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At the end of the trip, Rick
calculated that we had spent nearly a week of our time in Venezuela
in buses. One of the aspects of the country that had initially
attracted me was its variety: Caribbean beaches, Amazon jungle,
oil-rich desert, and the Andes are all within its border. However we
discovered it is a little unwieldy to get from place to place. There
are a couple national airlines, but they are too expensive to be
useful to travellers on the cheap such as ourselves. So we became
intimate with the Venezuelan bus system.
The pictures on this page
were taken at the terminal in Caracas while waiting to leave for
Ciudad Bolívar. Notice the smiling faces. We were happy for two
reasons: first, we were blissfully unaware of what the next nine
hours would bring, and second we were utterly intoxicated by CO
fumes. The bus we were originally supposed to take broke down, so we
had to wait 45 minutes or so on the loading dock for another bus.
With dozens of old, smelly diesel engines all around percolating in
low idles, we were not in our right minds by the time we boarded a
bus.
The bus ride itself was
interesting. Being a CDL holder having only driven in Juneau, I was
at first impressed with our driver's skill. However, I soon realized
that skill is not the prime requisite for driving buses in
Venezuela: absolute fearlessness is much more useful. There are not
many observed traffic laws on the streets there, and even fewer out
on the open highway. We probably spent 50% of the trip on the wrong
side of the yellow line passing anything ahead of us that dared to
go slower than absolute full throttle.
The longest bus ride I'd ever
taken before this was a mere three hours, so you could say I was a
little naďve about what it would be like. The whole night was spent
in that awful mode in which you can't quite sleep but you can't
quite stay awake. We'd continually hit potholes and I'd wake up
thinking we were being bombed, or the driver would start to fall
asleep and crank up the radio.
Unfortunately, I neglected to
take any pictures of what we looked like the next morning after the
nine-hour ride. I did, however, record some audio sitting in the bus
before and after the trip. The change in the tones of our voices
speaks for itself.
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There are two types of bus service
in Venezuela: normal and "executive." Our first couple trips were in
normal buses: no air conditioning, oft-broken seats, not much leg room,
etc. Executive service was (supposedly) much more luxurious. The buses are
newer and built for long hauls with passengers, the inside resembling the
business class of an airplane. The drivers' compartment is separated from
the passengers, the seats are wide and recline much farther than in the
regular buses, and there are TVs, a bathroom, and air conditioning. The
price is roughly double that of a normal-service ticket. For our long
mid-trip jaunt across the country to Mérida, we thought it would be nice
to indulge ourselves with this "executive" service. However, air conditioning and TVs are subject to the
First Law of Venezuelans and Technology, and as such these luxuries
quickly become instruments of torture. The air conditioning was not simply
set to cool off the passengers: it was, of course, cranked up. By an hour
into the trip, the temperature inside the bus was probably 45° F. None of
us were really prepared for this, but hey, we were going to be sleeping
anyway, right?! Well, just then the driver puts a movie on for us to enjoy
at, you guessed it, top volume. It was some horribly bad C-movie out of
1980's Hollywood; just absolutely unwatchable. Arlo actually turned the
television in front of us off a couple times but the service guy kept
getting mad and turning it back on. We arrived in Valencia freezing cold
and incredibly grouchy... But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to Ciudad
Bolívar and part three of our adventure.
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