because they sell crap, and it has always been part of my long-term financial strategy not to exchange cash for crap.
For me however, the Type II vendors are much harder to resist. Type II’s are the ones that board the bus every time it stops and quickly cruise up and down the aisle selling all types of food and beverage. Depending on what you’re in the mood for, you can usually satisfy a craving. There are those vendors for whom bus sales is a simple game of buy low and sell high. They go into a local shop, buy a handful of bottled drinks and packaged snacks, and simply walk onto the bus and hold up what they have in their hands. There’s no need for these people to shout advertisements for what they’re trying to hawk; the familiar labels let any interested consumer know exactly what they are getting. Low overhead is what these people have to thank for their profits at the end of the day.
The fresh food vendors have a slightly more complex business plan and supply chain. Most of these people will have a little stand set up within a stone’s throw of a bus stop. They will sit there at all hours cranking out their chosen specialty at a slow buy steady pace. The key cog to these street-side enterprises is the “runner”. This person has several responsibilities. First, he has to get into position to be one of the chosen few vendors that are allowed on each bus by the door man. What the runner is selling is almost as important as timing, because the door man and driver often determine the admittance of one vendor over another based on what they are hungry for. If the driver has a sweet tooth at a particular stop, then the fried dough with cinnamon and sugar guy gets in, and the chicken-on-a-stick guy is out, no matter who was first in line.
The runner is responsible not only for getting on and selling, but also for maintaining the appearance of whatever will be left over and sold on the next bus that comes through. I couldn’t help but notice this because it stands out so much. The runners do almost everything super-fast. They walk, talk, distribute food, take money, and make change like Speedy Gonzalez. But when it comes to pulling the cloth over the rest of the food in the pan and preserving precious inventory, everything comes to a screeching halt. No runner worth his salt gets off that bus with any bit of food exposed, and protection of product is usually double- or triple-checked. This process ensures that the same exact food, when presented to another round of passengers four hours and twenty buses later, appears as if it has just come out of the fryer.
Almost as important as keeping my belly full, these vendors help pass the time, which is certainly something that I do not do well independently. I’ve tried reading. Unfortunately, my attention span is extremely short and my eyes are wanderers, the combination of which only allows me to read with comprehension for about two lines when there is any kind of action whatsoever in my general area. So I don’t even bother anymore on buses. Sometimes I see people who can open a book immediately upon sitting down and not stop reading, I mean not even look up, until ten hours later when it’s time to get off. Trying to identify with these people is also something I no longer bother with. For me, killing time consists of a pretty simple, ultra low stress routine: listen to tunes on the discman, sleep, and eat vendor food. Sure it gets boring from time to time, but much like a seatmate who practices proper personal hygiene, it should never be taken for granted when you can waste an entire day doing only these three things and not be labeled a slacker.
So there I was with nothing to do but sit back, relax, and chow down for the next eight hours. Better yet, I don’t even have to feel guilty about not being productive. I felt like nothing could rattle my benevolent mood. I even chuckled as I read the slanderous sticker on the back of the driver’s seat: “VALE MAS UNA CHOLA CONOCIDA QUE UNA GRINGA CON SIDA.” In English: “It’s better to have a local girl that you know than an American girl with AIDS.” Unfortunately the catchy rhyme is lost in the translation, but it’s not intended to be a welcome message to tourists no matter how you say it. I’m sure the genius who came up with the great American bumper sticker slogan “I’d rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford” would be happy to know that his long lost intellectual equivalent is roaming around South America. No matter, it was going to take more than some second-rate insult against North American women to take the smile off my face.
Within the next hour we made several short stops as we passed through small towns. We were therefore exposed to several rounds of vendors and within that first hour, I had already polished off a stuffed potato, three or four pieces of cornbread, and several Oreo cookies. My new best friend Iliana, the little daughter of my seatmate, was helping me with all of it. She was even assertive enough to tap me on the shoulder and point at the girl selling yogurt drink boxes as she passed by. This was her way of telling me that she wanted one – verbal communication was not an option as she was shoveling cookies into her mouth at a pace that even I couldn’t keep up with. Taking her cue I quickly acquired one for each of us, and just like that we were washing everything down with strawberry yogurt sucked through a straw. “Yogur para Beber,” or yogurt to drink, just another in a long list of cultural differences.
