My Christmas day was spent on the road, waiting for a guagua that would
take me back home, but being that it was a holiday, the buses were not very
regular or timely, like most things in this country. We took a carro publico
and little guagua to my bf’s aunt’s house outside the capitol for some seafood
soup and beer. Being that I had just finished off a plate of fish soup and
large cup of coffee at his house, my belly was full and so I opted only for the
beer. It was yummy. According to the bus station, the next guagua was was to
leave at around 2, and so we headed to the side of the highway to flag it down
and jump on. Unfortuneately the sun was melting hot, and we walked a ways to
some shade, which luckily, was next to a colmado. Colmados serve beer. We sat
on some large rocks, waiting, jumping up to flag down any guagua that drove
by, only to not be the right one. I had pretty much given up on going home. Three
hours passed, about 4 bottles of Presidente’s, and 1 bag of chips later, a
guagua came by that went about 2 hours away from my town. We jumped on with our
last bottle of beer to ride for about 2 hours, connecting us to another little
guagua. Being that it was so late already, we had it in mind that we
were going to hitch-hike back to my site after this guagua had made its last
stop. Either hope for the best to make it through the loma, or find a place to
sleep. Somehow, we passed another guagua on the way that was magically my bus
into town. A Christmas gift. We got off the second guagua in the middle of a random dark
bridge, and hopped onto our last guagua, which was stuffed with passengers. We
rode for a while standing, and practically hanging out of the open door. All I
could do was laugh - so much work just to make it home for Christmas day. About
7 hours later, I made it to my host family’s house, just in time for another
round of drinks.
