South American Bus Fail

Television Screen Nightmare

Women screaming, babies crying, bombs exploding while men shoot, fight, stab, rape and murder their way through the most excruciatingly bad Asian movies ever made. These movies are served up on almost every bus I boarded in South America, with children's eyes glued to the screens for the duration of their trip. In the first five minutes of every movie there is a gun involved and someone is shot. The drama continues in this fashion, culminating in scores of people of a darker persuasion murdered in order to rescue three white people, one of whom is usually a beautiful woman with an impressive cleavage and a rubber mouth. The amount of blood and gore expended to make the save could fill five bathtubs.

This is what to expect after the bus leaves the station when the overhead television is switched on and the fun begins. It's torture for the ears, too, as these lackeys play the videos at ear-shattering volumes while the screen looms down at you from overhead. The screen can be suffering from gray or red sheens, grainy or pock-marked, nothing is clear and there is no getting away. Suffer or disembark. If you're particularly unlucky, the bus may have more than the one screen. And if you complain, people look at you as nothing but an American spoiler.

For some reason, it's not okay to experience silence anymore, to read a book quietly in your seat or look out the window at the landscape. We must be filled at all times, full time, our brains engaged in mind-numbing activity as we soak it up. Smoking is not permitted on buses, don't want to ruin the children's lungs, but this soul destroying, violent nonsense is permissible.  I soon became exhausted with asking bus drivers to either turn it down, or slow down.  Bus rides in South America can be an unsettling experience, that is, if you live to tell about it.  Which brings me to the next part of my story.............



The Bus Drivers

I've been on hundreds of buses all over the world, but the worst drivers are here in South America. If they're not drinking while they're driving, or drinking at the many truck stops, they're hung-over and sleepy. And if they're not grouchy and moody, they're manically smoking and drinking coffee and talking with the sidekick helper, or one of the passengers sitting on the dashboard.

On a bus ride to Guayaquil, the bus driver was playing chicken with another bus driver as we were coming down a steep mountain from Zaruma. I looked out my window to see a bus staying beside ours for a good ways down the mountain and I thought the bus just couldn't get up the piss to pass when I realized our bus driver wouldn't let him pass. The driver and his lackey were laughing and pointing out the window to the other driver.  It was great fun!  Except these roads are dangerous with blind corners at steep curves and the two of them laughing their faces off was unsettling.

I waved to get the sidekick's attention and he stumbled laughing through the aisle. In Spanish I said, 'es peligrosos,' and in English, 'it's not funny cocksucker.'  Oh, they slowed down in good time and we obviously made it to our destination, but these are the kind of scenarios you're likely to encounter, all in good fun, in South America.