El Viaje de Autobus Desde el Infierno = The Bus Ride from Hell.
According to my Lonely Planet guide book Puno and Cusco are 389km apart. A rough translation from kilometers to miles (which I am getting good at due to my Canada days is just under 250 miles). In America this would run as a typical 4 hour drive. Over here in Peru, giving the benefit of the doubt to slow roads I guessed we would get there in 6 hours. I´m accustom to long slow bumpy roads, but the road between these two cities is paved and it´s most likely the most touristy traveled road in Peru. We all had our hopes up for some smooth sailing. No dice. Let me explain.
Side note: great keyboard, really feel like letting my creative thoughts flow.
We showed up at the terminal terrestre (bus station) in Puno at 9:30am, because we were told a bus leaves about every hour for Cusco. The two larger more well known bus companies, Cruz Del Sur and Ormeno aren´t running buses to Cusco today. Strange, not sure why. We find out why 4 hours later. So we check some other places. One guy says he´s got a bus for 11:30, so we look for something earlier. A couple of desks down (Peru has dozens of bus companies all of varying quality, value, speed etc.) another guy says he´s got a bus for 11am. It´s the earliest to leave. So we take it. The guy also offers us the front four seats on the second floor, which means we have a huge glass window in front of us to see the sights. We´re traveling with Libertad.
In our 1 1/2 hours to spare we jump in a taxi for town, grab some of the best empañadas we´ve found in Peru, some ice cream and get back to the bus station around 10:50am. 11am rolls around and nothing happens. Here is where the time starts ticking. In my mind we are leaving at 11am, traveling for hopefully no more than 6 hours, getting to Cusco by 5pm, having dinner while it is still light out etc. While we sit there I look at our tickets, they are marked with an 11:15 departure time. 11:30 comes and goes. At 11:45 we get our bags on the bus, but the guy there starts asking everyone where they are going. So we quickly learn we aren´t on a direct bus, there are going to be stops on the way. However, with my limited Spanish we don´t know how many stops, or for how long. The bus gets rolling around 11:50 and we are the four white folks on a bus of 80 or so Peruvians (80 can fit because the bus has two floors). We start creeping out of town.
15 minutes later Eli asks if he can go to the bathroom. The guy says no, come back in 15 minutes. Eli really has to go so he comes back in 14 minutes and uses the bathroom. As soon as he gets in there the bus pulls to the side of the road and stops. A kid jumps out with a large bucket and fills it up at a little river next to the road. Oh heck, we think. We´ve seen this trick. In order to flush the toilets the toilet needs some water. There must not be any on the bus, so the kid is getting off to get water and fill it up. Pour the water down the toilet and it flushes. Magic. In America that´s what the big box behind the toilet is for. What most Americans are hesitant to open, but what plumbers and third world folks deal with like it´s their job. We get back on the road moments later, only to stop 5 minutes later. A couple folks get off. That´s strange, we think. A couple minutes later we are in the middle of a desert, with nothing in sight but a lady on the side of the road, holding her arm out trying to flag down the bus. The bus stops. We pick her up. We now realize that not only are we going to stop in all the major towns along the way, but also everytime someone on the side of the road wants a lift. (To clarify: I´m very used to this practice. In Jamaica and elsewhere public buses always stop anytime they can pick someone up. However, in all of our previous long distance bus rides this has not been the case. We have driven directly there without any stops. What proves to be the biggest problem of the day is our expectations. When you expect one thing, and something else happens, it irritates you.)
