The Day of the Bus

Not the best 24 hours of my life but certainly not the worst. Trying to save a little cheese, I took the first leg of the journey to Lima on a cheap bus from Puno to Arequipa. First mistake: sitting in the first row on the 2nd level. Front row panoramic views of every near collision and negligent passing attempt made by the lunatic driver who possesses little regard for the 40 people on board. Top if off with a blazing sun staring in at you and you have yourself a comfortable little ride. My regular boarding ritual includes scouting out any possible english speakers in case of emergency or just sheer boredom (both always likely). In this case it was a trio of Polish girls (most Europeans speak several languages unlike us), who, to my envy were departing the bus soon to fly to Arequipa, thus beating me there by several hours. After a brief conversation, their stop arrived and I wished them luck with their flight and secretly wished for a rain out for them due to their leaving me to wallow in a solitary misery.
First came the orator. He not only was giving a speech to the whole bus, he was screaming it. His fervor and my inability to diagnose the cause he was exalting made me slightly nervous. The faces of those around me confirmed that he speaking of a serious matter. I spent about 10 minutes listening for buzz words such as "imperialists," "evil empire," or "the stupid gringo sitting in the front row." But, I heard none and I put on some tunes to drown out the irate man. Next came the hat pass for money, in which the orator lingered above me extra long with his hat shoved in my face. As I never requested this speech nor did I particularly want to help finance this man screaming at another bus for 30 minutes, I declined payment. May not have been a good move as the man began to scream to the whole bus about the people who "no tienes plata" or those who aren't giving money. Finally, after a while he ridded himself of the bus. Next came the candy beggar. Not possessing the oratical skills to blackmail riders, he merely threw candy in their lap--to be ¨purchased¨by them when he returned. Cripple or not, that kid took a handful of candy to the back of the head and there is no proof that it was me...
The silver lining in that first bus ride was the Peruvian kid sitting next to me who recognized me as someone who could potentially become lost securing a connecting bus from Arequipa to Lima or just a lost soul altogether. After disembarking the first bus he spent 15 minutes of his own time walking me through the steps of getting the ticket to Lima. This unsolicited hospitality by a Peruvian was a breath of fresh air compared to the sneaky tactics seen in Bolivia.
The next bus got a little stranger. Not wanting to re-live the horrors of the first bus, I ponied up a good amount of cash to take a reputable bus company for the overnight journey to Lima. I should have figured things would be weirder when I was walking to the bus and a man was filming me at point blank range. When I asked him nicely just what in the hell he was doing he replied "for safety reasons¨and proceeded to shove the camera in all the passengers faces. You can come up with your own conclusions for why they employ this ¨safety¨tactic. Then there was the rousing game of bingo that was played en route, which lifted my spirits slightly when I was only 2 numbers away from Blackout Bingo. I already had plans in my head of signing the national anthem if I won. This high was quickly extinguished with the proceeding 4 hours of trying to sleep in coffin-like posture. Not until I stuffed myself in the overhead bin (or an unoccupied row) did I get any quality sleep.
It all ended well when I arrived in Lima and found a mustachioed Petro sleeping in the hostel. Re-united again and dreaming of spectacular things to happen while in Lima. Petro has informed me there is a casino that gives out money to Gringos so we will probably go investigate that phenomenon tonight.

Go big or go home,
Q