Travelling through South-America means riding on buses... lots of goddamn buses. Unless of course you choose to fly, but travelling like that cuts out all of the journey to leave you with only the destinations, which turns out to be less fulfilling. This statement however, could be challenged in the context of travelling within Bolivia, where the destination is definitely more desirable than the inhospitable journey. Every time I stepped on public transport in Bolivia, I wished so very deeply for a jet pack or some kind or a maintenance receipt for the breaks or just the driver’s blood-alcohol test results, but like everything else with me, it's my problem not the universes. The full visceral experience of travelling in Bolivia at one stage was made more acute by a painful Facebook status posted by a dear friend Karim, a rogue Frenchman tearing across Peru. He stated: “the buses in Peru are like first class, u know and they even have wifi”... Ohh the distain that surged through my veins in response to this comment, especially poignant when we were about to get on one of these goddamn buses for 20 hourson the edge of a cliff, probably filled with llamas, chickens and thieves, all vying for space and respect only for everything to die in a twisted fireball from the drivers two bottles of rum miscalculation. In retrospect this did not happen, but nevertheless we can not discredit the potency of the fear that I felt – which was why I was so happy to go to Peru...
Our first bus ride in Peru from Tacna to Arequipa was exactly what Karim had promised and Arequipa also delivered. I will not attempt to describe how stunning this place was neither will I attempt to explain how happy I was to see a supermarket and a McDonalds... The place ticked the two boxes so we decided to settle down for a bit, but in the meantime it was time to do the Machu Picchu job...
We arrived at the bus station around 9pm to catch the overnight bus to Cusco, the base camp for all Machu Picchu trails. I was ablaze with excitement because it was finally here – first class travel with Peru's best bus company: Cruz del Sur. I could sleep in their 160 degree-reclined seats, I could eat their vegetarian food, I cold connect to their internet and I could use their goddamn toilette in any way I saw fit. We checked our luggage in at the service desk and then were asked to proceed to 'the waiting lounge', which was... a comfortable waiting lounge. Once the bus was ready, everyone meandered outside and formed a queue in front of the steward, who was sitting behind a desk checking off people's names while a security guard took our photo and then wanded each passenger with a metal detector – a wonderful feeling of security, but this just seemed to level the playing field with battling the people on the bus but not the people on the outside. Before I entered, I took my time to admire the aesthetic of the bus: sleek black, with 'T.V', 'toilette' and 'wifi' stickers near the entrance, reflecting the soft-orange glow of the street light – like gold baby. I also noticed the deep trench grooves on the pristine Bridge Stone tyres and I remember thinking: ohh yeah, that’s the grip I've missed...
After the Bolivian job my nerve-endings were frayed, blown out, disconnected, warn-down or over used, like some poor bastard suffering from shell-shock, but on this trip those little buggers could turn off and relax because I had nothing but safety and comfort. When seated, on the second level, the steward's voice came over the intercom and he femininely announced that we will be under-way after a short safety video from the bus company. The video canvassed many aspects about the features of bus and the journey, the most impressive being the two non-drunk drivers and the GPS tracking of the bus by the company in their central command – so they could monitor if the 90km/h speed limit is exceeded or if the bus had been hijacked... Well, serotonin saturated my nervous system as if a dam broke in my brain – jolting my body with several low force tremors making my back molars chatter together like some kind of peaking junkie. The bus pulled away as I reclined my seat, all-the-way-full-to-160-degrees and I slowly peaked again. Oh mannn, I murmured!
The drive out of town was unrestricted, zero traffic, which was for the best because the driver was unable to swing the big sleek beast around the right-angle bends without ploughing over the side walk. It didn't take long until the lights of the city were drowned out in the abyss that is the Peruvian dessert. The awful movie had finished and the lights were dimmed, a peaceful setting fostering the notion of sleep. Total comfort, calm, quiet, serenity, Xanadu or what ever the fuck, I had it and I was in peace, slowly drifting off and then, without sedative...asleep.
BANG!!! WOH! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!... I woke suddenly with the sound of a loud bang - my head lanced up above the level of the reclined seats like a periscope and swivelled around to see the toilette door swinging freely, slamming against the wall – strangely no one else was disturbed or awake. Did I dream the noise when I saw the door? Did I hear the noise and dream the door? Did I hear something else and just see the door? Did I dream the door and saw the noise… What? I didn't know... I drew back the curtain to see what was happening outside, which was nothing except a never-ending darkness and my distorted-dim reflection on the frost covered window. Jesus Christ man! You're running on empty, the risk of developing some kind of brain abnormality or causing further damage, is very high! You must rest goddamn it! This bus is going nowhere other than Cusco, so relax and again enter that tranquil nirvana you reached earlier and drift away with the gentle rocking motion of the bus – and whatever you do don't think about valium because you don't need it. That's right, you're Sir Edmund Hillary, Dr. Livingston, Captain Cook, Yuri Gagarin goddamn fucking Indiana Jones... the true adventurer, nothing fazes you - except commitment...