We roll into Juliaca at about 1:10. Already 20 minutes behind schedule. We get to the bus station, and we wait. For a good half hour. Not quite sure why. Just know that we´re not moving. Finally start rolling again, get 20 minutes out of town, and come to a huge long line of buses and semitrucks stopped in the road. The bus pulls into a gas station and stops. It´s just before 2pm and we´re not going anywhere. Being the gringos on the bus we´re left out of what´s going on. We get off our bus and find some other folks, happen to be from Germany, and ask what´s up. There is a strike up ahead on the bridge, no way to get around, and the strike is supposed to end at 3pm. It´s a teacher strike, they are upset about something. I think to myself, hmmm, how clever. If a strike were to happen back at Lakeside High School, it would defintely have to go til 3pm, cause if it stopped any earlier there would be the possibility of having to teach 7th and 8th period. Wouldn´t want that to happen. So we wait. Growing impatient, I decide to walk the 2km or so down the road to where the strike is happening. As I walk I am a little cautious. Whenever you travel in other coutries you are always told to avoid two places: being out late at night by yourself and public demonstrations. The two places you may find yourself in danger. As I walk I notice the road is covered in rocks and broken glass preventing the movement of cars. As I get closer I notice I´m the only white person around and everyone is staring at me. More so than at any other time this trip. A bit nervous, I wonder if I should turn around. But, it´s broad daylight and police are around so I push forward. But right when I get to the actual protest the mood changes. Up ahead I see a group of 6 women sitting in the middle of the road, the first of the protesters. As I get closer they start cat calling, whistling me. Like, you´re hot white guy, what are you up to? I throw out some broken spanish, Lo siento, yo tengo una esposa. (I´m sorry, I have a wife). And immediately everyone on the road starts laughing. 5 of the women are all laughing at their friend who was whistling, the 6 police men hanging out on the side of the road all crack up and the many bystanders all have a good chuckle. Great, now everyone is staring at me, but at least the situation isn´t violent. In fact, it feels like a big party. People just hanging out, having a good time, women have brought their carts to sell food to the protesters. And the strangest part is that the police are just hanging out too. Not a care in the world. Again it is my expectations that are off. I expect the police to break up such an act. The only road between these two cities is blocked almost all day. Do something police, establish order. But, nope. They´re just hanging out.
Walk back to the bus, sit around and just before 4pm we start moving. So, we´ve traveled all of about 60 miles in 5ish hours. Cool. We should be almost there by now, but we´ve just started.
To make up for some serious lost time, the bus driver decides to drive a bit faster. Good and bad. At the front of the bus, up at the top is a LCD screen display. It displays our speed, in kph. Strange I think, why do the passengers on the second floor need to know how fast we are going? It gets worse. Every time the bus goes above 90 kph, this very loud beeping starts, similar to the warning sound of a semi truck backing up. However, we have the front 4 seats in the bus and the sound is right over our head. When a semi truck backs up the warning sound is beneficial. It warns those in the vicinity to stand clear. But what about our situation. A loud beeping sound inside the bus, on the second floor everytime the driver goes over 90kph (which is only around 62mph, slow). No logic here. Why warn us that the driver is going too fast? and worst of all with a loud beeping noise? As if, we hear the noise and shout downstairs, could you slow it down a little? Doens´t he have a speedometer? For the next hour the driver tries to make up lost time, so the speed bounces back and forth between 88 and 92kph. Which means an obnoxious beeping noise of death that goes on and off for hours. Finally, fed up with this we ask the people behind us, what´s with this thing? All they can say is, It beeps when we go over 90. Really? Like I didn´t notice. The four of us are infuriated, to the point where I have to shout out a long line of expletives similar to Bob Weiley faking that he has terret´s syndrome in Dr. Leo Marvin´s office. The part that irks me the most, however, is that the 50 peruvians behind us in the bus are completely unphased by it. They don´t even blink at it. Again, expectations. They were expecting it. Somehow, to them it is normal, a daily part of traveling with the lovely, Libertad. To me it´s the most illogical obnoxious I want to kill myself noise in the world. As the four of us sit here, we all agree it is good that George, Dylan and Jessica aren´t with us. Who are prone to more drastic outbreaks of impatience during such times.
