Bolivia: Making the Best of It (cont.)

The crew pulled out the mangled radiator and set to work on fixing it while the bus unloaded.  We walked across a channel of mud that separated the bus from the restaurant.  Bolivian mud is like clay:  heavy, sticky and unrelenting.  It builds up on your boots until you feel the weight of it sucking you to the ground with twice the force of gravity.  Then it stays put; no amount of stomping or scraping can completely remove it. 

As we trudged inside, the restaurant was serving breakfast: instant coffee and bread.  The waiter scoffed at one woman’s request for cream and marmalade.

Most of the 40 passengers slept on the bus and incessantly complained about the delay; but after a while about a third of us tried to make the best of a bad situation.  We gathered together on a patch of pavement between the bus and restaurant that was an island in a sea of mud. We consisted of two Argentine men, an Israeli man, a Dutch woman, a German woman, an Italian man, a couple from New Zealand, a Swedish couple, a Korean man, an English woman and me, the lone American. 

Eventually we discovered that the restaurant sold beer and that the Swede had a guitar he didn’t know how to play.  We started drinking while the Argentines entertained us with folk songs.  We drank away the day, chatting, singing and trying to hitch rides with the occasional passing truck driver—to no avail.  We were young travelers from all over the world in a circle of songs and stories, coca leaves and mate.  All the while, the bus crew repaired the radiator, eventually resorting to chewing gum and shoelaces.

Despite my lingering cold, I took my turn at the guitar, playing NeilYoung, Radiohead, TheBeatles, and anything I could think of that thirteen people from nine different countries and five different continents could all sing along to.  In the end, it was my rendition of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” that brought out the rock star in everyone, climaxing with all of us singing at the top of our lungs and cheering so loud that it must have pissed off every upset sleeper on the bus. 

There it was, two days after the inauguration of a president who claimed that “the worst enemy of humanity is capitalism,” and thirteen representatives of the world were brought together in a tiny village in southern Bolivia by an American rock song; a song that would not have reached so many different people had it not had the power of capitalism distributing it to the world market.  I don’t think any of us saw the irony in the situation; we just made the best of it.  Perhaps in the end, it’s more of a testament to the power of music than to the power of globalization, but it’s probably a little of both.

At three in the afternoon, drunk and exhausted, we were off again; and without further complication we arrived to Uyuni only fourteen hours late.

Page 2 of 2  Previous Page

All contents copyright ©2006 Pology Magazine. Unauthorized use of any content is strictly prohibited.