| A taste of Bolivia (Part 2) |
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11/09/07
Where does the time fly? I can hardly believe a week has gone by already. My hubby is in the air and headed to Panama. He first had to fly to La Paz, and then on to Peru and Costa Rica before reaching his final destination of Panama. So, while the cat's away...the mice will play! Translation: I'm having 2 girlfriends come over for a slumber party. WOOO HOOO! I haven't had a slumber party in how many years?
Ok. What does that have to do with Bolivia...other than that I live down here and there aren't many options of things to do so I have to make my own fun, which I do well at! I thought today I'd share a little about a few interesting experiences that happened to me this week which are very typical down here. First...the bus ride! Can that be exciting? ONLY in Bolivia.
After waiting for awhile, we finally found a bus that didn't have people hanging out the door. We prefer to go in a bus where you can actually sit down versus having to much of an outdoor Bolivian experience. One nice thing about Bolivian busses is that there are no bus stops. You can put your hand up in the air and it doesn't matter WHERE you are, the bus will stop. And I literally mean that. You can be standing in the middle of the street and the bus will stop and pick you up. Of course, you realize right away when you are driving here that there really are no rules of the land. It is the survival of the fittest. So those of you who are not both defensive and offensive, you'd better not drive and just stick with the bus!
After a while you memorize which traffic lights you actually STOP for, which you just kind of slow down and look around for and which you just keep on plowing through as if there is no light. It IS exciting. Now, in America it is very nice as people use their blinkers (turn signals) so most of the time you know which direction a person will be turning. NOT so in Bolivia. You can be in the far left hand lane and cross over three lanes of traffic to turn right....and of course everyone in between needs to automatically KNOW that you are going to do that and stop for you. As you can imagine, this can be QUITE confusing when the guy on your left is turning right, and the guy on your right is turning left...and you are sandwiched in between! Or almost sandwiched! And then they honk the horn at each other, you included with this look of DUH...what did you THINK I was doing?? If you have road rage in the U.S., don't think of driving around here!
Well, the most exciting bus experience of the week was when we were in one of the above predicaments. There are no lanes of traffic. Everyone just tries to SQUEEZE in where they can. I was in a bus with my friend and we see this taxi on the right that is VERY close to us and trying to squeeze in. Pretty soon.....SCRAPE goes the bus with the taxi. Ok. If you were in the U.S. you'd stop and pull over, take down phone numbers, insurance and call the police if need be. Well, in Bolivia this is what happens....the guy who has been hit gets out of his car and goes to the guy who hit him...in our case, the bus driver. The bus driver doesn't even get out of his seat and starts yelling at the guy and saying it was your fault...blah, blah, blah. Now, the bus has a serious dent/scratch and the taxi guy lost a part of the bumper/light. After a couple minutes of arguing about who is the culprit the bus driver leaves and he did not pay a SINGLE penny to the taxi driver. Can you even imagine? And he drove off..... All we could say was, only in a 3rd world country!
I wish I could say that that is a rare occurence, but it happens ALL the time. Plus the fact that the police really have no authority unless there is a pack of them together. Usually police ride 2 together on a motorcycle. Isn't that funny??
Ok. I could go on and on but I'll have to leave you in suspence until the next blog. And I'll leave you with an invitation...come to Bolivia sometime! |
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