After a while the driver slows down, the beeping goes away, the sun starts to set and it is a pleasant ride. Pleasant enough to enjoy the ride, and turn our attention to other business. To Eli, that means going to the bathroom. He´s been holding it for a while and has to go bad, number 2. He walks down the steps with his toilet paper in hand (big mistake) and goes into the bathroom on the bus. As soon as he is gone for about 45 seconds Sarah, Elizabeth and I hear this uncontrollable banging on a door downstairs, interspersed with yelling in Spanish. What´s happened now we think? Is Eli ok? He finally returns with the look of fear on his face. What happened dude? Eli says, the guy was banging on the door the whole time. He was yelling I couldn´t go number 2. But I had to. What was I supposed to do. When I came out of the bathroom he was yelling at me telling me I would have to fill up the bucket with water at the next stop to flush it down. All I did was stand there and say, Como? No entiendo?. And that´s our go to move when we are in a sticky situation. Play the dumb American that doesn´t speack Spanish. And so a giant turd sits in the toilet for the rest of the ride. Elizabeth and Sarah have to go pee a couple hours later. They are in fear of having to go downstairs and brave the bathroom man, but asssume if they don´t have toilet paper in their hand they will be ok. (It turns out the toilet paper in hand was the give away that ruined Eli, guys don´t need toilet paper to take a leak.) When the girls return they report that the turd is still there, nasty as ever.
As the bus rolls on, the beeping is on and off the rest of the way. After a while it becomes routine. You could even say that I expect it. Somtimes I hear it and it doesn´t really bother me. I think to myself, if a white dude jumped on the bus and it started beeping, he would surely ask, What the heck is that for? Likely he´d be as enraged as I was. But, I think my answer would be very familiar. I would casually say, oh yeah, it beeps when we get above 90kph. As soon as I have that thought it hits me. I´ve become one of them. At first enraged at the problems of the bus ride, I´ve come to expect them. And our expectations go a long way in determining how we react to what happens to us.
We take two more stops, in other towns, and finally roll into Cusco around 10pm. It wasn´t the longest bus ride ever, we had a 15 hour ride a week ago, but the combination of the strike, the beeping noise and Eli´s turd dilemna puts this bus ride down in the books as the El Viaje de Autobus Desde el Infierno.
According to my Lonely Planet guide book Puno and Cusco are 389km apart. A rough translation from kilometers to miles (which I am getting good at due to my Canada days is just under 250 miles). In America this would run as a typical 4 hour drive. Over here in Peru, giving the benefit of the doubt to slow roads I guessed we would get there in 6 hours. I´m accustom to long slow bumpy roads, but the road between these two cities is paved and it´s most likely the most touristy traveled road in Peru. We all had our hopes up for some smooth sailing. No dice. Let me explain.
Side note: great keyboard, really feel like letting my creative thoughts flow.
We showed up at the terminal terrestre (bus station) in Puno at 9:30am, because we were told a bus leaves about every hour for Cusco. The two larger more well known bus companies, Cruz Del Sur and Ormeno aren´t running buses to Cusco today. Strange, not sure why. We find out why 4 hours later. So we check some other places. One guy says he´s got a bus for 11:30, so we look for something earlier. A couple of desks down (Peru has dozens of bus companies all of varying quality, value, speed etc.) another guy says he´s got a bus for 11am. It´s the earliest to leave. So we take it. The guy also offers us the front four seats on the second floor, which means we have a huge glass window in front of us to see the sights. We´re traveling with Libertad.
In our 1 1/2 hours to spare we jump in a taxi for town, grab some of the best empañadas we´ve found in Peru, some ice cream and get back to the bus station around 10:50am. 11am rolls around and nothing happens. Here is where the time starts ticking. In my mind we are leaving at 11am, traveling for hopefully no more than 6 hours, getting to Cusco by 5pm, having dinner while it is still light out etc. While we sit there I look at our tickets, they are marked with an 11:15 departure time. 11:30 comes and goes. At 11:45 we get our bags on the bus, but the guy there starts asking everyone where they are going. So we quickly learn we aren´t on a direct bus, there are going to be stops on the way. However, with my limited Spanish we don´t know how many stops, or for how long. The bus gets rolling around 11:50 and we are the four white folks on a bus of 80 or so Peruvians (80 can fit because the bus has two floors). We start creeping out of town.
