*The People on the Bus*

The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round, ‘round and ‘round, ‘round and ‘round. The wheels of the bus should have gone ‘round fairly consistently for seven hours that night.
The people on the bus go up and down, up and down, up and down. The people on the bus should have been sleeping, but the majority still went up and down.
The teacher on the bus goes, ‘’Quiet please,’’ ‘’Quiet please,’’ ‘’Quiet please.’’ The teacher on the bus went, ‘’Students! You need to all sit down now and be quiet! We are not the only people on this bus and you aren’t being considerate! And no more bathroom breaks. Go to sleep or just shut up!’’
The Argentineans on the bus get angrier. The hitchhikers on the bus get colder. The wheels on the bus stop.

In the grand tour of Bolivia, we Rotary kids had our fair share of bus rides. The worst was an extended climb through the mountains from the Uyuni Salt Flats to Potosí. It was uncomfortable for various reasons. Physically, none of us were in the best shape (understatement of the century!) Environmental factors, such as the insanely high altitude, did little to help this. Then we had to somehow control our tempers in front of complete strangers. Finally, all of this was taking place between the hours of about three in the afternoon, and three in the morning. All of this made for an unfortunately unforgettable bus ride.
We boarded the bus in Uyuni with relatively high spirits. We had spent the day on the Uyuni Salt Flats, an adventure I’ll never forget. Sadly, our high maturity levels don’t always equal high levels of common sense. Half of us got on that bus with terrible sunburns. Our arms were burned. Our faces were burned. Our necks and backs and hands were burned. Anyone who has ever forgotten their sunscreen knows that when the sun cooks you pink, all you want is an ibuprofen, and plenty of lotion. The later the night got however, the more we had to the layer the woolens over our fried skin, creating an uncomfortable cocoon over baked caterpillars. I managed a kind of sick gratitude to my feverish skin. The excess heat helped me stay warm on the unheated bus. Temperature wasn’t the only physical problem we faced however. Our destination, Potosí, is the highest city in the world, with an elevation of 13,350 feet. Despite the altitude pills, some of us had some pretty bad reactions to the heights. I had a persistent stomach ache, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Possibly the worst part was that we weren’t alone on the bus. First, there were the rather vocal Argentinean backpackers. These women probably had the short end of the deal, having to ride with fifteen unhappy teenagers through the middle of the night. Even so, their sporadic exclamations did not help the experience for anyone. The hitchhikers annoyed merely by their presence. I feel terrible about this, and know that I ought to be more understanding. It was difficult to be understanding at one in the morning when my friend was pushed into my side by a woman sitting on her arm rest. There was another lady using my duffel bag as a seat in the aisle. Thankfully nothing broke. Farther back, I heard complaints from students whose legs were used as pillows, or who were reluctantly forced to yield corners of blankets to the hitchhikers.
All of this would have been merely another adventure if it followed a reasonable time plan. I can’t even blame our extra five hours on the road on Bolivian travel systems. Our first pit stop pulled us over for several hours. The bus had broken. On the bright side, we still had enough energy then to find a bright side, that meant several hours of unlimited ‘’bathroom’’ use. True, that was just the side of the road, but it made several bladders very happy. After the bus finally clunked to a start again and we had driven for an hour or two, the rains in the mountains slowed us up. The roads weren’t safe, and again we were waiting, freezing.
As we pulled into Potosí five hours behind schedule, I shrugged. It was the only outward expression I had energy enough for, though inside I was jumping up and down and screaming the Hallelujah chorus. I gratefully dumped my duffel, released from its position of hitchhiker seat, and got into the shower. It hurt too much to wash my sunburned face, and my hair was too tangled to work shampoo or conditioner through it, so I dried off and gratefully, and gingerly, climbed under my layers of thick wool blankets. Our guide Shirley had graciously given us the option of skipping breakfast, so long as we were dressed and ready for the next day’s adventure by ten a.m. It, too, involved a bus ride, though not quite so terrible as this one. I don’t think it could’ve been.