So, I’ve been traveling a few
weeks now. Yup, lots of long bus rides. And another one ahead of me…Arequipa to
Nazca. The estimated 12 hours through the night quoted to me has me splurging and taking the
uber-comfy, luxury bus the Cruz del Sur. Sure it was a bit more expensive, plus you’re paying
for a ticket all the way to Lima despite getting off in Nazca, but whatever, I was treating myself.
At the bus station, when they started
announcing that my bus was ready to board, I had a moment’s panic as they said
we would be arriving in Nazca in the 5:30am range…I hadn’t booked accommodation since I
thought we’d be arriving at 7am. The thought of getting to Nazca and having to
bang on the steel doors blocking all building entrances was not appealing. Fortunately, the
girl in front of me said that I could join her as she had already booked a room.
I had just found my new traveling companion, Rebecca.
As luck would have it, Rebecca had been assigned seat #2, and I was in #1. We were positively giddy, sharing stories of our adventures in Peru, pleased as punch when food was brought to us, thrilled at the thought of a movie. Things were lookin' up...but not for long.
When the food trays were cleared,
the lights dimmed, the masses silenced, my trouble truly began. Fidgety, wired on soda, and trapped! I had about a foot and a half in front of me and then the "wall" separating the driver's compartment from the passengers. No seat to extend my legs under. And I have looooong legs. 10 hours? This was not gonna be good.
And the heat! Oh man,
it was so flippin' hot on the bus. Rebecca couldn’t stop laughing as I let off one uncomfortable moan
after another.
Every couple of seconds, I was shuffling in my seat to try and get comfortable.
Then layers of clothing started coming off. My pants were rolled up as far as they
could go, my socks and shoes were in a pile on the floor, my shirt was off and I was sweating profusely (I
had on a tank top underneath which was rolled up to let my stomach breath). How many more
hours to go?
It was about 3-4 hours in, and I was
in a state of heated delirium. The temperature in the bus was stifling, my legs were cramping, the man behind me was snoring and
somehow I seemed to be the only one suffering. It was at this time that I went
a little crazy. I started thinking, for whatever reason, about how odd it was
that every country you go to seems to have a section in the gift shop for the
sexually oriented gift. And Peru was no exception. How many key-chains and
statuettes had I seen where couples were copulating…men with their humongous
penises and women with their gi-normous boobies?! All posed in a varied amount of positions, like the Kama Sutra.
All the while my mind
contemplated this, I continued to shift in my seat: one minute my feet were on my seat with my knees up at my chin; then one foot on the floor with the other up, bent, flat-footed against the “wall” in front
of me; then one foot tucked under the seat, while the other came down to cross
over it. Once a position became uncomfortable, I’d shift to a new one.
And
then it hit me…I was doing the Cruz del Sur Sutra! I found myself naming the
positions, cackling away as one position morphed to the next - the "fetal" to the "running man" to the "curtsy" and so forth. Once I had
gone through about 7 different positions, I would find myself back at the beginning again. I have no clue how many rotations of the sutra I went through, but it helped the minutes tick past.
Upon our arrival in Nazca, I was wiped. So physically and mentally drained. But let me tell you, if it wasn't for the Cruz del Sur Sutra I dunno how I'd have survived that long, hot, uncomfortable, expensive night-bus ride.
