How to take a long-distance bus in South America

When I first thought about doing this journey over land, I came across a blog post by an Irish woman, Sorcha O'Higgins, who had taken a bus from La Paz to Buenos Aires in 2014. She wrote:

"Once you spend two entire days of your life being lied to, blamed, bored, exhausted and confined, the return to normality will be like the awakening of spring after a long and arduous winter. The phrase “once in a lifetime experience” is applicable, but not in the positive way it’s usually meant."

And summarised:

"I will never, ever, take that fucking bus again."

Being a positive person by nature, I did not let her words to discourage me but simply skipped to the essential, i.e. the pieces of concrete advice. There were three:

"1. Reliable information is nigh impossible to find. It is likely you will be met with ignorant grunts, impatient attitudes and a headfuck of conflicting data.
2. They will tell you whatever the hell they want to sell you a ticket. Truth is no object.
3. Something will definitely go wrong at some stage, so you need to be fairly mellow and flexible about this whole experience. If you are a control freak, or an accountant, you’re probably better off flying."

By the time I got to La Paz (accounts here and here), I hadn't had any too bad experiences. I had come to the conclusion that while all bus companies had by now made it to the Internet era, it was probably best not to trust schedules and prices posted on their websites. That said, the buses had always left around the times that was printed on the ticket, and they had always, eventually, brought me to the city I had been promised to be brought to. As the La Paz bus station looked more modern and reasonable than the other ones I had been at so far, I thought things could only get better.

A day before I wanted to leave, I walked to the station to enquire about schedules. I had done some research, and it looked like to cross over to Argentina, I should take a bus to a little border town called Villazon. Villazon is about 18 hours from La Paz, but I had found that it might actually be possible to buy a ticket all the way to the city of Jujuy, which I estimated to be around 24 hours away.

The schedule hunt was always the tedious part - walking from a counter to another and asking the same questions over and over again. All over Peru and Bolivia, the system was the same: the bus stations were operated by different bus companies, often as many as 40 or 50 of them, and the only way to find out which companies had service between the cities you wanted to visit was to go and ask each one. They had, of course, names of destinations written on their windows, but you learned to assume that that was not the whole story.

Getting the information was tricky business. For some reason, no matter what time of the day it was, many of the booths seemed to be empty. If they did have someone inside, it was possible that they were on the phone and paid no attention to people outside their booth. If they were empty, one option was to stand outside and wait that someone would miraculously show up.

I waited in front of one for a while, but no one came. I moved on to wait in front of another, and after just a few minutes, a man came up puffing and almost running: he was small and badly-dressed and looked more like a cleaner than an office worker. When he asked what I wanted, it sounded like it was completely unheard-of that someone would come and enquire about bus schedules from a bus company, and first he got me so confused that I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. When he then understood my question, he said, "Oh, no, we don't go there. Try the company over there."

And this way I moved from a counter to another. When the next one gave me a "no" as well, I tried helplessly pointing to the sign above the woman's head that read "Villazon": "But it says here that you go there!" The woman just shook her head and told me to try another one.

I had luck at the next one I found with a person inside: he said that his company indeed had a service to Villazon. "Every day at 1, 3 and 5 pm", he said. That sounded good. But then I asked for the price, and he started looking around on his desk. He went through some papers, got up, walked to a chest, opened all three drawers and pulled some papers out, put them back in, walked to the other side of the small booth, found a key to more drawers and pulled out more messily organised papers. When he finally found a slip of paper with something hand-written on it and quoted the price, I didn't have much faith left.

The last counter was better in all ways. The polite young man told me that, for sure, they drive daily to Villazon, found all the information on his computer, gave me the price and even showed me photos of the kind of reclining seats the bus would have. The price was more expensive, so I told him I couldn't book it yet as I didn't have that much cash on me, but he said I could simply pay a reservation fee and pay the rest on the day. I considered the offer, but finally refused, as I still wanted to think it over.

I ended up staying in La Paz for two more days, and on the day of my departure, I walked briskly back to the bus station. It was going to be easy this time: I knew the company, I knew the schedule, I had the correct amount of cash all ready in my pocket.

I walked to the counter of my choice and said I would like to buy one ticket to Villazon, pretty please.

"We don't have a service to Villazon", the girl said apologetically. I stared at her. "No?" I then asked. I knew it was pointless to argue; trying to prove her wrong would not gain anything. Two days ago the company had had service to Villazon, every day at 3. In the present day, such a service had never existed. "No", she confirmed. "Try over there."

I did still get to leave that day, with the company that had found the ticket price on a piece of paper. When the time of departure came, though, I was stuffed to a bus of a third operator and just had to hope that my ticket was valid for them. The next morning, waking up in Villazon, I was told to cross the border on foot and then find another bus station two kilometres away, where a bus of yet another company would leave from - seven hours later.

At this point I did make a fuss, as I had been assured, many times over, that the change would be an hour or two and that the journey would be a total of only 23 hours. Of course, arguing was just as pointless this time. After standing in the border queue for two hours, then crossing the border and walking to the next town, all I could do was wait for three hours in the scorching heat in a place where everything was closed for the afternoon siesta.

What came after it made it all worth, though: the most beautiful bus trip of the whole journey.

