Winding roads and flying dogs
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
20
36
Trip End
Sep 01, 2007
Lima,
Peru
Sunday, December 3, 2006
bus grub!
.We have been on a few bus journeys since our trip begun as I´m sure you are all aware by now and while travelling on buses you notice the odd idiosyncracy here and there. I am sure we will have more to say about the matter once are in Central America and on the infamous Chicken Bus but here are some interesting tit bits we have noticed along our way if you ever travel yourselves to South America.
Bolivia is an interesting place to travel by bus (see entry about Bolivian buses) not only because it has the most hair raising bus journeys in the world but because some buses, if you are lucky enough although in this case unlucky, show films or ´peliculars´ as they are known in Spanish (see vocab improving all the time). If you travel in Brazil you might be subjected to a film advertising Brasilian culture and the many wonders of the country. Very interesting and if you speak Portuguese you might even understand what its on about but the bit with wierd folk playing bizarre instruments was good. Argentine buses have films like ´Pretty Women´, which Nick found to be `dated, brain numbing and crap´ (he knows nothing) or ´Mission Impossible.´ Peru shows classics like ´All About Eve´ which I really got into, what a scheming bitch Eve is, however I didnt get to see the end because we arrived at our destination early so if anyone can enlighten me on how the film ends I would be very grateful (I got to the bit at the party when the drunk Margo starts to become very suspicious)
out the window
. However you are really in for a treat on Bolivian buses and will most probably awake at 3am under the speaker (the fact that you will have earplugs stuffed into your ears will make no difference, you can hear perfectly well with them) to a Steven Seagal, they love him out here or an old Chuck Norris film being played at top volume with some nice violent scene containing blood, guts or some rape with the whole bus full of indigenous camposino folk awake and transfixed, stuffing beans and plantain into their mouths. The film will also be played during the next morning aswell, just in case you missed it during the night, fun for adults and kids alike! Buses in Ecuador and apparentely Columbia too, like to show a host of violent films usually about Guerilla forces, so we put this down to violent pasts, long live the Revolution! If you aren´t interested in watching a film, you can always read a book or a newspaper. Alot of people on Ecuadorian buses read newspapers and it is always reassuring to see a double spread about a bus which crashed down a cliff just yesterday while you are on a bus in the same area. Newspapers in South America also like to print close-up pictures of all the dead bodies strewn across roads so you are aware of the full extent of their injuries. Usually the bus driver and his ticket man companion have their heads in a newspaper too but its the back page they´re interested in which features the daily Ecuadorian hotty - not that much difference to old blightly then
out the window 1
. The workforce on a bus changes dramatically in South America too. Nicks favourite was the Peruvian bus comany Estrella del Sur who employ rather top heavy waitresses. They wear very tight uniforms not dissimilar to that of a bull fighter but with those frilly collars men use to wear in Elizabethan times. Our waitress on our bus from Buenos Aires to Santiago in Chile was very skilled and managed to carry a whole tray of hot teas and coffees the full length of the bus without spilling anything. I think she served everyone their meals, including hot chicken, wine, whiskey and champagne, in a record half an hour, now thats service. In Brazil the bus driver or his male asssistant stand up at the front of the bus and give a long speech about the company, the route we will be taking, where we will be stopping and for how long. For such a laid back country this is a pretty formal affair. We had one speaker who was so nervous he spoke so unbelievably fast that noone, not even the Brasilieros understood what he had said and this made us feel alot better about not speaking Portuguese.
You will discover a common sound in South America and that is the one where the male or female snort out-of-date phlegm from their nose, collect it in the back of their throats, pause and then spit it out on the ground. This sound can be heard best in Brasil, Peru and Bolivia however of course on buses people swallow the phlegm
out the window 2
. The habit is worse at night it seems and is the sound you will hear mostly on your night journey across South America. Snoring in South America is a terrible problem aswell. After much discussion we have concluded that Brasilians are the worst culprits with snores resembling some creature from Star Wars and Peruvians come a close second.Anyway, we arrived in Lima rather shaken and stirred. Its not the greatest of cities but fine for a stop-over and we stayed in an area called Miraflores at a hostel called the Flying Dog which sadly had no flying dogs only a cat called Pablito which I thought was a very sweet name for a cat. There was quite a good book fair on in the park while we were there and we managed to find the English section which comprised of 3 books, so we bought them. One night here and then it was back to the bus station for a bit more bus action! To the north! To the border and to Ecuador! Yeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
