The area where we waited for the bus was notorious for pick-pocketers, and so at 11:00pm at night we weren't surprised to find every pair of eyes staring in our direction at the bags draped all over our bodies. I say “eyes” because most of the people were wearing balaclavas, due to the freezing cold temperature, or at least I hope that was why they were wearing them.
When the bus eventually arrived two hours late our faces dropped. Surely this was not what we were about to sit in for the next 14 hours to La Paz, the capital. This contraption that looked like it was held together by the ropes hanging down from the roof stumbled down the street to greet us.
After dumping our stuff precariously on the roof, we entered the darkness of the interior and could just about make out the gloomy faces of the Bolivians sitting in mismatched chairs barely fastened to the floor. We made our way up the aisle trying to find seats 56 and 57, all the while noting that in some cases there were four or five people sharing two seats and that bags were strewn all over the place. We eventually got to the back of the bus and realised to our horror that our seats consisted of a very hard looking wooden bench stretched out across the back of the bus with absolutely no way of reclining to try and sleep.
To get into our seats we had to squeeze past an old lady bent over double, wrapped in about twenty blankets and smelling of urine. I had the misfortune of sitting in the window seat where I soon realised the window was broken and impossible to shut, which meant enduring fourteen hours of the freezing air seeping into every area of my body. We glanced to our right beyond the ten, stern looking Bolivian faces sharing the bench and saw two fellow Gringos also looking distinctly uncomfortable and staring in disbelief at their surroundings. We exchanged words of discontentment and laughed nervously at the prospect of enduring a night of no sleep and unusual smells.
As I pondered how things could get any worse, suddenly I felt an intense pain surge through my legs as I realised the person in front had decided to recline his seat fully back and thereby crush the circulation from my long legs. Despite making polite protests, the miserable looking Bolivian, who spent the entire journey talking incessantly with the guy next to him as they passed back and forth a large bottle of what looked like frothy urine, refused to move his seat forward. Instead, his drinking partner decided to follow suit and crushed Peta's legs. We were now trapped facing sideways with our faces looking straight out of the open window, shivering uncontrollably. Our only source of comfort was a sleeping bag that Peta had sensibly brought on board with her.
After four hours I could no longer feel my toes as my blood rushed around in a mad panic trying to warm up my rapidly freezing limbs. The only audible sounds (aside from the two infront) were Peta's teeth chattering and the muffled sounds of a dog barking from within someone's bag that was flying back and forth along the overhead compartment.
Two hours later the driver decided to turn up his radio to full blast so that we all had to suffer the Bolivian high pitched screeching music that sounded like the Bee Gees in fast forward mode. I was on the verge of screaming at this torture and decided I had to get up and move or I would go mad. So I had to clamber over endless motionless bodies before arriving at the aisle where I tried to find space to lie down and maybe get some sleep.
However, it proved to be an impossible task as all the bags that were stored overhead were now strewn up and down the aisle, along with several bodies of people that had similar thoughts to my own. After about twenty minutes of struggling I managed to make a small amount of space so that I could half sit and half crouch between two oversized shopping bags. With a little more pushing and shoving I got into an almost lying position, but soon regretted it. The smelly socks belonging to the people either side of my face made me gag, and I soon felt what it must be like to be buried alive.
Staring up at the ceiling, I felt extremely depressed at the thought of having to endure another 8 hours in that self made coffin. The only thing for it was to try and get some sleep, but the incessant vibration from the floor beneath me and the occasional bump in my back, made it a difficult task. Somehow I managed to eventually drift off to the distant murmers of the dog balanced precariously above me.
But my sleep didn't last long as I was rudely awoken by something crashing down on my chest, knocking all the air out of my body. I awoke with a start and looked across at the offending article which was now wimpering. The doggy bag had finally dislodged itself from the shelf onto me, and now its owner was berating me with Spanish expletives as if it was my fault. The dog looked almost as startled as I did squashed tight to its owner's chest.
Throughout the night this continued to happen as bags of all shapes and sizes rained down on me, until eventually I had to give up, wave the white flag and retreat back to my seat. But this was no longer possible as someone else had stolen it. So instead Peta very kindly let me sit in her seat as she stood in the aisle. The deal was that we would swap back again in ten minutes, however, I was soon asleep with the blanket ladies head in my lap.
I was jolted awake, though, as the bus came to an abrupt stop in the middle of nowhere. We decided to use this opportunity for a toilet break and to find our bags. It proved fruitless though as it was impossible to find anything in the darkness. Peta at this point began to panic as our passports were in her bag. Shouting hysterically “I can't find them,” Peta approached the bus driver asking him to turn on the light. “What light?” was the response.
People began to murmur and point at us. Eventually one guy got up and helped us look. After a quick toilet break we returned to the bus and found everyone laughing. They had found our bags, which looked in a worse way than the dog (still whimpering) perched on top of them. Relief seeped through our bodies until we reached our seats and found our sleeping bag had been taken. No one was claiming responsibility.
For the rest of the journey we just sat and endured until eventually arriving in what looked like a war torn capital with protestors and police parading the streets. But we were too tired, frozen and hungry to care.
