Busing it to Cochabamba

Coast of Peru.
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(Author:M,Editor:J)

Had we known what to expect, the ride would have been a piece of cake, but since we largely overestimated the quality of the service, it was not.

We had most definitely not anticipated what was coming our way...

We got up Saturday early morning and quickly made our way to the Ormeño bus terminal, where we were to board our 28 hour “royal class” luxury bus to La Paz, Bolivia. We were each allowed 20 kg of luggage, and seeing as we had 35 kg more than that, it cost us an extra US$35. We expected it and anyways taking the plane with that much extra luggage would have set us back way more than that. The bus was a double decker, relatively clean, and to our great surprise, only about a third of the seats were taken, which meant we’d definitely be sleeping more comfortably.

Desert-like landscape outside of Lima.
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First problem we noticed, or more like Jan noticed cause he is prone to overheating, is that the air conditioning was definitely not conditioned… Yes, there was air blowing from time to time, but it was not exactly what we had hoped for. Half an hour into the ride there were pearls of sweat on Jan’s nose and he was definitely not enjoying the prospect of enduring the heat for 28 hours (neither was I, but being cold by nature, it didn’t bother me as much). Luckily there was a ceiling vent that we opened whenever it got too crazy, but the lady told us to close it because it would break the air conditioning… huh? :) What bothered me most though was the intensive “male” smell coming from our sweaty neighbors sitting in back of us. But we were good, thinking the heat was going to be our only temperature related annoyance.

Margie sleeping on the bus.
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Second problem arose when we went to the bathroom. There were two WCs, but unfortunately there was a big white sign on the door that said: “Solo urinario”. Yup, that’s right, 28 hours on the bus and a restriction on the type of business we were allowed to do. If you did a number two, well it would just stay there with nowhere to go and look at you helplessly… Thankfully we had eaten very responsibly in Lima so we didn’t have… you know, stomach issues. :)

Then came the time when we got hungry. We were told that food would be served on the bus, but did not expect to wait 6 hours for the first bite! By 3 p.m. we still hadn`t eaten anything, so when the “bus waitress” brought the expected pollo and arroz (chicken and rice), along with a 100 ml glass of coca-cola, we were starving. Jan devoured the whole thing in a second and I also gave him my leftovers which he was ecstatic to receive. With the food and all the heat, having run out of water, we were starting to get dehydrated, so we asked if we could buy a bottle of water. To our great surprise, that option did not exist! The girl was kind enough to bring us a small glass of water, and told us the bus was going to make its first stop soon, so we’d be able to purchase water and junk food. We stopped at dusk and accumulated a large amount of chips, chocolate bars and crackers so that we would be safe for the rest of the trip. A bit later came supper: pollo and arroz. At this point though, we were quite happy to get real food and devoured it pretty fast. We were starting to think this ride was not going to be so bad after all…

Desert-like landscape.
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But we had most definitely not anticipated what was coming our way. By the time the sun went down and the third movie was finished (which by the way were Russian bootlegs of movies playing as we speak in theatres in Montreal), we were both pretty beat and fell asleep quite easily… there’s nothing like sleeping in a moving vehicle! Sometime around midnight though, we both woke feeling brutally cold! For some reason, there was a strong draft of cold air (did they decide to put the “air conditioning” on or what?) blowing into our already cold bus! Jan was wearing a t-shirt and I don’t keep warm that easily, so we shook for about 4 hours, thinking the night would never end. The little thin cover we received while sleeping did help us a little, but we survived cause we cuddled together and produced body heat. Luckily for us, time cannot be stopped, and by the time we drove into the Lake Titicaca region at about 6 a.m., the temperature started rising again. I cannot explain how amazing that felt! By around 8 a.m. we were crossing the Peru-Bolivia border, situated at about 4000 m of altitude. I can’t say I felt much of an effect from the altitude, but Jan had started to breathe really heavily. After the usual one hour long semi-confusion at the border, complete with preferential treatment for us Canadians (passports barely checked, bags barely searched), we were onto our last 5 hour stretch of our ride to La Paz. We got a small ham sandwich for breakfast, after which we moved back onto our junk food.