Moments later the noise and excitement of vendor traffic was temporarily over as we pulled away from whatever pueblo we were stopped in and back onto the switchbacking road that did its best to bisect the Andes. Belly full and realizing that there would be no more aisle walking entrepreneurs for a while, I settled back into my seat and put my headphones in place. Copying my behavior, Iliana squirmed and wiggled until she was comfortably nestled down into her mother’s lap.
I’m not sure how long I had been dozing when I was stirred by Iliana and her mother talking, but it couldn’t have been too long because my discman was only on song six. Apparently Iliana was experiencing an upset stomach and headache. Noticing my interest, mom turned and informed me that it was common for the little princess to get motion sickness on these rides through the mountains where the bus is constantly turning nearly 180° to the left followed by a 180° righthander thirty seconds later. Unfortunately this back and forth process is repeated hundreds of times to ascend and descend the steep pitches that have always been a defining characteristic of Andean geography. Turning my eyes toward Iliana, I felt for her. Motion sickness sucks. I know this. But she was still behaving extremely well. No whining, no crying, and most importantly, no vomiting. I had heard somewhere that motion sickness is caused by fluid in the ears. So I found myself looking at her ears and hoping that they would somehow equalize or calm down or do whatever they need to do in order to make the poor kid feel better. To be perfectly honest, my concern was just as much in my own interest as hers. While I genuinely did want her to feel better, I really was not looking forward to sitting next to a vomiting child for the next six hours.
“Do you think she’ll be sick?” I asked mom with a vested interest in the answer.
“Maybe, but I don’t know for sure,” she answered.
Fair enough. Not exactly reassuring, but her answer made me realize that my question was a fairly stupid one to begin with.
“Do you have a bag just in case?” was my follow-up inquiry, noticing that she was armed with nothing more than a couple napkins in her right hand. She just shook her head from side to side in response, confirming to me that she was completely unprepared to handle a potentially messy situation. So I handed her the plastic bag that the cornbread came in, hoping that Iliana’s portion would not be returning to the bag.
As mom and I talked, Iliana re-situated herself and closed her eyes. Maybe the ear fluid was already back in sync and she would just sleep off the upset stomach. At least I hoped that would happen. I tried to resist, but the urge to inwardly berate the mother was overwhelming for me. If it’s common for her daughter to get motion sickness, why didn’t she say anything as we were stuffing our faces with junk food earlier? And why didn’t she carry a bag of some sort to keep the situation civilized and clean if vomiting were to occur? Sometimes I am just dumbfounded at how irresponsible some people can be.
More often though I am also dumbfounded at the triviality of the things that can take me from sleeping peacefully to being totally wound up in a matter of minutes. Just relax, I told myself. Take a deep breath. She’s going to be fine. Besides, it’s not the mother’s fault that Iliana doesn’t feel well. It certainly does no good to get all bent out of shape about something that might happen, such as the little girl projectile vomiting all over the place.
Nonetheless I remained on edge, always keeping one eye on Iliana for any signs of discomfort. Iliana began to stir and sit up straight. Almost immediately her little head, neck, and shoulders were convulsing with dry heaves and general pre-vomit jitters. Exactly why mom didn’t quickly take the bag and cover her daughter’s mouth I’ll never know. But she just looked at her and rubbed her back and tried verbally to coerce her into calming down. Mom even seemed a bit surprised when her daughter began unloading half-digested food all over the window and curtain.
The entire bus quickly began to reek of spoiled milk courtesy of the recently regurgitated yogurt. Even though it was in fact Iliana who made the mess, how could I possibly get upset with her. All she knew was that she felt sick and that it was time to get rid of whatever was making her stomach hurt. Life is pretty simple like that when you’re three years old – you can make decisions based on the need for instant gratification and not worry about any consequences. It’s one big vacation for the kid and one big stink for everyone else on the bus.
As mother began to clean her daughter’s mess, I decided it would be beneficial to my mental health to just cover my nose, close my eyes, and try to relax once more. It was not easy at first. The smell was just so strong and repulsive. There were times when I would manage to doze off to sleep, at which point my arm would go limp and neglect it’s all-important duty of holding my sweatshirt against my face and nose. Without any barrier against the stench, I would abruptly wake up as I inhaled the contaminated air. This led me to tie my sweatshirt around my face, making me look and feel like a complete jackass. But it did the trick, so I stuck with it. It was in this head-wrapped manner I was finally able to spend the next several hours in peace.
