Tennet's Travels: A Journey

Taking a bus can be an experience in Latin America. The main mode of transport for viajeros in this part of the world, if you're going from A to B you're likely to be doing it onboard a bus. The core of travelling, the lifeblood of momentum down the arterial highways of this vast continent.

Cuenca

So, I thought I'd take the time to relay one particular journey. A blow-by-blow breakdown of a typical bus trip over here. Such experiences can be a real rollercoaster - physically, mentally and emotionally (and most definitely without the stringent safety controls present on actual rollercoasters). Travelling solo, it's hard not to spend at least some of the time during these prolonged pauses between locations in deep thought and reflection. Music has a big part to play as headphones are usually in and eyes gazing out over the otherworldly scenery. Aural stimuli from the iPod, visual stimuli through the window and emotional stimuli from the ol' brainbox. All combine and interconnect for a multi-layered sensory assault. Bus journeys can be some of the most affecting and memorable occasions during a long trip.

Por eso, I've decided to write about one. In an ever so slightly indulgent manner: Broken down by hour and with introductory descriptions of external stimuli present and internal effect produced. Here's 'A Journey': Banos to Cuenca, January 2014.

The Beginning

Banos to Cuenca is advertised as a journey of 7 hours including a change of bus in Ambato. This is a lie. All advertised bus journey durations in Latin America are lies. This is a fact.

Often there is more than one type of bus. The (in context) luxurious 'directo' service that goes straight to the final destination with the minimum of fuss or the more local non-direct service that seems to stop every 5 mins for drop-offs/pick-ups, rarely has enough seats for all the passengers and is generally a waking nightmare. It's important to make sure you buy a ticket for the direct bus.

"Este bus es directo, si?" "Si, senor." Always Si. They lie.

Some buses are also just comfier, newer and shinier than others. Something you can try to ascertain from the outrageous photo covering the wall behind the ticket counter. The photo of a brand new luxury bus, impossibly and inexplicably but somehow apparently parked at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

"El bus para Cuenca es el bus en el foto, si?" "Si, senor." Always Si. They lie.

Cuenca Flower Market

Every bus journey so far in Ecuador I've managed to lose the bus lottery. Sat behind a snoring fat man with his chair set to horizontal, knees resting beside my earlobes, an over-crowded rustbucket about to embark on a needlessly prolonged voyage while the luxury direct bus - the bus I elected not to buy a ticket for - pulls out of the adjacent space. This is how my journey from Banos to Cuenca began, and continued a little something like this....

Hours: 1-2
Music: Elbow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoEa7lApIKY
Surroundings: Busy city
Emotion: Slightly overwhelmed

During the initial stage, settling down into my seat, thoughts naturally turned to the upcoming new job. Triggering the realisation, with a sudden pang of panic, that this was now only one week away. It suddenly seemed very real, something I was actually going to have to do, very soon, rather than a far distant future hypothesis. A momentary crisis of confidence here, as is to be expected with any new great responsibility.

Adding to this sense of anxiety was the observation that the bus didn't have a toilet. The Grand Canyon bus photo definitely displayed this feature! Still experiencing the tail-end of my estomago problems and having visited el bano four times already that morning, this was a slight cause for concern. Fears allayed by the driver's reassuring promise that we would stop every 2 hours for a refreshment break. This was a lie.

Hours: 2-3
Music: Darkside - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr-TRDkpETE
Surroundings: Climbing mountains, clouds rolling in
Emotion: Reflective, melancholic

As the landscape and music became more moody, thoughts internalised and I began to reflect on my current position in the world and how I came to be here. Post-university, there have been three long trips always sandwiched either side of two years working in Londres. These periods of overseas exploration have served as important life bookmarks, signalling the ending of one chapter and eventually a new beginning. I don't think I'd be able to function without these clear and definite line breaks. The perfect opportunity to take a deep breath, take stock and consider what really matters. Without such a pause for thought life can blur into a series of indistinguishable days and moments, fading into months and years, with little time for considering where you're actually going and more to the point why.

Ingapirca Ruins

Looking back on the previous two years of London living, there've been new jobs, new experiences and most importantly new friends. I realised that almost all those present to say adios at my leaving drinks had only become part of my life in those last two years. Very special people who now mean the world to me, feel like companions decades old rather than acquaintances of a few months. Surely it must have been longer than that... Thoughts of home, the friends that make it so, mistakes made and apologies never expressed left me feeling a little choked up. A lump in the throat and a rare sense of all-encompassing loneliness on this solo journey across the other side of the globe.

