Travellin' Man's Blues...

Travelling defintely has it's finer moments. However, I'd like to point out that travelling is not all the glamour and problem free times that some might think it is. When it's the fifth day in a row that your food comes and you find a hair in your soup or pasta, you know that you're not dining at Applebee's or even in the USA for that matter. Not to mention are those late nights when the only bus out of town leaves at 2am and no taxis are to be found for you walk to the bus station and all you hope is that you make it alive to the bus station. When you finally get to the bus station you board the bus hoping for good night's sleep only to find that the road to your destination hasn't been paved and that the pot holes on the road are the size of artillery shell explosions. For some strange reason the big fat guy that hasn't showered in a month and snores like a freight train always seems to find himself sitting near me on the night buses. Of course the next bus you book you decide to go with the best service in town. Once your ticket has been purchased you gather you things and head out to catch the bus. The first bus ride goes smoothly and the scenery is spectacular...it's the second leg of the ride where you find yourseld slightly annoyed. You arrive to the bus office, Pullman in this case. Pullman is known for havings some of the nicest rides in town but draconian rules which also make them the most anal retentive company in town. You kindly ask for directions at the office in Spanish, which is the native language; and they look at you like you are stupid, don't have any idea what you're talking about and tell you that it will cost you 500 pesos to leave your bag in their custody for 3 hrs while you wait for their next bus. When this happened to me my annoyance level grew, until I decided to thank them for their politeness and kindness.
Knowing that no one in the office spoke English, I turned around as I was leaving and said, "you guys are a bunch of assholes, and your customer service sucks, gracias!" Of course all they heard was, "Gracias (thank you)," and they appropriatley responded with, "dinada (you're welcome)." Of course they're are times like in Bolivia when I was travelling and didn't find a hot shower for days. When this happens it's difficult to shave; therfore, you have nothing to do but put the cap on and let the beard grow. When you do find hot water and you can't stand the itchyness of the beard anymore, it makes a good laugh to shave off the remnants of the beard one by one...goatee one day, 1969 Grateful Dead look the next (as pictured above), and finally the just taking it down to the big fat Elvis side burns.

I'll leave you with one other story. I arrived in Arequipa a few nights ago and looking fwd to nice night's sleep which I was getting until 2am when the obnoxious Isreally girls came back to their room and proceded to start up a loud slumber party in Hebrew. I waited a few minutes hoping that things would calm down. When they didn't, I politely knocked on their door asked them to please keep their noise down so I could sleep. About 5 minutes later the party continued to rage as did I. I once again went to their door. Only this time I stated, "alright this is you last warning...continue the loud banter if you chose. However, pls note that I wake up with the sun and will gurandamntee you if this noise keeps up, I'll be at your door around 7am knocking every 5 minutes so that you can appreciate how I feel right now."

About 2 minutes after I left, the conversations came to a halt, and I was once again back to sleep.