You might picture a bus ride across Ontario as a peaceful and restful one, with young moose crossing the road as gentle rolling hills lead the still, calm bus across paved roads to a quaint destination. Now if you live in Canada, and you’ve ridden a bus in Ontario – you may know full well this isn’t always the case when it comes to transit within the province.
In the same way, when my team was in Africa and I was coasting along in a crowded bus, I anticipated seeing giraffes and African creatures crossing the streets and I saw myself travelling through a mobile safari along the way. I didn’t see giraffes on that ride, but rather saw myself getting left behind at a pit stop. (Little did I know that my giraffe sightings would happen later on in Swaziland on a different bus).
So when my team hopped on our bus here in Medellin, Colombia, I naturally pictured a quick, curvy, and luscious journey to Planeta Rica. Yet I was given a 22 hour, hot, crazy curvy road journey to our destination.
I’ve lived in Colombia before. I spent ages 10 -16 exploring this amazing country and making it a part of my heart’s home. As we were pulling away in our spacious and roomy bus, with wifi 🙂 I told my teammates that there could be some military checkpoints along the way – but to not be frightened it’s just what happens at times. They said “cool beans” and fluffed up their travel pillows and we began the trek to Planeta Rica.
3 hours into our travels we come to a complete stop. We’re told that there is “un paro armado” (literal translation an armed strike) happening ahead on the road. People ask if cars are going through – and we were told that explosives or weapons might have been involved so we would wait. It’s 2 am – And as the official translator of the group I tell the awake teammates what’s up. There’s not really a sweet way of sharing that info with anyone, but I may have added “we’re taking the safe option and just waiting it out.”
That’s comforting right?
Around 9:30am we break ground and roll forward on the bus to be closer to the road, and around 10:30am we began our trek on the road down the mountain. We cruise along for about an hour before we stop. We stop on a hill, in a very rural area. A few homes line the road, and the local people stand outside their homes watching us.
We start moving again and drive for about one hour. Our driver is now wildly passing lots of busses as we jet around corners. A few of us began to feel quite nauseous at this point and we joked that it might have been nice to stop for a while again because of how sick we felt.
We are trucking along and we pass a charred and burnt grey frame of a bus off to the side of the road. A military tank and a large police bulletproof vehicle are near the scene. We assume the worst is behind us, but all at once we are passing through a small town and we come to a full stop.
Everything in town is closed. Our bus driver at this point comes to the back of the bus and informs us that two more busses have been burned up ahead. He looks frazzled and doesn’t know what to do. Because we are in stopped traffic we wait. We wait from about 1:30pm to 6:30pm. There are people milling about, and people from other busses in the stopped traffic get out to see about water or snacks. We found a lady who opened her small business for a quick minute and our team was able to get some water and snacks.
Around 6pm a police tow truck and two large police vehicles whip by and we expectantly wait. About 30 minutes later our bus is on air conditioning blaring and we are following one of the police vehicles through the roads passing two recently burned vehicles.
We make it safely to Planeta Rica but right as we get off the bus, other passengers that were continuing on to the coast were told that the roads up ahead were closed. The strike was to continue until the next night at 12am.
Our host was able to pick us up and take us to his home for a delicious meal (our only legitimate meal of that day), and we arrived to our homes soon after and settled in for the night. In such a chaotic day and time I was overwhelmed by a peace that was not my own.
Someone once told me that when we are in the will of God that’s the best and safest place to be.
That’s how my heart felt the entire trip.
My team was grasped tightly in the Father’s hand as we sped through real fast on the curves and drove past all the furious acts of the illegal groups in the area. We are doing well and are grateful to be here in Planeta Rica (:
Til next time!