The lady sitting next to me began to speak needlessly loudly on her phone. A familiar, universal irritation helped to calm and rebalance the emotions. Small world, really.

Hours: 3-5
Music: My Morning Jacket - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVhgyvJAfU8
Surroundings: Don't know
Emotion: Content

Drifting in and out of sleep with semi-waking dreams of people back home no doubt triggered by earlier thoughts, this was a comfortable period of the journey. Safe. Content. Only vaguely lucid.

Hours: 5-6
Music: London Grammar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZYw0MQp_fI
Surroundings: Rolling green hills
Emotion: Positive, teetering towards euphoric

Banos

Refreshed after a nap, watching the vibrant verdant mountains of the Ecuadorian highlands roll past the window, the wonderful sounds of London Grammar providing an uplifting soundtrack, it was hard not to feel lucky to be in this exact time and place. What more could I want? A new job in which I'm surely going to excel and which will provide the funds for more travelling. A moment of clarity: Everything in the last 26 years has led directly here, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Hours: 6-7
Music: Nick Cave - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjIfrhSQ8Pk
Surroundings: Thick mist, steep drops to valley bottom
Emotion: Darker, slightly morbid

Cuenca Cathedral

A heady fog enveloped the bus as we reached the highest point in the journey, intermittently separating for just enough time to allow a peak of the snaking, potholed road sheering away 200ft to the valley below. The driver seemed to think these racing conditions. Pondering the certain death drop, I didn't really feel scared, if anything a little intrigued as to what would actually happen if we went off the edge.... Anyway, it couldn't happen to me. These are things that you read about having happened to other people, right? Easy to imagine it happening to someone else, just not you. But what separates you from them? Solely the location of your own consciousness. To quite literally everyone else in the world, you're not you, you're one of them. And those people you read about would have felt exactly the same way just before their bus plummeted into the abyss. The cliff seemed scarier.

A man sitting across the aisle began whistling out of time and out of tune to the already offensive Reggaeton music. I don't enjoy listening to whistling of a highly accomplished standard. The cliff didn't look so bad again.

Hours: 7-8
Music: Midlake - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcHVYrcb6As
Surroundings: Persistent mist
Emotion: Neutral
During this hour I was deeply absorbed in my book and half-listening to a Midlake album I don't really like. Nothing else to report.

Hours: 8-9
Music: Bruce Springsteen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQvGz6_fvA
Surroundings: More buildings, darkness falling
Emotion: Tired, slightly anxious

As our expedition expectedly ticked over the scheduled time, dusk approached along with the familiar anxiety of arriving after dark in an unknown city with all belongings strapped to my back. Mistaking an earlier town for Cuenca and strolling down the aisle to disembark, I managed to lose my valuable seat. "Don't worry", said the driver. "We're only 20 minutes away". This was a lie.

Ingapirca Ruins

I stood for an hour before another seat became available. My new neighbour exuded a strange vibe. Leaning sideways with his forehead against the window, resting his chin at the base of his right-hand thumb and with index finger pointing straight out touching the glass. At random intervals he released a short, sharp burst of air from between pursed lips. Strange, I thought. It took a few minutes to realise that the noises coincided perfectly with pedestrians walking outside. He was pretending to shoot them. We're not talking about a playful child here, but a balding middle-aged man who's been stuck on a bus for 9 hours. Staring straight ahead, I ignored his frequent attempts to catch my eye with a slow menacing turn of his head. Never before had the back of the seat in front been so interesting. I didn't question his actions lest I should become the latest victim on his imaginary killing spree.

Climbing another hill, the gear shift that had been threatening to give out all day finally did, a few miles still outside Cuenca. Bus well and truly farked, we all disembarked and stood disorientated at the side of the road. I was tired.

Hours: 9-10
Music: None
Surroundings: Hostel interior
Emotion: Elation

I checked the nearby buildings for street names, rang my pre-booked hostel and got them to send a taxi to pick me up. Not something I would likely have thought of as a travel virgin, but the result of years of shit-buses and problem-solving in far-flung countries. See, all this wandering around is a worthwhile, educational, character-building pursuit.

Finally arrived at the intended destination, bottle of cervaza in hand, recovering from the emotional, physical and mental adventure that is a Latin American bus journey, I couldn't be happier. Even the knowledge that the next convoluted trip was only 36 hours away couldn't dampen the mood. It may explain why I've aged so badly, but I wouldn't change a thing.

Happy travels x