The wheels on the bus go round and round... and round and round and round and round!

On Wednesday morning we met with a few members of the social outreach team from San Andres to chat about our experiences during our time in Buenos Aires. We chatted over what we had learned(poco espaniol, how effective nonverbal communication can be, how much of an encouragement sharing testimonies can be, people and things from Argentina are known as Argentine and not Argentinean!) what we had enjoyed (the great organisation of our programme, the variation in work, the people, in particular our hosts) and what had surprised us (the cost of living in comparison to the wages, the amount of dolce de leche (caramel) people eat!). Overall Argentina had been such a fun learning curve for us both and we only wish we could have spent more time there!

Now it was time for a two day bus journey to Bolivia, 45hour on a bus, and Jenn and I were feeling quite excited about it. We had seen the luxury buses and they looked so comfortable! So we headed to get a train into town where the bus station was. It was about 11am so we thought the train would be pretty quiet, but we were wrong, there were no seats and worse still there wasn’t room near a handle to hold on for support, bear in mind Jenn and I had HUGE rucksacks on our backs and small one’s over our front, plus poor Jenn had an extra bag of food(and I use that term loosely!) to keep hunger at bay until Friday! It was an interesting journey, but it all seemed so worth it when we thought about the comfortable bus we would be meeting in town.

We arrived a little later than expected into town so it was a bit of a rush to the bus station to drop off our luggage, but thankfully we made it in time, there wasn’t much time until the bus arrived so we found the right stance and waited for our bus to arrive. 15 minutes before it was due I was getting a little panicky that we were in the right place, 10 minutes later there was still no bus, and no one around to ask for advice! It was now about ten past one, and our bus had been due to leave at 1pm. One of the porters must have noticed our concerned faces and came over to help, he pointed to tell us that we were in the right place, so again we relaxed and felt excited about the bus!

The bus pulled up about 20 minutes late, we pulled out our tickets and waited to board, as we entered the bus we began looking for the seats toward the front of the lower deck that we had requested as they are much better for preventing motion sickness, but the girl directed us upstairs, and to the very back seats, which hardly even reclined as the window was in the way! This was a bit of a concern, and the bus looked nothing like the one in the pictures we had seen... but it all worked out well, we ended up having the back section of the bus to ourselves and lots of room to spread out.

We had been promised breakfasts, evening meals and snacks in between during our journey, so after a little nap we woke up to some crisps, biscuits and fizzy juice. At that point we weren’t feeling to hopeful about dinner! We were pleased when we noticed that the bus stopped at a cafe t pick up our evening meal, roast beef, mash and some bread, cold meat and cheese. Result!

We were now ready for a good nights sleep, and in actual fact it was, apart from the fact that the bus was a bit cold we managed to find fairly comfortable spots (considering) and settled for the evening, we woke up early to some breakfast and some beautiful scenery! I enjoyed the view for a while and then settled for a little nap as there wasn’t much else to do.

I woke up an hour or so later and could hardly breathe, thinking there must be something wrong with the air conditioning I moved around the bus trying to catch a breath! Early afternoon we stopped at the border and I was so pleased that I could get off the bus and catch some fresh air, so off we headed. I stepped off and realised it wasn’t the AC on the bus, it was the altitude! Jenn and I had never experienced this so we weren’t quite sure what to expect, it was all a bit of a shock. We sat on the pavements as it was far too much effort to stand up and chatted about the things that would make us feel better. On this list food was included, so we decided to collect some from the bus, we both stood up quickly and the light headed feeling came over us instantly, it’s like when you get out of bed too fast, only worse!

We spent about 3 or 4 hours at the border in the not so fresh air before finally arriving in Bolivia. Back on the bus and we settled for some food, we were only on the bus about 10 minutes when it stopped and everyone got off. We knew we had to switch busses but hadn’t realised it was so soon. We collected our luggage and walked to the next bus. We now had to pay for our bags to be taken on the next bus, and then pay a tax for using the bus station before being led onto a HOT bus with no toilet. I wasn’t impressed when a very intimidating looking policeman got on the bus, he was searching under peoples seats and repeating something in Spanish, I was dreading him reaching us! But as he approached I could hear more clearly that he was saying ‘buenos noches’ over and over greeting everyone he passed. Jenn was amused as I couldn’t hide the delight on my face at how friendly he was!

The bus didn’t make any toilet stops on the 14 hour journey, nor did they provide any food or water so at 7am the following morning, two very tired, hungry and dehydrated girls were dropped on the cold streets of Oruro. We were across the street from the bus station so we headed over to enquire about a bus ticket to Sucre... turns out there were no busses leaving till 9pm.

We grabbed some breakfast and contemplated getting a taxi. Then we realised it was an 8 hour journey and that would probably be out of our budget. We bought tickets and managed to drop our bags off straight away so at least we didn’t have to worry about carrying them about all day, we were slightly concerned that we fully understood the set up, but with some broken Spanish we managed to communicate that we would collect our bags in Sucre and not before it.

We spent the rest of the morning looking for somewhere to eat lunch, we found a tiny cafe with three tables and one lady serving, she was adorable and was so understanding of our lack of Spanish, she brought a small dish with a sample of pasta and rice to ask us which we preferred, she did this with our drinks too and went out of her way to make sure we were comfortable.

We spent another 15minutes fighting altitude sickness and walking around the area before taking rest in a small park. We eventually gathered the energy to make it back to the bus station where we counted down time till our 9pm bus.

The journey to Sucre was pretty smooth and we arrived at our host, Janice’s around 5.30am. Janice was lovely and showed us straight to our rooms so we coult rest and be fresh for our first day in Sucre.

So after 68 hours spent on one train, three busses, and a taxi we’re now safe in Sucre!

Laura <><