Road by the coast of Peru.
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We arrived at La Paz pretty much on time, and were breathtaken by this city built in a valley with houses on each side. We were hungry and tired, and each had three pieces of luggage to carry around with us, so there was no way we could stop to visit even a bit. On top of that, we had to make it to Cochabamba by that night to our friends Julie and Hugo’s house. We changed some US$ to bolivianos (exchange rate 7 to 1), bought two tickets for the first bus out of La Paz, and were on our way 30 minutes later. Cochabamba, the third largest city in Bolivia, is merely 450km away, but the bus ride takes about 8 hours as the road zigzags across mountains and valleys the whole way. This time, the bus was full, dirty and very warm, but the ride was going to be much shorter, so we did not mind so much. Having had no time to eat, yes, you guessed it - we were still running on junk food. God bless Snickers, though everybody knows how fond I am of junk food. This time we had a full bottle of water, something to munch on, and a toilet… Well, actually, the toilet was physically there, but when I finally decided I really needed to go and opened the door, I realized it was, in fact, a storage room. Tabar… at least another three hours to go, a full bladder, and nothing I could do about it. Jan was particularly unimpressed as he had specifically asked if there was a toilet on the bus, and was assured that there was. We have since found out from Julie that in Bolivia, none of the buses ever have toilets. Good to know. :) This time around, the movies being played were crappy quality 80s movies obviously taped years ago (Universal Soldier and Weekend at Bernie’s). But it just added to the charm of the whole thing.

As we were about to drive into Cochabamba (which we had been seeing in the horizon for over two hours but had many zigzags to do before we actually reached it), people sitting behind us on the bus started getting really rowdy. Turns out that one woman had caught red-handed two guys trying to rob the passengers in front of them. She started screaming, as did many other people, and even told us that they had taken pictures of our faces and luggage to try to rob us afterwards. When we stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of Cochabamba, the woman called a few police officers into the bus, and for about 20 minutes, she was explaining to them what had happened, the guys being accused denied it, she yelled, more people yelled, more cops showed up, and it all ended with the accused and the people traveling with them (there was five of them in total, along with a young child) to be taken off the bus for questioning. The last 45 minutes on the bus were spent talking with a few people about the dangers of Bolivia, how foreigners and locals get robbed, how it’s dangerous, how we have to be extremely vigilant, especially at the bus terminal, along with many horror stories from the region (where most of the time, white travelers were victims). Both Jan and I were nicely freaked out, and the only good thing was that my extreme need to pee had pretty much completely disappeared haha! We finally got to the station a little passed 10 p.m., and one of the passengers that had talked to us for a while was kind enough to spend 20 minutes with us in order to find us a suitable taxi to take to Julie and Hugo’s house. You see, anyone can put a taxi sign on their car here and drive people around. And although they are relatively safe during the day, it is strongly advised to only take “legit” taxis (those that are related to a central calling station) at night. We made it safely to their house, grateful and surprised to still have all of our luggage, and happy to meet our friends we hadn’t seen in over a year since their departure to Bolivia.

All in all, the 36-hour bus ride was livable, a million times better than in West Africa. The landscape from Lima to Bolivia was more or less interesting, as it is mostly desert on one side and a flat ocean on the other, but once we got to Lake Titicaca it got incredible. Did not take many pictures as we did not want to announce to the whole world we have nice cameras, but we will definitely go back to the La Paz region to visit.

So a few things to keep in mind: when going on a “luxury bus”, bring t-shirts, a sweater, a coat, a sleeping bag, food, water, as well as a couple of Immodium pills (just in case), and everything will be just great. Also, never ever leave anything unattended or out of your sight for the slightest moment, as it will most definitely be in grave danger.