15 minutes later Eli asks if he can go to the bathroom. The guy says no, come back in 15 minutes. Eli really has to go so he comes back in 14 minutes and uses the bathroom. As soon as he gets in there the bus pulls to the side of the road and stops. A kid jumps out with a large bucket and fills it up at a little river next to the road. Oh heck, we think. We´ve seen this trick. In order to flush the toilets the toilet needs some water. There must not be any on the bus, so the kid is getting off to get water and fill it up. Pour the water down the toilet and it flushes. Magic. In America that´s what the big box behind the toilet is for. What most Americans are hesitant to open, but what plumbers and third world folks deal with like it´s their job. We get back on the road moments later, only to stop 5 minutes later. A couple folks get off. That´s strange, we think. A couple minutes later we are in the middle of a desert, with nothing in sight but a lady on the side of the road, holding her arm out trying to flag down the bus. The bus stops. We pick her up. We now realize that not only are we going to stop in all the major towns along the way, but also everytime someone on the side of the road wants a lift. (To clarify: I´m very used to this practice. In Jamaica and elsewhere public buses always stop anytime they can pick someone up. However, in all of our previous long distance bus rides this has not been the case. We have driven directly there without any stops. What proves to be the biggest problem of the day is our expectations. When you expect one thing, and something else happens, it irritates you.)
We roll into Juliaca at about 1:10. Already 20 minutes behind schedule. We get to the bus station, and we wait. For a good half hour. Not quite sure why. Just know that we´re not moving. Finally start rolling again, get 20 minutes out of town, and come to a huge long line of buses and semitrucks stopped in the road. The bus pulls into a gas station and stops. It´s just before 2pm and we´re not going anywhere. Being the gringos on the bus we´re left out of what´s going on. We get off our bus and find some other folks, happen to be from Germany, and ask what´s up. There is a strike up ahead on the bridge, no way to get around, and the strike is supposed to end at 3pm. It´s a teacher strike, they are upset about something. I think to myself, hmmm, how clever. If a strike were to happen back at Lakeside High School, it would defintely have to go til 3pm, cause if it stopped any earlier there would be the possibility of having to teach 7th and 8th period. Wouldn´t want that to happen. So we wait. Growing impatient, I decide to walk the 2km or so down the road to where the strike is happening. As I walk I am a little cautious. Whenever you travel in other coutries you are always told to avoid two places: being out late at night by yourself and public demonstrations. The two places you may find yourself in danger. As I walk I notice the road is covered in rocks and broken glass preventing the movement of cars. As I get closer I notice I´m the only white person around and everyone is staring at me. More so than at any other time this trip. A bit nervous, I wonder if I should turn around. But, it´s broad daylight and police are around so I push forward. But right when I get to the actual protest the mood changes. Up ahead I see a group of 6 women sitting in the middle of the road, the first of the protesters. As I get closer they start cat calling, whistling me. Like, you´re hot white guy, what are you up to? I throw out some broken spanish, Lo siento, yo tengo una esposa. (I´m sorry, I have a wife). And immediately everyone on the road starts laughing. 5 of the women are all laughing at their friend who was whistling, the 6 police men hanging out on the side of the road all crack up and the many bystanders all have a good chuckle. Great, now everyone is staring at me, but at least the situation isn´t violent. In fact, it feels like a big party. People just hanging out, having a good time, women have brought their carts to sell food to the protesters. And the strangest part is that the police are just hanging out too. Not a care in the world. Again it is my expectations that are off. I expect the police to break up such an act. The only road between these two cities is blocked almost all day. Do something police, establish order. But, nope. They´re just hanging out.
Walk back to the bus, sit around and just before 4pm we start moving. So, we´ve traveled all of about 60 miles in 5ish hours. Cool. We should be almost there by now, but we´ve just started.
