Well, it would appear I was a bit premature in thinking the drama of my road trip from Buenos Aires to Cochabamba was over and that the last leg from Sucre would be all smooth sailing. How I was wrong. Not to worry. I've been premature before and everything turned out alright (when I was born. Not what you were thinking).
So after a nice casual day in Sucre, come the evening, it was time to get my things and go to the bus terminal. In the morning, there had been no talk of possible blockades obstructing the highway, hence I thought my road trip would be hassle free from then on, but when I arrived in the evening rumours were abound that there would be no departures due to more road blocks.
After waiting around for an hour for my bus to depart, the decision was made that we would get going. We were only a few minutes out of town when we joined the back of the queue of trucks and buses stopped because of the road block. There was talk that the blockade would be lifted later in the night so we stayed put for the time being. I went for a walk up to the road block itself to have a look. I’ve had to delay my travel plans many times due to blockades but I’d never been on the front line before. It was pretty tame, 8:30pm by this stage, with maybe a couple of dozen guys standing around and one guy holding court giving a speech. There were lots of banners displaying the striking miner’s demands, a camp fire and mounds of sand and rock, up to a metre high, blocking the entire width of the road. Nope. No vehicles were going to get through there. I went back to the bus and went to sleep.
A few hours later, in the middle of the night, I woke to the sound of the bus starting up. We were off again but I was unsure if we were returning to the terminal in Sucre or if we were going to try an alternative route. I thought if we returned to Sucre we would have to get off the bus and I was still in a daze and wanted to keep sleeping so I was hoping the driver had come up with an idea to go around the blockade. That was until the bus came to a stop and I looked outside. We were on a dirt road about to start a steep descent down a narrow track with a nice big drop on one side. We had stopped because the bus we were following was attempting a tricky 180° turn around a switchback and our driver wanted to see if the bus ahead could do it.
Everyone knew the drill. This situation isn’t foreign to Bolivians. They all knew to get off the bus whilst the driver performed the tricky manoeuvre. This prompted an exodus of passengers off my bus as well. There are two reasons for getting off the bus. One is to help direct the driver and the other is if the bus falls of the edge of the road and down the cliff then … well, then you’re not dead, are you? When I was living in Bolivia last year there was an incident like this where a bus was passing by a wet and difficult stretch in the road. All the passengers got off and someone captured the bus on camera as it attempted to cross the pass and ultimately fell off the edge of the cliff, killing the driver. The video was posted on youtube and it was replaying in my mind as I quickly followed the queue of the other passengers to get off the bus.
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WkdiGiwvso
As I got towards the front of the bus the driver closed the door blocking me and a few other passengers from getting off. To me this meant he was about to move off and attempt the tricky and dangerous turn. Although I didn’t show it or voice it, I was panicking. I didn’t want to take no shortcut to heaven and go for a free ride off the side of a cliff. What the fuck? Why wasn’t the driver letting the rest of us get off? Was it that he didn’t want to die alone? How the fuck did I end up here, went through my mind. I was the only foreigner on either bus, and only two weeks earlier, I was in Australia where people were throwing parties in my honour. Now I was in the mountains of Bolivia, in the pitch black of night, with my life in the hands of a Bolivian bus driver. Bolivian bus drivers have a reputation for being wild and a few years ago went on strike when the Bolivian government introduced zero tolerance regarding bus drivers and drink driving. Naturally they striked by blocking major roadways.
The bus was still stationary at this point. I thought it was time to speak up and I said, ‘Let’s get off.’ A guy next to me gave some explanation as to why we weren’t, but I didn’t understand it. Seconds passed and even more seconds passed. Then other passengers started to say, ‘Let’s get off’. I liked what I was hearing. And then the door of the bus opened and we were given pardon, so to speak. .
The night was totally dark except for the headlights of the buses and torches of passengers. I looked down the edge of the drop down to where the leading bus now was. It had managed to get around the first switchback but was now stationary at the next one unable to go forward or back. I thought perhaps it was better that it was so dark. It may have been even scarier had we been able to see the full extent of the drop in the light of day. It was really cold and I was wondering how this whole saga was going to end. Then the bus driver walked past and said to me, ‘No, it’s too dangerous. We’re going back.’
Well, that was some news. I didn’t know if it was good news or not but I didn’t want to be stuck out in the cold all night whilst the bus tried some off-road driving. Now all that had to happen was somehow reverse the bus back up the hill. Long story short, with the help of people guiding him, the driver was able to back up about 150 metres along the narrow track before there was room to turn the bus around. During this time, I could see that there was still a guy on the bus asleep, oblivious to all that was going on. We went back to the terminal in Sucre and spent the night on the bus. Well, that was quite an adventure. I went to sleep wondering what tomorrow would bring.
