Venezuela - oh dear ... (Part 2)

CONTINUED FROM PART 1 ...

So we were on a night bus to Brazil, happy and relaxed. The bus was driving quite quickly and swinging round corners ... but no more than several other busses that we'd taken in our previous 8 months around the continent. We talked about what we were going to do (and what we were going to eat!) when we reached Brazil for a little while, then slowly drifted off to sleep ...

Then BANG! We were awake with a shot as the bus jolted, lurched to one side, and started to skid along the road. It was very frightening for half a second or so, but then we felt the driver regain control of the vehicle, bringing it to a controlled stop. We were very disorientated having just woken up. I glanced at my watch - midnight. After a few moments I composed myself and followed some of the other passengers off the bus to see what had happened.

The front right hand side of the bus had a large dent in it and the headlight had been smashed. Under the front right wheel of the bus was a twisted wreck of a motorbike, leaking some sort of liquid over the road. The bike had clearly been dragged along by the bus for some time, as there were parts of the it strewn along the road behind. Around 50 yards back there was crowd gathering around the body of a motionless youth.

I'd seen enough road accidents to not even consider going anywhere near the body, but I spoke to one of our fellow travellers who had just returned from the scene. She simply shook her head sadly and said "Muerto," drawing a finger across her throat just in case I didn't get the picture.

Speaking to a few of the locals in the aftermath, it turned out the youth was just 19 years old. It wasn't clear who's fault his death was, as nobody had witnessed the accident. The people in the bus couldn't see out of the front, as a screen seperates the driver's cabin from the rest of the bus. The bus driver himself had run away, whilst the second driver, a man called Jefe, was asleep and didn't see the incident.

The police arrived on the scene and asked some questions. After a couple of hours or so we were told to get back on the bus, which was then driven to a police outstation and impounded. They let us know we were welcome to go back to sleep on the bus - another one would be along in the morning to continue the journey. Despite the shock we managed to get back to sleep eventually.

A moment of levity came at around 4am when an enormous earpiercing noise shattered the peace and quiet of the bus. The noise seemed to come from a canvas bag dangling down from the armrest across the aisle from me. "What on earth was that?" I asked Liz. "I think it's a chicken," she replied half asleep. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the noise came again. It was a cockerel - his crowing almost impossibly loud in the tight confines of the bus. He continued to crow at 10 minute intervals for the rest of the morning.

At 6.30 we were "officially" woken up and told that a replacement bus would be along at any moment. We all waited with our luggage at the side of the road, and sure enough, another bus came along at 7. The problem was - it was from a bus company called Occidente, which was a different (and more expensive) company than Eucatur who we were travelling with. Jefe did his best, but Occidente wanted us to pay for our passage again, not accepting our Eucatur tickets as payment. Since we had spent nearly all the remainder of our cash on a ticket to Brazil, we didn't have any spare money with us. We couldn't get any more because we were stuck by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with the nearest bank 30 miles away. This wouldn't have helped anyway because it was Sunday and would have been closed. ATMs of course, were no use (see previous post).

So, we were abandoned, on the side of the road with the 20 or so other travellers who couldn't afford a ticket. Jefe got on his mobile phone, as did a few of the other travellers, and ascertained that another replacement bus would be along at 9. This failed to show up. As we were waiting, we were forced to witness the most heartbreaking part of the whole ordeal. The poor young boy's family arrived at the police station to receive the news of his death. We all stood in numb silence by the side of the road whilst members of his family broke down in tears all around us. It was absolutely horrific.

After the 9 o'clock bus failed to show, and the family had left, one of our gang rang up Eucatur head office to complain. She was assured that another bus was being sent from a place called Santa Elena, reserved just for us, and it would be with us at 1pm. So we had another 4 hours to entertain ourselves. We assessed our surroundings ... a police station, a bus station, a few shacks, and a field ... with chickens in it. We went with the field. We layed our bags down under a tree and then used them as a makeshift bench. However, we weren't able to drop off to sleep, since at any moment a bus might pass that we could flag down.

The man who owned the cockerel - or 3 cockerels as it turned out (!) - decided to let them out of their canvas bags so they could have a free run around the field. He then amused himself, and anyone else who cared to watch, by pitting his own animals against those in the field. That's right - we were witness to a some illegal cock fighting, performed for a very select audience of bus refugees. Surreal just about covers it.

At 1 o'clock there was no sign of our special private bus. A quick phone call to Eucatur head office confirmed that we had been deceived. The bus coming from Santa Elena did not exist - it had never even left. At that point, a few of our number somehow arranged other means of transport, leaving a hardcore group of 12 of us still standing in a field by the side of the road.

Around 2pm a representative from Eucatur turned up ... and was set upon on all sides by the angry travellers. My Spanish isn't exactly fluent, but I could swear that what they were shouting at him didn't have much to do with a lack of busses ... it seemed to have more to do with a lack of ... chicken? Yes, indeed, our fellow travellers were hungry, and were incensed that Eucatur hadn't provided them with any food. So off the Eucatur representative went to get some fried chicken, without a word it seemed on when we might get rescued from our field.

An hour or so later, he returned, and we ate ... which admittedly was very welcome. In between bites of chicken, I turned to him and asked how we were going to get to Brazil. "No problem," he said. "A bus is coming at 5 to take you." I'd heard this before. "Are you sure?" I asked. He stared back at me unblinking, "Yes, of course."

We weren't so sure, and so in the intervening period I managed to source some cardboard from the police station, and we made ourselves a makeshift hikehiker's board, which can be seen at the beginning of this post (modelled beautifully by Liz). We went for "Santa Elena" (a town on the Venezuela - Brazil border) rather than "Brazil", since darkness was fast approaching and we didn't fancy spending the night in a field.

After a few hours of fruitless and rather depressing hitchhiking attempts, 5pm came around. We had a moment of elation when a bus trundled over the horizon, only for it to be quickly dashed, as the bus stopped and informed us it was going in a different direction. It was full to bursting in any case. At this point we pretty much gave up all hope.

Soon afterwards the Eucatur representative called head office and booked us some places on the next Eucatur bus passing through. That happened to be the same one we'd taken - just 24 hours later. So we had to wait another 7 hours until midnight. We were so used to waiting by then, it wasn't actually that bad. Even the cockerels settled down and stopped making their infernal noises.

Finally, after a whole day sitting in a field by the side of the road, our bus turned up. There was a nerve shattering few seconds when we thought their wouldn't be any spare seats for us, but fortunately, they were hiding at the back and we all got on. What a relief. The bus continued through the night and to Brazil without incident. Our Venezuelan nightmare was over. It was easy to forget in all of our happiness that we had witnessed a young man lose his life just a day previously. It was very sobering. We tried however to put all that behind us. Passing the border we made a pact ... we would never to get on a Eucatur bus ever again ...