Notes From A Bus

Rules of the bus:

- Always shower, even if you cannot take s full-fledged watering, at least given the puerto rican shower a shot-this occurs when someone can smell themselves, but doesn't have access to a shower, thus dumps copious amounts of Stetson near armpits and other unsavory smell factories of the body. Unfortunately, ad with bathroom spray, the desired effect is seldom reached, usually leaving the intended beneficiary worse off, and creating future unexpected olfactory associations, such as vanilla and shit. Nonetheless, I personally would prefer vanilla to forever be associated with viscous BO, then to have sufferd through those ten hours on the bus. Side note: apparently in south america a purto rican shower us actually called a pollish shower, a name they refuse to alter to French shower, even with my relentless pleading. A synonym for gringo is also pollack. Oddly enough, I've yet to meet a Pole (is this really how you abbreviate a polish human being? No wonder they're so maligned).

- Eat two-day old, unrefridgerated hard boiled eggs because you are a vegetarian traveling on a bus in a country of meat. Oh, the sweet vengance though. That'll teach someone to not shower before a long bus ride. Lesson: don't try to out stink a Veggie on a bus, they don't kill animals-unfertalized eggs clearly not yet being an animal-but they'll murder your sense of smell.

- Have working night lights. The only reason you all are forced to read this nonsense is because some bus light changer-or as I like to call them, bus light engineer- was derlict in his/her bus duties. Instead of reading at 2am im forced to write nonsensical to-do and not to-do list about stank bus no. 9, with my shirt covering my now dead nostrils.

- Don't be white. Yes, me and Beth have been relegated to the back of the bus in some cruel (not in relative terms) twist of ironic North American fate. This is problematic because the engine is back here, because the wheels are further up and because I used to throw up on the merry-go-round...oh, and because being carsick coming out of a dengue zone has apparently confused Beth, who now believes she may be the latest victim of the 2010 Iguazu dengue epidemic.

- And don't drink...anything. One cause for bus delays here is overflows of the septic tanks which then have to be bailed out. We've yet to witness this 7th wonder of the fecal world, but then again we've just begun. Im still hopeful. What this does not do, however, is lend itself to pristine, mobile gas station-like bathrooms.

- Lastly, Don't bring a watch. We've had two bus rides so far and two prolonged stops. The first was for a mere hour in some back alley, at which time we were inexplicably hustled to a new bus. This last stop, locAted in the scenic intersection of two highways, last a bit longer: 5 hours or more, to be not-so-exact. We knew this was over when the hodge-podge of mechanics , including our driver and two guys who appeared out of nowhere in a beat-up old peugot, began tossing random parts, seemingly from the bus, into the brush alongside the highway. I'm no mechanic, but at least part of that mess looked like the muffler/cadillidac converter. This all landed not too far from where our plastic food trays were deposited the night before, so perhaps leaving your WWF card at the entrance might be a good idea as well.

Further Notes:

That last post was supposed to be up three days ago, apologies for the delay. We are alive, just camped for the first time and are currently writing this gratis from a bus station. Heading to puerto piramides in 15 minutes. Hope all is well at home.