The next thing I knew, Iliana was tugging gently on my arm. Apparently we had arrived in the town where she lived and they were getting off. She just wanted to say goodbye to me. She seemed totally recovered from what happened earlier, and I was glad. There was part of me that felt a little guilty for having pumped her full of street food right before she pumped it all right back out. But now, just a few hours later, with her sweet smile back and those huge eyes glimmering, I was led to believe that she had already forgotten the whole ordeal. When looked at from her perspective, I guess it probably wasn’t all that memorable: she woke up, felt uncomfortable, threw up, felt relief, and went back to sleep. End of story; no big deal. After she gave me a big hug around the neck, mom scooped her up and off they went. As the bus roared away I waved a final goodbye out the window to my newest “single serving” friend, just another in a long list of people from my travels that I will remember from time to time, but that I will never see again.
By my watch we were now only about half an hour outside of Guayaquil. To say that I was anxious to get off that stinking bus would be an understatement. I was almost giddy at the prospect of breathing fresh air without having to use some sort of filter. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. The driver markedly increased our speed after our stop in Iliana’s town, much to my delight. We were passing buses and cars now on almost every straightaway. I watched this process attentively as we were making our way through the switchbacks with what seemed like a high degree of efficiency by any standards. Our driver was anticipating that he would be passing even before we would come out of one of the 180° turns onto a straightaway. This can be likened to on-ramp acceleration on North American highways, where you sometimes have to build up your speed in a round about section (or at least you should) so that you’re ready to enter the stream of traffic when you get to the merging point. A key difference between North American highway driving and this situation is that the bus driver could not see around the bend to the straightaway, and therefore did not know what might be waiting there for us as we blindly built up a serious head of steam. Most times it worked out fine and we were able to pass two or three vehicles per straightaway with no problems.
As fate would have it, our luck with this stunt ran out about ten minutes outside of Guayaquil. We had just successfully finished yet another multiple-car pass when the bus in front of us disappeared around the bend a few hundred yards ahead. We would certainly blow right by it after this turn, I thought. When we did make it around the turn and saw the other bus again, it was only about a hundred yards in front of us and braking hard for some reason. The distance between our vehicles closed very fast due to the fact that we were still steadily accelerating off the turn. Our driver instinctively tapped the brakes but realized instantly that we had absolutely no chance of stopping before hitting the other bus. He pulled out quickly into the other lane, and unfortunately there was a large cargo truck coming right at us. If one or two of the vehicles in this scenario had been cars, it would not have been a problem. However, even on a road with generous shoulders on both sides, the sheer volume taken up by two buses and one large truck can have serious consequences.
The truck driver probably couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and he jerked his truck as far over to his side of the road as he could. As we simultaneously went by the truck and cut sharply in front of the bus, the side view mirrors on the driver side of both the truck and our bus were cleanly removed from the vehicles in a glancing collision. By the time we got back on our side of the road, I had twisted and contorted my body into quite a silly looking position, a nervous reaction to watching what I considered to be a pretty dangerous and exciting series of events. The driver just calmly shook his head and gave a sly grin, relieved that we came out of the encounter relatively unscathed. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to see that no one on the bus really seemed to react. The entire episode had only lasted a few seconds from start to finish and reminded me of two things that I already knew: 1) South Americans are stoic almost to the point of being catatonic, and 2) the laws of physics do apply in the Southern Hemisphere (especially that one about two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same time).
My blood pressure was just returning to normal as we pulled into the bustling terminal at Guayaquil. Since leaving Banos, the bus I was riding on had acquired a putrid odor and had been relieved of an important piece of hardware. Not exactly an even trade. As a matter of fact, both the addition and the loss made the bus worse for the wear. Fortunately the bus’s problems were no longer my problems, and I bolted up and was gathering my belongings before the bus even stopped in its berth. Of course it was raining when I got outside. Fitting, I suppose, after yet another bus ride riddled with unexpected and undesirable events. So I grabbed my pack out of the bowels of the bus and sauntered over to the taxi-cab line, getting soaked as I went.
Standing there, thinking through my options as I waited for a ride, a smile ran across my face for the first time in hours. But it wasn’t the joy of being off that stinking bus that made me smirk. I suddenly remembered that this city possessed something that I greatly desired. If I was lucky, it would change my plans for the night from staying in Guayaquil at a cheap hostel to being back in Lima within just a few hours. As I folded myself into the front seat of the DaeWoo roller skate that would take me to my destination, I was now sure, without a doubt, that my bus troubles were over.
“Where to, senor?” the driver asked politely.
“The airport please. Do you know if I can catch a flight to Lima at this hour?”
“Of course senor.”
“Perfect.”