A Busted Air Conditioner, a Circle of Women, and an Open Vista on Highway 14
Travelling from Argentina to Paraguay by bus.
I’ve spent more hours than I can count in aircraft cabins, inhaling re-circulated air whilst squeezed into a small seat staring at a screen of some sort.
If given a choice, I would rather take a train or a bus to travel between destinations. I travelled through Turkey by bus and Europe by train, both of which were great experiences. You get to see so much of the landscape that way, beauty that would be missed thousands of feet in the sky.
Brazil to Argentina
On January 14th of this year, I hopped on a double-decker bus in Tôrres, South Brazil bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina. The journey took around 24 hours which I knew going in.
Twenty-four hours on a bus? Are you nuts?
This question, or eyebrows, get raised whenever I mention it. My answer is standard.
Firstly, it’s much cheaper than flying.
Secondly, by the time you’ve arrived at an airport, gone through all the hoopla of checking bags, security checks, and waiting around at the gate plus passport control, baggage claim, and finding a taxi at the other end, you’ve spent a fair whack of that time messing around anyway.
And thirdly, if I live to be ninety, hell if I live to be seventy, am I really going to remember a little discomfort on a long bus ride? No. Will I remember the beauty along the way? Possibly.
That bus ride from Brazil to Argentina brought me moments of pure gratitude as I laid eyes on the incredible vistas along the way.
Argentina to Paraguay
After a month of exploring beautiful Buenos Aires, it was on to my next destination, a ranch in Central Paraguay to spend time with a dear Canadian friend.
With one successful long bus ride behind me, it was time for the second, this time only 21 hours as I travelled to Asunción in Paraguay.
I had booked the front seats on the top level of the bus for myself and my travelling companion. What a way to see the world — front and center with an open vista set out before us.
The front seats enabled us to stretch out a little more as we rested our feet on the front window sill.
Settled into the seats with a bag full of munchies, some healthy, some sugar-laden, and plenty of water, we trundled merrily down Highway 9, switching to the 12 and then the 14 as we made our way north along the Uruguayan border.
The complication
About six hours into the 21-hour journey, we found ourselves heating up considerably as the cabin became very stuffy. The air conditioner seemed to have been shut off.
There was a lovely young Argentinian man with very good English across the aisle who had introduced himself earlier in the trip when he heard us chatting rapidly in our native tongue.
There was some laughter and a few jibes as I dug into my backpack for a folding fan that I had shoved in there before flying to South America. You never know when you may need an extra bit of cooling heading to a warm climate.
Such was the case on Highway 14 in Argentina.
I splayed it open and began fanning in wide arcs to accommodate my companion and myself as we sweltered in the hot cabin.
The bus pulled over onto the side of the road and the driver got out, banging a few doors as we speculated what was going on.
Whoosh!
The A/C started up and a few spectacular blasts of cold air hit our lifted faces as we revelled in the coolness we sorely needed. Then just as quickly it stopped.
“They must be trying to fix the air conditioning,” we said, stating the obvious.
A few minutes went by before another glorious wave of cool came pumping out of the vents above us.
This one seemed to stick and we were soon back on our way.
Around thirty minutes later, the A/C stopped and the bus pulled off the road again followed by more banging and clanging as we waited patiently for the familiar whoosh of icy-tipped coolness.
This time it was to no avail as we trundled back down the highway.
A few minutes later we pulled into a gas station and people started piling off the bus, happy to use the washroom facilities inside the station as opposed to the sole toilet on the bus getting more, let’s just say, potent, with each use.
We bathed in the lower temperatures as we stepped off the bus and into the evening air.
Our translator managed to relay some information on the situation to keep us in the loop. It seemed that we were waiting for a part to be delivered that would fix the A/C which was about forty minutes away.
With not much else to do but enjoy the freshness of the evening and the freedom of not being bound to a seat, we used the facilities, checked out the roadstop convenience store which required selling a kidney to afford anything, and then hung out next to the bus.
I wandered away from the hoard of conversations filtering the air in rapid Spanish to send a few WhatsApp messages to friends and our host in Paraguay, keeping her updated with our possible delay.
I later found out that bus companies often add an hour or two to the ETA to accomodate traffic congestion or complications such as this very situation.
We chatted, laughed at the situation, and moved around a little as we waited for our chariot to be habitable again.
Much to our delight, a pickup with the “Crucero Del Norte” branding emblazoned across the side pulled up to the rear of the bus and we all breathed a sigh of relief as our drivers wandered in its direction.
Not long now and we’ll be hauling ass down the highway again.
It’s South America and not long now took about another forty minutes to happen.
With the issue firmly in the hands of the technicians, one of the bus drivers blazed passed us, the older chicks and the dude, to a circle of women that had formed near the front of the stationery vehicle.
He proceeded to hold court, actually putting himself in the middle of the circle on occasion as he laughed and flirted with the group, none of whom kicked him out or seemed to be disturbed by his presence.
“That is so Argentinian,” our new friend said as he laughed at my observation.
Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary for him watching the slightly rotund man bathing in the attention of the opposite sex.
With the bus back up and running, I was far too eager to get back to my seat and the blast of the newly fixed A/C to pay attention to any disappointment the driver may have shown as he returned to his seat, ready to navigate us back along Highway 14.