Nicaragua: Middle of my frustrated fears
Well this could be a long ride, I thought to myself when I discovered that my headphones were broken and we were only 10 minutes into the 6-hour bus ride.
What I didn't know at that time was just how long the ride was actually going to take, functioning headphones or not. My bus departed from the terminal at 6:00pm and was scheduled to arrive at my destination between 11:30pm-12:00am. I was really looking forward to crawling into bed when I got home and sleeping in the following morning.
And then (cue dramatic violin music) our bus stalled. Engine failure. It was 9pm and we were all but halfway to where we wanted to be. The good news (all sarcasm intended) was that we had stalled on the side of a highway next to a hopping karaoke bar, so all of my sadness about having no music to accompany the journey went away. Meanwhile the driver and crew tried to fix the engine problem, a few travelers decided to hit up the bar and others (like myself) sat on the bus and waited, waited, oh-so-patiently waited.
One hour passed. And another. Midnight approached. Then the clock struck 1am. We were still sitting in the same place, people. After an attempt to make a homemade tube of some sort out of what looked like electrical tape, the crew determined they could do nothing to fix the bus. They called in for backup, and supposedly another bus was on its way to pick us up and take us (hopefully) to our destination.
The bar crowd dwindled and the passengers who had taken their turn at karaoke returned to the bus, rum breath and all, ready to catch some shut-eye like the rest of us. I dozed for about 20 minutes at a time, on-and-off, and despite the fact that I tried to drown out the world by putting in earplugs I still heard and felt every single snore of every single person on that bus. I especially appreciated (sarcasm again) the large-bellied man who decided the seat next to mine was an excellent place for a little snooze. As his sleep apnea shook the bus in its entirety, I was left to tap my forehead repeatedly on the window at 2:30am cursing everything that brought us to that situation.
Our rescue bus finally arrived at 4am: a loud, recycled yellow school bus. Upon its arrival, all of us passengers groggily lugged our belongings from the seemingly-nice coach bus on which our adventure started to the less luxurious yellow lifesaver. The rest of the journey was uncomfortably cold. Having not anticipated traveling at such an hour I was without a sweater, and the early morning breeze which entered through the open bus windows left me and others with a bone-chilling sting. No rest for the weary, or so they say.
Over twelve hours after the original bus departed from the terminal, we arrived to the final destination. I gathered my belongings (which consisted of a backpack, a brown grocery bag, and another plastic bag) and jetted off on foot towards my house where my bed had been awaiting me for far too long.
Then it started raining, of course, so I arrived home sopping wet, tired beyond description, and semi-angry at the world. Good thing I had exactly zero plans that day besides tucking myself into bed and dreaming the day away.
You can't make this stuff up.
What I didn't know at that time was just how long the ride was actually going to take, functioning headphones or not. My bus departed from the terminal at 6:00pm and was scheduled to arrive at my destination between 11:30pm-12:00am. I was really looking forward to crawling into bed when I got home and sleeping in the following morning.
And then (cue dramatic violin music) our bus stalled. Engine failure. It was 9pm and we were all but halfway to where we wanted to be. The good news (all sarcasm intended) was that we had stalled on the side of a highway next to a hopping karaoke bar, so all of my sadness about having no music to accompany the journey went away. Meanwhile the driver and crew tried to fix the engine problem, a few travelers decided to hit up the bar and others (like myself) sat on the bus and waited, waited, oh-so-patiently waited.
One hour passed. And another. Midnight approached. Then the clock struck 1am. We were still sitting in the same place, people. After an attempt to make a homemade tube of some sort out of what looked like electrical tape, the crew determined they could do nothing to fix the bus. They called in for backup, and supposedly another bus was on its way to pick us up and take us (hopefully) to our destination.
The bar crowd dwindled and the passengers who had taken their turn at karaoke returned to the bus, rum breath and all, ready to catch some shut-eye like the rest of us. I dozed for about 20 minutes at a time, on-and-off, and despite the fact that I tried to drown out the world by putting in earplugs I still heard and felt every single snore of every single person on that bus. I especially appreciated (sarcasm again) the large-bellied man who decided the seat next to mine was an excellent place for a little snooze. As his sleep apnea shook the bus in its entirety, I was left to tap my forehead repeatedly on the window at 2:30am cursing everything that brought us to that situation.
Our rescue bus finally arrived at 4am: a loud, recycled yellow school bus. Upon its arrival, all of us passengers groggily lugged our belongings from the seemingly-nice coach bus on which our adventure started to the less luxurious yellow lifesaver. The rest of the journey was uncomfortably cold. Having not anticipated traveling at such an hour I was without a sweater, and the early morning breeze which entered through the open bus windows left me and others with a bone-chilling sting. No rest for the weary, or so they say.
Over twelve hours after the original bus departed from the terminal, we arrived to the final destination. I gathered my belongings (which consisted of a backpack, a brown grocery bag, and another plastic bag) and jetted off on foot towards my house where my bed had been awaiting me for far too long.
Then it started raining, of course, so I arrived home sopping wet, tired beyond description, and semi-angry at the world. Good thing I had exactly zero plans that day besides tucking myself into bed and dreaming the day away.
You can't make this stuff up.
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