Weekend Write-In Story Collection

Busing in South America

In 500 words, imagine what happens when someone boards the wrong bus. Written for the Weekend Write-In Challenge: "Bus" — 8-10 April 2016.

Grandpa reminisces about the beginnings of a bus trip through Chile, Peru and Bolivia.

From Chile to Peru and Bolivia

"Grandpa..." David looked up from his homework.

"Yes, Sweetheart."

"Grandpa, I'm having trouble with this. The teacher wants us to write a story about taking the wrong bus. I need some ideas. Have you ever taken a wrong bus?"

"Have I ever told you about Atacama, Arequipa, Titicaca and La Paz?"

"That sounds new to me."

"Well, let me tell you about a bus trip from Hell, then. Almost the whole trip, we questioned why we were taking it."

David snuggled up beside his grandfather on the couch. "We're ready."

"Where's the best place to start? Let's see. We ghosted into Iquique on Christmas morning after ten-day slog from Lima against the Humboldt Current and contrary winds. We wanted a break — from the sailing and to exploring inland. We had wandered much of northern and central Peru from Paita and Lima and had left the southern parts to do from Iquique. We also wanted to visit Bolivia to tick another country off our list."

"Where's icky icky?"

"It's Iquique, Sweetheart." He ruffled David's blond curls. "It's in the far north of Chile, two hundred kilometres south of the Peruvian border. We spent a day and a half learning that none of the car rental companies allowed travel across the borders into Peru or Bolivia. They've lost too many vehicles to theft there."

"What about flying?"

"We looked at that next. Airfare is very cheap for locals, but foreign passports pay through the nose. It would have cost us over a million Pesos to fly."

"How much is that?"

"About two thousand dollars for a twelve hundred kilometre round trip with two stopovers."

"So that's why the bus? That's that old money, new money thing again, isn't it?"

"Yes, Sweetheart. Old money exists because it's been used wisely. Anyway, we booked seats on a bus to Arequipa, Peru. Actually seats on buses. They're not allowed across the border. The first leg was up through the Atacama Desert, the driest on the planet, to the border city of Arica. Inside the bus terminal, we asked about onward connections and were taken to a gated compound full of colectivos, where..."

"What's a colectivo?"

"A South American collective taxi. They're everywhere from Mexico south, many places they're colour-coded and travel fixed routes like small buses. So onward with the trip. When the car had its five passengers, the driver took our passports into an office. After twenty minutes of sweltering in the hot car, the driver returned with exit stamps in our passports. He then drove us twenty kilometres north to the border post, where we got out and joined a long line-up. Once we had cleared Peruvian passport control and had visas issued, we went through Customs screening and baggage xraying. We were directed to a colectivo that drove us the thirty kilometres through the desert to the bus terminal in Tacna. Seven and a half hours for less than three hundred kilometres. We'd just completed the easiest part of the trip."