"Tranquilo, mami, the bus will come eventually."

Another bus story for you, my lovely friends. That's the part of the adventures I guess - you're either seeing places or you're on the road heading to those places.


So I haven't thought in the world that I would have any problems buying bus tickets in Venezuela. But I was silly to think so. Flight tickets are expensive and most of the flights uncomfortably fly through Caracas so buses are popular among the Venezuelan population.


After coming back from hiking around Mérida I desperately needed to get to Ciudad Bolivar that is pretty much across the country. Being sure that there are tickets with no worry I arrived at the Terminal de Pasajeros. But the lady at the ticket booth with no worry as well told me that "no hay boletos para hoy" ... - ":( ... y para mañana?" ... - "no tengo'.... - ":o" ... - "sólo para domingo" ...which is in 3 days. Crap! I don't have spare 3 days for vegging out in Mérida. Plus the buses to Ciudad Bolivar run only from Barinas which is another 5 hours from  Mérida. And its 12 hours on the bus to Ciudad Bolivar (well Venezuelan 12 hours that turned out to be 16 hours in real time-space continuum).


So I either just go to Barinas and try my luck there or I stay in Mérida for another 3 days blaming myself for being not organized enough (lol, not sure if anyone could ever be more organized than I am). In such cases the final word rests with the coin. I tossed the 50 centavos and it said to go to Barinas today; so I settled on that.


Long story short...I arrived in Barinas at 11:30pm and was told that there is a bus to Ciudad Bolivarnat 12am. 'Sweet', I thought. ...too soon, too soon.... "Tranquilo, tranquilo, mi amor", a ticket booth man was telling me when I was impatiently walking around bus terminal at way past 1am. I already counted all the cockroaches they had at that bus terminal when the double-decker finally arrived...at way past 2am.


After everyone got on the bus, I was told to go to the second floor that there seats available. But, alas, as was expected bus was full. Question marks in my eyes, and the ticket booth man pointed to the driver cabin. VIP seat?! Yay! I didn't even know whether I should be happy or disappointed. Oh well, I had no choice. I got a seat in the front row, more legs room, and 2 nice bus drivers, one of those happened to speak a very little English and was asking tons of questions about Russia, Putin, Russian women, politics and economics.. He was also talking a lot about Chaves, Venezuela in general and Estados Unidos while the smooth and even road were taking us to Ciudad Bolivar..

Oh and about Venezuelan bus drivers... two-storeyed bus full of people, serpentine road, manual transmission... and they talk on the phone, read, drive with one hand, eat (bastards ate all my cookies..). For those of you who know... guess they beat my yellow-cab driving skills, lol.

/January 20, 2012/