itchyfeetadventures Traveling is a lot like love - exciting, fulfilling and a bit insane.

The bus had already started moving when Ana, a friend from Brazil, and I started walking down the aisle to find our seats. We were tired and may have ‘smelt’ a little from the nightclub before. All we cared about was falling into our seats and sleeping for the whole nine-hour journey from Barcelona to Madrid.We found our seats at the back of the bus, but only one seat was empty, the other was occupied by a rather disgruntled looking woman. With the little Spanish we had picked up during the week we tried explaining to the woman that she is sitting in one of our seats. We did not get the response we hoped for, she shouted “NO" repeatedly. Not wanting to create a scene I suggested to Ana that she take the empty seat, but when the bus driver saw me swaying in the aisle he stopped the bus and came to speak to me. At that moment body language became my new international dialect. It turned out there was a ticket error and I happened to share the same seat number as the cranky woman. The bus driver asked the woman to move to an empty seat right at the front of the bus, to his answer she replied “NO”, looked out of the window and sulked. It became apparent that we had to split up. Ana sat next to her, while I moved upfront to sit next to an overweight man who was very ill. Each time he coughed or sneezed my chair shook. To top things off … it was hot. Very hot. The air conditioner didn’t work and my window wouldn’t open. I knew I was going to die either of a heat stroke, dehydration or the dreaded disease the man was carrying… The next stop seemed hours away – literally it was. Eventually our bus stopped at the half way mark – a small garage shop in the middle of the Spanish desert. I found Ana smiling, “But I got our revenge Kamita” she said. Ana had been wearing the same pair of shoes and socks for the past week. They smelled bad; she knew it too, so she did what any waiting-for-revenge girl could do… she took off her shoes. The woman freaked and told her to put her shoes back on. Ana slowly turned to face the woman, looked at her coldly and said “NNNOOOH!” in her thick Brazilian accent. When the break was up, we filed on to the bus to find an empty seat next to Ana’s. Without any thoughts, we collapsed on top of each other and slept… at last!