15th of January, 2024
I’ll do a lot avoid taking a bus. The loser cruiser, as my highly self-aware friend, Evan, used to proudly refer to it as at University[1] (despite 99% of students using it as their only viable transport option in Bath). A lot of Londoners swear by the bus, but it’s not for me. Always late, inconsistent; a strange crowd. Cram me into someone’s armpit on the Tube, any day.
I went to Glastonbury once. I hated it. From damp start to soaking-wet, shit-stinking finish – I hated it. I sat in my tent reading a book on economics (I really did) and went to bed early most nights. It’s perhaps the only time I’ve managed a come down without ever having come up; as Richard Ashcroft said (sadly he wasn’t playing, or I would have left my tent), the drugs don’t work[2]. Anyway, the point is that I’d have paid a lot to get out of there, but as far as I could work out, the only option was a bus. So, I toughed it out in the Somerset mire until my visibly upset girlfriend was finally ready to leave – in her car. Subsequently, I’ve made a point of driving myself to festivals, parties, or weddings. Always be in control of your exit route.
So, discovering that my only reasonable transport option to get to my next destination on this trip caused me some consternation. The fucking bus – really?[3]
What I did enjoy, though, was the bus station. In England, they’re usually at the arse-end of town. The bit that you absolutely want to avoid. Often attached to a dreadful 80s shopping centre (designed by the guys who did JFK), to really add to the sense of hopelessness. But this isn’t my first bus station in Latin America, and there is a romance here you’re unlikely to find in Guildford. I’m not talking about copping off with a pretty girl with a nice bottom, I mean in the deeper human sense. Without a rail network to speak of, this is how most people get around in Latin America. I sit down in the middle of the chaos trying to decipher which stand my Terbus departs from, and watch. Attendants joking with one another like old school friends; tired, sunken-eyed drivers filing into a tiny office, a line of replacement re-caffeinated versions re-emerging; a nervous father seeing his daughter and her friends off on an exciting trip together; lone travellers like me, in various states of kempt-ness.
Having got over myself and found my seat at the back of the correct vehicle, it’s surprisingly comfortable. To my genuine horror, though, there is no working toilet. Those who know me well, or have travelled with me, will know the look on my face when I realised this. I need the loo, a lot. So having left my incontinence knickers at the hotel (it’s not that bad), I was stuck managing my impossibly small bladder with self-distraction techniques. Like writing this blog[4].
The ticket says it’s a two hour ride, and luckily I went in the station. But time is relative, and with my ballooning bladder now providing the aching point of relatively, it already feels like I’ve been on this thing for most of the morning – and we’ve only just emerged from the outskirts of Santiago. Each pot-hole turns the rear suspension into a trampoline, and unsurprisingly, the engine struggles with the smallest of inclines, bringing to mind Carol Partridge’s boyfriend’s Renault Megane. On the downhill though, we’ve got Dean Moriarty at the wheel. Our man’s disengaged the gearbox, and several tonnes worth of GPE-juiced inertia carries us down the valleys at quite the lick. This is great!
I finally get ejected the following fortnight in a place called La Laguna. Mercifully, there’s a big cactus behind which I can relieve myself – my first transcendent experience in the desert. It’s now just a regular fifty-minute walk – but in 30-degree heat and direct sunlight – to my hotel. That’s the other thing with buses – they never take you where you actually want to go. I can’t help but imagine Neil in his Mini Cooper S screeching sideways around the bend ahead of me to pick me up. I’ll have to suck it up.
[1] Evan’s Golf (1.4) – The Black Falcon – made it onto campus within the first term, and alongside Neil’s succession of ever-faster Minis, meant I was rarely short of a lift up and down Bathwick Hill – in Neil’s case it was a gleeful opportunity to see if he could set a new speed record. It wasn’t until the fourth year that I persuaded my mother to part with her baby blue convertible Beetle (1.6), which became the legendary Gay Car. This ludicrous but brilliant little car carried many of us as far North as Edinburgh and South as the Dordogne. And always in such fabulous style. It even had a built-in flower (joint) holder. The convertible roof providing for both questionable posing opportunities and highly effective fumigation. It was passed on to my sister, who no doubt has her own stories to tell, but I’d be surprised if she ever managed 130 on the Hog’s Back.
[2] Technically, that song is about heroin, but don’t worry Mother, it’s never been that bad.
[3] I’m aware that I’m coming across as a right privileged twat in this post, but I’m almost 40 now, so I just don’t care.
[4] If there’s a discernibly different tone, you now know why.
Another Door In the Wall 