About 5am, a few us of woke and were keen to get this show on the road again. We woke the driver but he wasn’t keen on going anywhere until he knew the road was clear. Some of us chipped in for a taxi and a woman volunteered to go and check the status of the roadblock. She returned to tell us it was still in full swing and didn’t look like lifting anytime soon. We then went to the bus company office in the terminal to demand some action. The poor young woman at the counter wasn’t even aware that the previous night’s departure to Cochabamba was still in Sucre. She was sure aware of it when about a dozen disgruntled guys dropped in on her. She handled it very well and in the end, the decision was made that we would carry out a transbordo – catch a bus to the roadblock, walk carrying all our things past the blockade and catch a bus waiting on the other side and continue the trip from there. It’s a ten hour trip to Cochabamba. I thought it would take ages before a bus would arrive to pick us up on the other side. But as luck would have it, there was already one there.
This time up on the front line it wasn’t as calm and peaceful as the night before. There were heated arguments going on between the strikers and truck drivers. As I climbed with all my bags, suitcase and guitar, over the sand mounds that were blocking the road, I could see a crowd encouraging the lead truck in the queue to drive over the sand and brake down the barrier. It appeared the truck drivers had had enough of the delay and were going to do something about it. I wanted to stay and watch some more but I didn’t want to miss out on getting the bus on the other side. I also thought beforehand that the strikers might try to prevent people from doing the transbordo thing, but in this instance, there was so much commotion and action going on that they were preoccupied.
We crossed over to the other side and just kept walking, downhill thankfully. I didn’t know exactly where we were going or for how long we’d have to walk. We walked for a good ten minutes before we got to the end of trucks queued up and then a few hundred metres in the distance we saw another bus from our company. That’s our ride out of here we thought but when we spoke to the driver, he knew nothing about any transbordo arrangement. We waited by the side of the road whilst something was sorted out. Meanwhile, other people with all their belongings were walking past but going in the other direction, doing the vehicle swap as well.
Forever on the lookout to make some extra cash, there were mobile food carts selling snacks and drinks. Others had wheel barrows offering porter services whilst motorbikes taxied those people that weren’t able to do the long walk. Finally, the young woman from the bus company arrived and sorted everything out. But it was still fuckin’ ages before we got going. We left maybe an hour and half after we first reached the bus. Then when we took off, the driver kept stopping for other people on the road who wanted a ride to Cochabamba. Our bus became full with a lot of people sitting in the aisle. As you can imagine, a lot of us were keen to put Sucre behind us and the stop/start was pissing some people off who were not afraid to voice it. ‘Let’s go, Let’s go.’ The driver told them to shut up or get off and that we’d just have to wait.
Finally, at about 9:15am we were away proper - over 13 hours after the scheduled departure time. All that was left was to sit back and get comfortable for the ten hour journey ahead. It was a pretty decent trip as far as bus trips go. This was just a regular coach, not one of the super comfortable ones I described travelling from Buenos Aires to Bolivia. But it meant the windows could open to give us some fresh air in the crowded and warm conditions. It was another clear, warm, sunny day and the scenery was fuckin’ amazing – large mountains as far as the eye could see. After all, we were in the Andes. The only other time I’d been through this way was at night so the sights were new to me. Even some of the Bolivians were looking out the window like tourists in awe of the mountains. There was a lot of vegetation as well which added to the spectacle unlike the bare mountains I was accustomed to between Puno and Cusco. I would love to go through that way during the rainy season when it would be really green.
We stopped for lunch which helped to break up the trip a bit but the last few hours really dragged on. It didn’t help that the driver had loud annoying cumbia music pumping through the stereo. I almost went deaf from listening to my mp3 player at full volume to block out the bus music.
With what I thought was still an hour remaining of the trip, I saw out the window in the distance Cochabamba’s large 33 metre high Christ statue that sits on a hill overlooking the city. Woohoo. We’d arrived. Well, almost. We got as far as the outskirts of town when the bus broke down - right outside the cemetery, of all places. I shit you not. I couldn’t fuckin’ stop laughing. The driver told us to all get off; this was as far as he was taking us. It worked out to be a blessing as it was a lot easier and chilled getting off, and collecting our luggage on the side of the road where we were, than the hustle and bustle of the bus terminal.
Finally the ride was over. I quickly caught a taxi to my hotel and washed myself up before meeting up with some friends.
Wow. Now there’s 24 hours you don’t experience every day.
