I’m writing this a day later, but it’s been a 24 hours that
is simultaneously eventful and uneventful all at the same time. I had
originally planned to go to Samaipata for Monday – it’s apparently another
place filled with nature, including a national park and some ruins – but the
Israeli girl and Daniel promptly went back to sleep after breakfast (the arepas
that Alejandro made are below!) and then when Daniel woke up, he said that he
was going to chill in the city today instead. Since both of my travel
companions had bailed and it was around 10 am, I decided that take 2.5 hours
there and another 2.5 hours back from the site probably wasn’t going to be
worth it, so I relented and started reading The
Kill Order, the prequel to James Daschner’s Maze Runner trilogy instead.
The wifi wasn’t working, so I basically spent the day reading and studying
Spanish. It really was not a bad way to spend a day, and it was nice to have
some rest and a day of absolutely nothing.
When it came close to the end of the day, Daniel and I
headed to the bus station once again. We found a pretty good price for a bus to
Cochabamba (we haggled it down to 60 Bs per person from 70 originally – other
options were closer to 120) and went to sit outside. This bus station in
particular had a lot of vendors selling all kinds of foods for dinner and snacks,
and some of it was incredibly tempting.
What made the night turn from boring into interesting was
the approach of two police officers. They worked for immigration, and as
predicted, they asked us for our documents. I had mine and showed my passport
with no problems, but Daniel did not. It was clear that trying to pretend that
we spoke no Spanish was going to get us nowhere, so eventually we tried to
explain that we were living in Cochabamba and he had just forgotten his
passport there, but it got our argument nowhere. The men asked us to step into
their office where they explained that Daniel should stay the night and they
could take him to immigration tomorrow morning, but that would be a terrible
idea. We had already bought our tickets and we had legal documents, just not on
hand at the moment. One guy actually asked if we were dating (LOL NO) and the
other asked us to break a 100 Bolivianos bill (what?!).
Eventually it got to the point where I was getting nervous
about making the bus myself, and Daniel told me to go catch it. On my way some
vendor guy was looking and saying things at me but it sounded like he was
hitting on me, so I was creeped out. Luckily, I got to the bus and everything
was fine and dandy except for the Daniel situation. I was Facebook messaging
Baneen and Jacob the whole time, which was good in that it gave me something to
do and focus on.
The bus ride back was actually relatively nice. The extra
seat next to me was a place that I could lie down instead of having to lean my
seat back a little and pray that I fall asleep soon. In the middle of the night
(around 1:30am) the bus stopped presumably to allow people to use the restroom
or something. This rude guy came to my seat and put his blanket on my face so
that I would wake up, and when I moved my pillow off the seat, he immediately
sat down and pushed my backpack under my seat more. I was pissed and tired as
heck, but I didn’t know what this guy was doing. I finally got the nerve to
show him that both the seats were mine, but he kept sitting there. It wasn’t
until I asked what the problem was that he said he would leave when the bus
started to back out of the parking lot. I had no idea about the details of what
he said, but I’m just glad he finally left. The bus ride, though colder than
the one from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz, wasn’t bad though.
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