So when I say travel day what that really means is 3 full days of travel. Most recently our team packed up our bags, said goodbye to all our friends in Argentina, and jammed ourselves onto a bus headed to Bolivia with 42 of our squad-mates. Before we could even get settled on the bus the first announcement was made: “Pooping in the bus bathroom is absolutely not allowed.” That doesn’t seem like a big deal until you remember there are 50 coffee and snack loving Americans on a crowded bus for 24 hours with only one rest stop (that stop happened to be only 4 hours into the ride). Needless to say, sometimes you just need to go. Long story short, one person clogged the toilet, and the rest had to poop in bags and throw them out the window as we zoomed down the freeway.
We finally arrived at the border of Bolivia around 1:00 pm the next day, shuffled off the bus, threw 50 pounds of gear on our backs, another 20 on our fronts, and walked to the Office of Immigration and Border Protection. The weather and the people in Bolivia are beautiful. The air is humid and the sun burns bright. Women walk around in traditional attire: vibrantly colored poufy skirts, intricately designed shawls, thick-brimmed bowler hats, and long black braids that run the length of their backs. One hour into the wait for our visas, we were accused of smoking marijuana in a government building and got kicked out of the office. So now there were 50 World Racers—most of whom were suffering from altitude sickness—standing outside with all their bags in a foreign country. No big deal right? That’s what I thought too until I looked up and saw a foreboding grey cloud hovering above us. Immediately it starts monsooning on us. Our raincoats were of no help in this situation. All of us and all of our bags were soaked.
Five hours later our passports were stamped, and we were on our way to our next stop. We squeezed our American sized bodies and backpacks into Bolivian sized taxis (please keep in mind that the average height of a woman in Bolivia is 4’11” and I am 6’1”) and drove to the bus terminal. I spent the two-hour wait for the bus playing go-fish with a random Bolivian kid. He had a blast pillaging me at cards, but I’m pretty positive he was cheating the whole time. No hard feelings though kid.
At last our bus arrived, and we loaded on. This time it was a ten-hour overnight ride, no bathroom, and no stops. But it’s cool because I just slept through the whole ride. That is until I woke up to being tossed around the bus like a rag doll. All I knew was we were driving up a mountain in the pitch-black night, and there were a whole lot of switchbacks. Either the switchbacks eventually stopped or I was extremely exhausted, because I woke up at 6:00 am to a bus full of sleeping World Racers parked at the bus terminal. All the locals had gotten off hours ago, but the driver was nice enough to let us knock out in the bus until then.
Our next bus wasn’t for another five hours, so again we unloaded all our bags, piled them up like a mountain, and waited. It just so happened to be my lovely teammates birthday, so we formed a makeshift cake with alfajores and peanut butter, bought her a cup of steaming hot Bolivian coffee, showered her with balloons, and embarrassed her by singing Happy Birthday in front of everybody at the bus station.
Finally, our last bus arrived and we hopped on. We were just one twelve-hour ride from Santa Cruz. But let me just tell you guys, that was probably the craziest twelve hours of my life. As soon as we left the station and got on the “road” we were thrown around the bus with a force equal to that of the previous night. But this time I could see everything. Our colossal bus was zooming at a speed of what felt like 70 mph down a mountain on thin dirt paths, obviously not made for anything larger than a small car, let alone a bus. We took switchback after switchback after switchback cheating death by near centimeters. Sitting on the bus was basically like sitting in a giant sweaty armpit: hot, humid, and smelly. Our only sort of relief was to open the windows and get totally covered in the dirt that the bus kicked up. This roller coaster ride went on for 4-5 hours. Most of us were carsick. One girl threw up out the window, covering the whole side of the bus in her vomit. You can bet you bottom dollar that we were praying like crazy that whole time. But the Lord gave us an experienced driver, and we made it down the mountain without a scratch.
After that the rest of the ride was a straight and smooth shot to Santa Cruz. And the view was absolutely gorgeous. We were basically driving through a giant rain forest. Every shade of green surrounded us as the sun sunk into the earth and yellows and oranges lit up every crevice of the sky. The breeze was cool, and the air was clean. I just sat and watched and worshipped.
By midnight that evening we had arrived at our destination. Our bodies were tired and swollen from sitting on hot busses for three days in a row. Pro-tip: Don’t ever wear form-fitting shoes when you travel. I speak from experience when I say, when your ankles swell up like balloons, putting on your shoes is no longer possible. The rest of the night was spent eating to-die-for cornbread, sipping hot tea, and then sleeping like a rock, before getting up the next morning for a sixteen-hour workday.
Wow! Let me Just tell you guys, I haven’t been here long, but I absolutely love Bolivia. Stay tuned for the next episode of “A Day in the Life of a World Racer”. Let me know what you want to hear about: Rest Day, Ministry Day, or Adventure Day.
