En Vuelta (pt. 1)

Before I begin this post, I would like to point out that yesterday was my half-birthday and no one congratuled me on turning 23 and a half. So that sucked.

Also, I thought I´d mention something which I think is kinda funny. So my Spanish has undoubtedly improved. My speaking skills are still way behind my comprehension skills. That being said, I´m still pretty horrible. I´m not going to be anywhere close to fluent by the time I return to the US. But still, I have improved, and I have figured out how not to tip people off to the fact that I am an extranjero. The fact that my appearance allows me to blend in makes this a little easier. What I wanted to mention is that now, sometimes, when people who don´t know that I´m a foriegner talk to me for short periods of time, a lot of them don´t quickly figure out that I am a foriegner. Instead, they just think Í´m weird because I don´t talk a whole lot and when I do talk, it sounds off, intelligible, but off.

So back to the story...

To prepare for my return to Buenos Aires via the South American bus circuit, I washed my clothers (thanks for the suggestion Melissa) and bought some things. I also took out a hundred american from the ATM, which decided it would be best to give me all of the money in the form of a 100 dollar bill. I went to the Hipermaxi, Bolivia´s answer to Walmart, and bought a fake Lacoste white golf shirt for six american and mantequilla de mani (peanut butter) as gifts for some people back in BsAs - peanut butter for some reason does not exist in BsAs, something which I cannot figure out since I have seen peanuts a number of times in the city.

So I go to the bus station at 7:15 and find Javier. I pay for the rest of my ticket, and then wait until the bus leaves, which actually turns out to be an hour later that what I had thought.

Eventually, I board the bus, to find that semicam(semi-bed) is not casicama (almost-bed), but just a regular bus, just like the chinatown bus. Great, so I have 24 hours in this thing. I meet the person sitting next to me, Kita, a 50 or so year old Bolivian physical therapist who has lived her whole life in Santa Cruz. She is visiting family in Asuncion for the first time. The bus leaves the terminal, and after Kita and I exchange in a little more smalltalk, we are served our dinners. So we stop talking and begin eating.

We are served our dinners in tv dinner type trays. We also receive a sodss. The dinner contains the following: friend yuca, chicken milanesa (fried chicken), some rice, some bread, and a couple little candies. Now, as I´m looking down at my dinner, I´m torn. I don´t want to have diarrhea, especially during a 24 hour busride where your not allowed to use the bathroom on board (at least that´s what i´ve been told, even though it turned out that it was acceptable to pee in there). But I´m hungry. I decide that I´m on an adventure, and so I delve in. The yuca is delicious, one thing about Bolivia I really miss since I ate it at pretty much every lunch and dinner. The chicken is also very tasty. The bread is awful (I could taste the preservatives, which was both reassuring and gross at the same time). The rice is acceptable. I drink a little bit of my soda, and then decide I´m full enough. So lay back and fall asleep.

When I wake up, the azafatas (stewards) are informing us that we have to get off the bus for immigration. So we all get off the bus and make a line. The sun has not quite risen yet - I estimate that we´ve been on the bus for about seven hours. So we form a line which leads up to this Bolivian military dude, who is the only person sitting at this table, using candlelight to make sure that everyone who is standing in line is on the passenger list for the bus. I show him my passport, let him know what number seat I´m sitting in, and then am free to go somewhere- where I don´t really know. I just walk 200 meters down this dirt road, following the person who was in line in front of me.

I find that I have arrived to the Bolivian immigration. I wait in another line outside this bulding. I look around and see that some people have set up a little makeshift kiosk to sell fruit and sweet to bus passengers passing through. There is also a little cafe in a dilipidated building. And there are also a number of animals walking around. Here, I remember seeing dogs, a pig, and some roosters. The rooster kinda freaks me out because it comes to within a few feet of me. So I finally make it to the building, show this other guy at a table my passport. He asks me a papelito (little piece of paper). I tell him I´m not sure if I have it as I am digging through my backpack. I finally pull out a piece of paper which he grabs from me while informing me that this is what he needs.

I wait outside for the rest of the group to get througb immigration. I take an awesome picture of the horizon, which I hope to post on the blog later, but haven´t downloaded from my camera yet. And then I reboard the bus and we are off.

Starting at the immigration office, it seems that the quality of the road has really taken a turn for the worst. Up until that point on the trip, we had been traveling on paved road. Now, it was readily apparent that we were traveling on a dirt road, la tierra.

La tierra was ridiculous. We would spend five hours on la tierra, all of which were pretty awful. For some reason, there were two adjacent but different levels of this dirt road, and I think that our muy bueno chofer had been directed to use each level at certain points. So we would constantly drive diagonally up or down a small slope to change roads. Oh my god, la tierra was awful. Five hours. It was just so bumpy. Seriously, I wouldn´t advise a subaru outback to drive on la tierra. It was absurd, absurd, that a bus was taking this route. A number of times the bus driver took the wrong route, which meant that we had to do la tierra in reverse. There were some bumps where the bus tipped a lot, and I would wait for the next bump in the road, hoping but certainly not sure of the fact that it would realign the bus. So how can you pass the time on la tierra? Sleep? Yeah right. Read? I can always read in the car, but when I pulled out my S-E dictionary to look up a work during the la tierra, I had to put the dictionary away before I found the word because after I had spent thirty seconds trying to keep the book still and focus on the word that I was looking for, my head hurt. Watch tv? Oh yeah, so when the bus pulled out from Santa Cruz, there were a couple tvs in our bus. When Kita asked the azafata when a movie would start, he laughed in her face while informing her that the tv did not work. After an hour on the tierra, we passed another bus and for reason, gave them our tvs. So for the rest of the trip, there was nothing in the two little containers which used to hold the tvs. For the majortity of the time on la tierra, I just sat there, watching the road, trying to anticipate bumps, praying that I would live to see an asphalt highway again.

And the polvo (dust) was also out on control. The bus kicked up so much dust, which of course made it´s way into the bus. The windows in the bus were open (Bolivis is tropical, remember) during la tierra. At one point, when the sun shone at a certain angle, it seemed me as though the air was 50% polvo. I could tell that the mucus membrance in my throat were working extra hard to keep my airway clear. Seriously, by the end of la tierra, I felt as though I had la tierra-induced asthma because it really hurt to take a full breath. Also, my whole body was covered in a thick coat of dust. My white polo shirt was now a little brownish, and my hair had become immovable, protected by a coat of polvo.

Well, when we arrived in Paraguay, the road turned from la tierra into asphalt road again, and I was proud of myself for having endured la tierra.

Oh yeah, and during la tierra, we were served breakfast, which was a juice box of chocolate milk and a little cookie.