Drift....ing...away... serenity...calm...BANG! The giant two level bus leaped off the road and landed with a tremendous thud – stowed overhead luggage fell, a thrashing sound of metal came from where the steward sat and the toilette door looked like it was possessed. Holy shit, we ran over something! People must have felt that, it moved me out of my goddamn seat and I hit my knee on the window. I again upped periscope and looked at everyone still asleep... or ignoring the obvious. I looked at Charly next to me, curled up in a ball covered in her blanket, motionless and quiet... I judged I shouldn’t wake her up because, well, she deals with a incoherent-reclusive-amped up maniac during the day, she doesn’t need to deal with a incoherent-hallucinating-amped up maniac during the night – even the strong need their sleep, I considered. How the hell can anybody sleep through such a disturbance? I wondered what would happen if I got out of my 160-degree-reclined seat and began howling 'I am the walrus...coo coo coochu' at the top of my lungs. Probably nothing, I suspected because it seemed that I was on a bus filled with sedated geriatrics unable to respond to the strongest type of stimulus. Strange... Had my central nervous system been conditioned to sense mayhem and chaos even when there wasn't any – rapid firing my synapses, triggering random seizures forming experiences that weren't real? Oh this is not good, I reflected as my sweaty hand shook the contents of the bottle of valium – realising that I didn't have much left. Is this a true crisis, I wagered? Unplanned hallucinations are always an unhealthy development in the grand scheme of things, so I briefly considered that I should swallow whatever I had left and deal with what was occurring in the morning because any unwarranted ranting about toilette doors being possessed in this catholic nation will probably have me bound and gagged by some outback quasi cop/priest without any chance of representation or consulate assistance. When it’s a matter of religion: frenzies erupt, rational people go sideways and normally good people will ignore standard humanitarian guidelines. No more thinking about that fucking door!
SCREECH BANG!!! The bus again launched off the ground and then impacted while I was looking out the window, slamming my forehead against my own reflection - this time Charly, who was still half asleep, murmured “what was that?' I didn't know, but I was relieved that someone else noticed and I wasn't losing my mind. “I don't know”, I said. Charly replied while rubbing my back, “Go back to sleep.” Duress of this kind is a rarity in the free world, I thought, only probably felt by those poor bastards in Guantanamo Bay - under random threat of waterboarding. Falling asleep for me under standard conditions is hard enough let alone with the threat of an imminent danger, so being awake took on a new meaning. Whatever we were hitting had no chance against the momentum of the bus, but none of this made sense – we were in the middle of what looked like a desert, travelling on a straight-flat road. The last few times it felt like the driver saw what was coming, making an effort at the last second to at least slow down, yet we were still hitting whatever it was at roughly 90km/h. A gruesome image formed in my mind of the possible carnage that we were leaving behind – I figured llamas were most probable victims because of their poor night vision, but in the dead of night the sound of the bus hurtling along an empty road would be enough to alert a stone... I stayed awake, in anticipation for the next impact – griping the valium bottle with extreme intention...
Roughly two hours later, I had entered a trans-like state, staring at my dim reflection on the frost covered window and I remember thinking: Jesus, look at yourself. Did your personality give you this face or did your face give you your personality? It’s hard to know – it probably occurred symbiotically, one not more dominant than the other, but right now it feels as if the wrinkles are forming faster than usual. You need to relax more man, this is what it’s all about. You are not slaving your time in some fucking job to a fickle overlord who has unbelievable expectations. No, you are having the time of your life, time to expand your near horizons, time to encounter and time to confront. My deep-stupor of contemplation was luckily broken when the bus drew to a slow stop - so slow, that you really didn't notice the bump at the end in the transition from motion to stasis. I pulled back the curtain to see an empty car parked parallel to our bus on the other side of the road, facing the same direction. I used my hands to melt some of the ice which helped my perspective a little - the darkness was impressive, absorbing all the light from our headlights, virtually nothing could be seen on the edges of the road. We stayed there for nearly 30 minutes before the bus edged forward slowly to then stop again, which was repeated several times over 10 minutes. Strange tactile driving on an empty highway, I thought - as if the driver was trying to manoeuvre the behemoth across a bridge made of string. What the hell was happening? Only questions and not enough goddamn answers on this cold-dark night in the dessert. Charly must have felt the heat from my ramped-up metabolism and rose from her coma. “What's wrong?” she said annoyed. I began to explain to her what had been happening, but I realised that I ran the risk of losing any respect I had by talking emotionally not factually. Better keep quite, I thought. “Nothing”, I replied.
