Step by step

Head wash

As soon as the driver feels the coins in his hand, he exhausts the gas pedal and the bus blasts off the curb. Involuntarily, I sprint to the back, struggling not to slip on the muddy wet floor or bang my head on the low ceiling. “Come”. A woman gestures me to sit by the window next to her. My bottom makes a splashing sound and cold wetness grabs hold of it. Angrily, I look at my neighbor. “Too much rain and the window doesn’t shut”. She shrugs.

The small Japanese bus bounces through the streets’ potholes to the rhythm of vallenato, Colombian dance music, that blares from the radio. Some passengers rock their heads to the sound while the dirty toes of the woman next to me tap the soles of her flip-flops.

A penetrant stench of old sweat dazes me. Only once in a while, passing fumes of street cookshops spice up the air. During a brief stop, I watch a man on the sidewalk baking arepa con queso, pancakes made of corn and cheese. His little grill looks like a life raft in the middle of puddles, from where he shouts advice at 3 men pushing a taxi out of a mud lake.

A big woman waltzes on the bus and sits down next to a young man, wiggling her butt till his body has given way to make space for her cheeks. Yet, the man’s attention is focused on an imminent race for passengers between our bus and another. “You go to hell!” Curses in coastal dialect are exchanged between the two drivers, then we speed off. “Go for it!“ Some passengers cheer for our driver.

Music from shops outside mingles faster with the rhythms inside the bus. I feel a sharp brake, followed by a shower in my face. The people stare at me, then burst out laughing. I look down on my white top, which is now brown. Suddenly I see myself through the eyes of my fellow passengers – a tall, white, angry-looking foreigner, soaked, on her first Colombian bus ride. I start laughing too and realize that I have begun capturing the spirit of the country its citizens call ‘Locombia’ – crazy land.