Before I start let me say:
Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is more than fine!
Travel days are more or less filled full of long hours of bus rides, or 2 to 3 flights over a course of 3 days. We have been boarder crossing through South America on buses for the past 3 months. Our last boarder-crossing bus wasn’t any different until our journey was brought to a hault by a riot effort in the desert.
Friday, April 27th
12:15am
We have been riding on the bus through Peru towards the Ecuador boarder for 7 hours. I have been awoken by the stilled movement of our bus. It has stopped completely and the attendant is walking down the aisle ordering us all to shut the curtains on our windows. I’m peeking through the curtain’s crack and I can see dark figures all along the road. Rocks are being thrown at the side of our bus. I see high flames stretching across the pavement infront of us. Rioters have blocked the road with burning debris.
1:40am
No police have shown up yet. There seems to be well over 50 rioters outside. Most of them are standing behind our bus so we can’t go backwards. The fire is still burning across the road infront of us. We’ve been informed that our bus has to be shut off so that it doesn’t appear we are going to try and leave. Every once in a while someone walks along the bus and shines a flashlight in the windows. We’ve been told that it may be 6am before we can move again. No engine means no airflow. We have opened the hatches in the ceiling for ventilation. All you can really hear now is the wind blowing through them and occasional loud laughter outside.
4:00am
Our driver has started the bus to try and get some airflow going. The people outside have began whistling and yelling at us. More rocks are pelting the side of the bus. They think we are trying to drive on. Our driver had to shut the engine right back off.
7:00am
The sun is coming up and we can see more of what’s outside. I went to the front and back of the bus and slid my phone between the curtains to take a couple photos. Behind us is a group of people who drug a log across the road when we first got here to block us in. There’s a line of men sitting along the log. In front of our bus you can see the black rubble from wood and tires that were being burnt all night. There are 2 or 3 more buses ahead of us that are blocked in as well. Our bus hostess has advised us to keep the curtains shut even more so now that it’s light out. She says if they see we are American they may be more tempted to come on our bus and steal our things.
It is getting really hot on here. The police were called at midnight. They said they would be here around 6am. The police have not showed up yet. Our safety coordinator has contacted the US embassy. They said they are working on doing something soon to help us.
7:33am
I’ve heard that the rioters are fishermen who are opposing the beginning of oil drilling here. The riot is their effort to make the government do something about it. They are purposely blocking the road all the way to the boarder and the traffic that is caught up in it so that the police will come to hear what they have to say. On the right side of our bus we can see the men are cutting down trees to refuel the fires. We have called an emergency line to explain our situation. The police have still not showed up.
Banners have been staked accross the road behind our bus that read, “Don’t contaminate our oceans” and “Fishing life and tourism, yes. Petroleum, no”. There are well over 100 people outside now.
9:40am
The bus is stifling at this point. They have determined it’s safe for us to come off of it and sit on the road side for fresh air. Most the drunks from the night time are gone. Still no police. Riots and protests are very common in Peru. At this point I’m just wondering how long they can last.
1:10pm
The rioters have told us they want nothing to do with us, but that our bus arrived at the time of the road block and now they won’t be letting us through. It would seem their hearts behind the protest are mostly good, but they didn’t think through the fact that over 200 people on these buses are now ensnared by their roadblock. We brought snacks to last us through an 18 hour bus ride, not a 3 day riot in the middle of the desert. Sandwiched between the desert and the ocean with a barbwire fence on one side of the road and a large ditch on the other, there’s not any other choice but to wait this out.
Police? We saw one pull up. Probably from the small town just down the road because he persisted to exit his vehicle and begin drinking with the people in the road.
The US embassy? They told us they would work with our bus line to try and get food out to us, but in the mean time just to stay on our bus.
Our Adventures in Missions leadership team and squad leaders? They are working on trying to get us to the next town either by taxi or tuk-tuk. It would be best to wait this out else where before the sun goes down and people get drunk while lighting the fires back up in the road again. One tuk-tuk tried to pass the barricade and it resulted in men tipping it over. I see lots of people getting off the other buses with their luggage and walking down the road.
6:00pm
We chose to stay on the bus because our driver said it looks like the riot is clearing out a bit. Our squad leaders were able to bring us food from a store they walked too somewhere which has been the first food some of us have had all day (you rock, SQL’s). We’re settling back on the bus to sleep. No police, no embassy.
11:45pm
Police have shown up in the road ahead of us and the rioters have been met with tear gas. People are clearing out. Now, 24 hours after we were stopped, our bus is finally moving again.
Saturday, April 28th
3:18am
It’s been 32 hours after our bus left the station and we have finally crossed through the Equador boarder check. 5 more hours to the station followed by one more 4 hour ride, and my team will make it to this month’s ministry site.
Do you ever have moments where you get to check something off your bucket list that you didn’t know was available for you to experience in life until it happened? Yeah, me too.
Held hostage for 24 hours by angry fishermen in a Peruvian desert: Check! (more funny than not at this point)
Fun Fact:
Overall hours from Cusco, Peru to Cuenca, Ecuador landed last week at a record breaking 78 hours spent on a bus for me… and I’m not trying to break that record anytime soon! Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is more than fine!