To make up for some serious lost time, the bus driver decides to drive a bit faster. Good and bad. At the front of the bus, up at the top is a LCD screen display. It displays our speed, in kph. Strange I think, why do the passengers on the second floor need to know how fast we are going? It gets worse. Every time the bus goes above 90 kph, this very loud beeping starts, similar to the warning sound of a semi truck backing up. However, we have the front 4 seats in the bus and the sound is right over our head. When a semi truck backs up the warning sound is beneficial. It warns those in the vicinity to stand clear. But what about our situation. A loud beeping sound inside the bus, on the second floor everytime the driver goes over 90kph (which is only around 62mph, slow). No logic here. Why warn us that the driver is going too fast? and worst of all with a loud beeping noise? As if, we hear the noise and shout downstairs, could you slow it down a little? Doens´t he have a speedometer? For the next hour the driver tries to make up lost time, so the speed bounces back and forth between 88 and 92kph. Which means an obnoxious beeping noise of death that goes on and off for hours. Finally, fed up with this we ask the people behind us, what´s with this thing? All they can say is, It beeps when we go over 90. Really? Like I didn´t notice. The four of us are infuriated, to the point where I have to shout out a long line of expletives similar to Bob Weiley faking that he has terret´s syndrome in Dr. Leo Marvin´s office. The part that irks me the most, however, is that the 50 peruvians behind us in the bus are completely unphased by it. They don´t even blink at it. Again, expectations. They were expecting it. Somehow, to them it is normal, a daily part of traveling with the lovely, Libertad. To me it´s the most illogical obnoxious I want to kill myself noise in the world. As the four of us sit here, we all agree it is good that George, Dylan and Jessica aren´t with us. Who are prone to more drastic outbreaks of impatience during such times.
After a while the driver slows down, the beeping goes away, the sun starts to set and it is a pleasant ride. Pleasant enough to enjoy the ride, and turn our attention to other business. To Eli, that means going to the bathroom. He´s been holding it for a while and has to go bad, number 2. He walks down the steps with his toilet paper in hand (big mistake) and goes into the bathroom on the bus. As soon as he is gone for about 45 seconds Sarah, Elizabeth and I hear this uncontrollable banging on a door downstairs, interspersed with yelling in Spanish. What´s happened now we think? Is Eli ok? He finally returns with the look of fear on his face. What happened dude? Eli says, the guy was banging on the door the whole time. He was yelling I couldn´t go number 2. But I had to. What was I supposed to do. When I came out of the bathroom he was yelling at me telling me I would have to fill up the bucket with water at the next stop to flush it down. All I did was stand there and say, Como? No entiendo?. And that´s our go to move when we are in a sticky situation. Play the dumb American that doesn´t speack Spanish. And so a giant turd sits in the toilet for the rest of the ride. Elizabeth and Sarah have to go pee a couple hours later. They are in fear of having to go downstairs and brave the bathroom man, but asssume if they don´t have toilet paper in their hand they will be ok. (It turns out the toilet paper in hand was the give away that ruined Eli, guys don´t need toilet paper to take a leak.) When the girls return they report that the turd is still there, nasty as ever.
As the bus rolls on, the beeping is on and off the rest of the way. After a while it becomes routine. You could even say that I expect it. Somtimes I hear it and it doesn´t really bother me. I think to myself, if a white dude jumped on the bus and it started beeping, he would surely ask, What the heck is that for? Likely he´d be as enraged as I was. But, I think my answer would be very familiar. I would casually say, oh yeah, it beeps when we get above 90kph. As soon as I have that thought it hits me. I´ve become one of them. At first enraged at the problems of the bus ride, I´ve come to expect them. And our expectations go a long way in determining how we react to what happens to us.
We take two more stops, in other towns, and finally roll into Cusco around 10pm. It wasn´t the longest bus ride ever, we had a 15 hour ride a week ago, but the combination of the strike, the beeping noise and Eli´s turd dilemna puts this bus ride down in the books as the El Viaje de Autobus Desde el Infierno.
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| The waiting game. |
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| Travel prevented. |
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| Teacher strike - demand for 30% pay during lesson preparation. |
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