I was still staring outside, fogging the window with hyperventilation, when a single man dressed like a cop walked out of the darkness on the other side of the road pointing at the driver who surged the bus forward, seemingly startled by the instant presence of the cop. The cop reacted to the movement and ran towards the bus with one hand on his hip and the other waving frantically. The bus stopped with a sudden jolt causing a small reverberation throughout the cabin, waking all the geriatrics from their comas, all sluggish with their senses. AHH HA mother fuckers! Now you are in this with me! The passenger door opened and then slammed shut at the same time as the buses engines moaned with exertion, hurling us forward 12 meters to come to a screeching halt – leaving the bus strewed diagonally across the two lanes of the highway. The dozy geriatrics were now fully awake with concern – their heads bobbing around above the headrests like owls trying to audio-locate their prey. Images of the safety video, shown at the beginning of our journey, flashed into my memory stirring great feelings of hatred and contempt - where is the goddamn SAS, James Bond, mum or dad parachuting to our global position system to make this fucking bus continue to Cusco? Something was said by the mysterious cop and the bus driver threw the bus into reverse and sent the heavy machine back 40m at full-speed to then slam on the breaks again. More bags fell from overhead and some of the geriatrics squealed with the excitement. The cop caught up to the bus and said something which made the driver open and shut the door again. Holly shit, I blurted, we're about to become a page in the Lonely Planet guide ' Guerilla warfare - Special Edition’. I heard some loud voices shouting downstairs and then someone banging on one of the windows when out the corner of my eye I saw another man, dressed normally, run by my window carrying what looked like ladders – which seemed to scare the shit out of the driver who then roared the bus forward at full speed! Jesús was screamed by some of the geriatrics as we ran over a large object, but something told me we were not stopping any time soon judging by our hasty acceleration through the 90km/h speed limit.
What had happened? I still didn't know, even after thoroughly applying every possible scenario to the given information. I could maybe have narrowed it down to a dozen or so situations but all normality was blown off when the guy with the ladders arrived. Answers were not offered by anyone, including the steward who was completely quiet during the commotion. What did he think of this, I wondered. Shortly after reaching what may have been a safe cruising speed of 140km/h he did receive a phone-call from the “Captain”. The steward only replied, “Si señor”, making no effort of questioning as to what the fuck were we doing! Were we testing the suspension system, the breaks, the door? Was there a catastrophic need for ladder at 2:30am so severe that we had to pull over and do a jig to get one? AHHHGGGHHH THE QUESTIONS I HAVE!
Charly, as she often dose after facing her own mortality, switched off a switch somewhere in her anterior insula and fell back asleep... Fascinating. She doesn’t need pointless answers like I do, nor closure. A horrible thing could happen to her during the day and she would fall asleep like a baby that night – able to rationally segregate the experience in the back of her mind. Me, I sweat the experience and taste its salts for days until my mind is happy that I have thought about every possible outcome to deny the reality.
The rest of the bus, after discussing what had happened, relaxed and I guessed tried to fall asleep as well. Not me however, I was fighting the urge to eat all the valium including the plastic with its embedded remnants, but considered that the effects would wash me into a sloth-like hangover, completely ruining the day of exploring. Staring down looking at my fingers, I noticed that one of them was bleeding from to much gnawing and with disgust I again looked out the window to find little solace in the cold-darkness, thinking too much – probability, eventuality and finality, considering the point of it all, only to be murdered in a Peruvian desert. I missed my family and my five friends but I still had my strong wings: Charly, who was now fast asleep after flicking the switch. Existentialism seems to be the token fall back position after any harrowing event, maybe it’s the brain’s way of rewiring a kink into already hard-wired components. But it’s laced with problems if you listen to it too closely and start thinking passively and before you know it you've been lead down the back alleys of hopelessness pondering if a person you haven't seen for ten years was truly offended when you mentioned that thing about the place and that Rabbi. Just when I was about to fully submerge into the existential moor, my eyes refocused to my reflection on the window to see another wrinkle slowly etching its way across my brow. Ah to hell with it... we made it: just the babble of an exhausted mind.
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