Last night we embarked upon a long, ten hour bus trip to a city called La Paz. We started from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere known as Uyuni, where we were left off after our three-day jeep tour through the national parks and mountain ranges of Bolivia. Uyuni was small but remarkably crowded - at least two major markets, a town square with six pizza restaurants with bad pizza, and a bus terminal. We waited at the bus stop until we began our long trip to La Paz.
The bus was pretty big, and the seats went all the way back. It was positioned as such, left to right; Papa, Angus, aisle, Mama, me.
We embarked at around eight at night. The moon was beautiful and full, and there were stars out. Not that I could see them very well, but I just assumed the stars were out, because if there were no stars in the dead of night at a place with no artificial night, I think there would be a problem.
Anyway, after about forty minutes of peaceful rest and reading (the book was Wings of Fire, if you want to know), the bus' engine sputtered and the driver drove off the road and stopped. I fell asleep about five minutes after we pulled over, so I missed most of the drama, but apparently the engine conked it and the driver spent two hours trying to get it to work again.
To no avail, apparently, because I was awoken by Mama telling me to collect our bags because we had to walk the rest of the ten hour drive there, alone in the dark with no food or rest or- nah, I'm kidding. The driver had sent in a replacement bus that was actually a lot fancier, with AC and provided blankets (which was good, since I only had puffy jackets and a low-quality Qantas blanket I stole from our Australia-to-Chile flight.) It was, in short, awesome. And as a bonus, no movies, which was a welcome relief after last time's bus showed Ghost Corps in top volume at eight P.M.
I tried to write, but I wasn't inspired plus tired. So I just curled up and fell asleep for eight hours until we came to La Paz. So I got the best rest of any of us, and had a Snickers bar for brekky. Perfection.
Anyway, I am writing this from the luxury of a hotel with the three things we have come to miss and love over the course of our trips. They are the three relics of modern civilization; electricity, heating, and WiFi.
Ahhh.