Epic Travels (Brazil to Bolivia)

It was a popsicle vendor’s dream and a nightmare for everyone else. Fortunately, there was a popsicle vendor around to be the only one to appreciate our circumstances.

I think about my last blog entry with my saccharine comments of the joys of the road and sort of want to bitch-slap myself. That was written a few hours into my trip with such blithe optimism and now I know better. In all seriousness though, it goes to show the microcosm of life travel is, how it tends to inflate every emotion. Some of my best times and some of my worst times have been traveling. Actually, no, that was a lie, none of my worst times have been traveling, but sometimes are more trying than others.

I was fine until the last leg of the trip, really I was. I was enjoying myself. I was positively blissful waiting in the shopping mall in the middle of nowhere, Annapolis for 6 hours, sitting on a bus and attempting to sleep for 18 hours, then waiting in a bus station in Campo Grande for 6 hours, then an 8 hour bus ride to Corumba. I missed crossing the border into Brazil because immigration closed 10 minutes before I got there but I did get to sleep in a bed for about 5 hours before catching a motorcycle taxi across the border and waiting another 14 hours in Quijarro, a dusty town with nothing to do and nowhere to go. From there it was the 30 hour “Death Train” which only turned out to be 19 hours because I caught the faster one. Then I had to wait in another crappy city, Santa Cruz for 12 hours, which happened to be right at the same time that 3 foreigners were shot for an alleged assassination attempt of Morales which seems to be a big set-up and was interesting timing for me to be there, though admittedly I missed all the action, before catching an overnight bus to a backwater city, Trinidad in the Amazon Basin. So really, I was happy, I was loving travel, things were good. Until the last leg.

It is one thing to go into a 33 hour bus ride knowing that. It is all mental, you see, though because I have such bad neck problems I need to be as discriminating as possible about which buses I take. But the one I was taking was only for 8 hours and it’s not like I had to sleep on it so it was ok that it was uncomfortable, plus there was nothing I could do, the road to Rurrenebaque, my final destination is not really a road, thus instead of a bus, a 4-wheeling Camion type is needed instead for the harsh conditions of such a less-traveled mess of a road.
The thing about buses that one must keep in mind is you can’t use the bathroom very often. This is a huge problem. Especially for me who has the bladder the size of a raisin. So I have to be very careful to dehydrate myself, it isn’t fun, but I have no choice. So by the time I got to Trinidad I was already really dehydrated.

Two things happened before I got on this bus. I had an intuition to buy more water, which I did. And I had an intuition not to get on it, which I ignored. I had this weird feeling because it was all men on the bus and some of them looked rather sketchy, but I had no choice to get on this Camion because no women were traveling, so that was just the way it was. The bus was broken down and beat up. The driver seemed to get lost in the city before we left which was a bit disconcerting. As soon as we got out of the town the door fell off the bus. They roped it back on but eventually gave up.

We had to cross the rivers twice on these crazy little wooden raft ferrys. I was practicing my Spanish with the guys on the bus (nobody spoke English) and a man almost got run over by the bus when we were sitting behind it on the ferry and had to jump into the water because the bus was rolling back and we had nowhere to stand. But that was fine, nobody was hurt.

Then came the mud. We got stuck once and managed to eventually get out. The second time we got stuck the men all had to get out in to the mud and pull the camion through. Then we got really stuck. We, and all the other people in other vehicles had nothing to do but wait. Wait for hours. Out came the popsicles. I was dizzy with heat and dehydration, and then, out of nowhere, a man I had befriended was handing me a popsicle. A guy that had gotten on our camion had a whole cooler full of them that somehow didn’t melt. I think it was probably one of the best business days he has ever had.

Finally a tractor came and pulled us all out. We got stuck three times and three times it had to pull us out. Then we got through the deep trenches of mud and back to just the normally horrendous road. Then our bus broke down. A few hours later, I am seeing double I am so dehydrated. I am trying to ration my water because it is not looking promising that we will get moving. Other people are complaining of hunger, but I have no hungry, the thirst is like an all consuming animal inside me.

They fix the bus but have to constantly pour water into the engine. Luckily, we are surrounded by swamps and wetlands on either side of us. We drive very slowly, pouring water from buckets into the engine constantly, and have to stop every five minutes so the drivers can scramble to the water to fill up more to pour into the engine.

Then we get stuck in mud again. This time I get out and help them pull and my parts are permanently turned another color. Eventually the camion moves. The sun dips behind the horizon and I become and all-you-can eat buffet for a swarm of mosquitoes. The wetlands on either side of us that are keeping us going are also housing all the mosquitoes. I am too thirsty to raise my hand to brush them off, it is hopeless anyways. There has recently been a Dengue Fever epidemic in the area and I say a silent prayer that I will be ok.

Then we break down again. The other people are looking ready to riot they are so hungry. I try to use this as an opportunity to practice my Spanish, but unable to say anything intelligent, I wonder if they think I am un poco lento. A couple hours later we are able to move again, but we do occasionally have to get out to push the bus. The water has to constantly be poured into the engine. This goes on for about 11 hours, all night. At one point, late at night we stop in the only pueblo we find, San Ignacio. I love this pueblo right away. We go and get food but there is a big problem, somehow they don’t have water. I am willing to drink the tap water, but my new found friends tell me even they won’t do that and buy me a coke instead.

We push the bus out of the small pueblo and continue on into the muddy night. Finally we get to a bigger city. It is 10 am now and we go to the bus station. The company has an office there and us remaining passengers and shoved into a tiny, hot and very uncomfortable van that my neck hates right away. But another 6 hours and we are at our final destination, Rurrenebaque in the Amazon Basin.

Total travel time: 129 hours straight
Number of mosquito bites: 73 that I can see
Meals eaten: 2, plus a bag that my friend in Brazil packed me
Bottles of water drank: 2
Number of times I contemplated drinking swamp water: 12
New Spanish words: 4
Hours in which I had no will to live: 5
Times I will repeat that journey: 0