Córdoba - Buenos Aires

I have finally made it to Buenos Aires.

4488 kilometres, five long bus journeys and four weeks after setting my foot in Lima, I am now on the Atlantic Coast.

My first task will be finding a place to stay for the month that I plan to spend here. Luckily an old friend, someone whom I haven't met for seven years, lives here. He's promised I can crash his couch for a few nights while looking for a room in a shared flat.

I'm eager to get to know the city. Right now all the different quarters are just names on the map for me. What kind of meanings will La Boca, San Telmo or Palermo carry in five week's time?

Playa de los Hippies

The family has promised to take me to the town of Jujuy, but to our dismay the car won't start, and after trying for a while to get the engine going by pushing, I have to give up and start a three-kilometre run to catch the bus that only runs once every day.

After an hour and a half of standing in an old rackety bus that anyone would have considered full already before the last twenty people got in, I'm finally at the bus station in Jujuy. It's almost 8 pm, and I find there is a night bus to Cordoba, 900 kilometres away, leaving in an hour. I decide to take that instead of making my way straight to Buenos Aires; I can still spend a day or two in Cordoba before reaching my final destination.

Cordoba is a university town, full of colonial and Jesuit history. I walk around the streets and visit a museum on the "disappeared" people in Argentina in the 1970s, but I'm mostly enthusiastic about the prospect of going to one of the riverside beaches outside Cordoba.

On my second day, I catch a bus that takes me one and a half hours outside the town - but I'm late. It's already early evening when I get there, and I also don't have precise directions. I ask a girl in the bus, and luckily she and the three guys she's with are going to the same beach I'm looking for: La Playa de los Hippies.

Although it's embarrassing how hard it is for me to understand their Argentinian accent, I'm still happy to be with them, since it turns out the route is not that straightforward. After getting out of the bus in the middle of nowhere, you first have to walk, then call a kind of a taxi, and after the taxi trip either pay for a canoe ride or walk over a hill for twenty minutes. As I haven't been aware of all these extra expenses, I haven't brought enough money with me, and have no chance but to hope I will find the right path over the hill. I say goodbye to the girl and her friends, who sit down to wait for the canoe.

But the Playa itself is lovely. Indeed, it is a Hippie Beach, with tents and more permanent makeshift living constructions all around the shore, but it's all very peaceful. I'm almost the only person in the water. I float in the  river and let the mild current carry me while the sun sets behind the hills.

When I begin my long walk back to where the bus left us, the moon has already risen to guide my path.

Jujuy - Córdoba

The fourth stretch in the bus. One of the shortest ones: just 12 hours, 898 km.

Reserva natural

I arrive at the farm by car in the early evening. It's not far from the town of Jujuy, but on that windy trail made of sand, mud and rocks, the trip lasts almost two hours. The car rocks and sways on the uneven road so that often I'm worried about it falling on one side. We cross many streams and little rivers by simply driving through them. Ever so often we stop to open a gate and then to close it behind us; they are for all the cattle and horses that roam free here.

The farm is small and surrounded by wooded hills. Not just surrounded: the farm itself is on a sloping hillside. There are two huts for the volunteers to sleep in; one that serves as a kitchen and a common space; and a house where the family lives themselves. There are no neighbours to be seen, no other houses anywhere on any of the hills as far as the eye can see.

I meet the other volunteers, a handful of young people from different corners of the world, who tell me of a river just down the hill. One of the farm dogs follows me to the river, and the cool water feels lovely after the warm day - but already halfway back up the steep hill, it's just as hot again.

The sun has already set behind the hills when I get back. Now it's time for dinner: we all gather around a long wooden table in the common room. After a delightful meal, the father of the family steps behind his DJ table, turns on the generator power and puts on some music. Saturday is their electricity day and therefore a party day. Outside the hills and the forests are dark and quiet, and in the middle of it is our cosy little hut, a festive atmosphere and happy voices shouting over the music.

But when I step outside, I am taken by surprise. It is not entirely dark. First I see one tiny light, then another, and then I realise they are all around: little sparkles in the bushes around me, above the grass, in the trees. They take turns in shining their light, and so the whole hillside glistens forming the most mesmerising backdrop. Thousands of them, millions of them. "Luciérnagas", the father tells me, "fireflies. This is their season." I stand spellbound, unwilling to go back in.

This is going to be my home for a week.

La Paz - Jujuy

1161 km. 27 hours (in two buses).

Compras, parte II

The people here like to cluster same kind of shops on the same street. I suppose it's wonderfully handy if you're a local: when the first hardware store doesn't have the kind of tool you're looking for, you just pop in at the next shop. When someone tells you of a new cake shop, "on the confectionery street", you'll have no problem finding it.

The hairdressers' street appears to include nail studios and tattoo artists as well.

For a visitor, however, it can be a nightmare. You're starving and wish to find one single restaurant, but all the street has to offer is barber shops. You've left your toothbrush in the last town and would simply like to clean your teeth for the first time in three days, but there is nothing but wallpaper everywhere. I've been lucky enough to also walk down a toilet bowl street and even a dentist's chair street. Or this - costumes and party deco street. (Parties and dressing up is important in these parts of the world.)

Be different: go for the barefooted Spiderman/Santa Claus costume next time.

And what about my bikini?

Well, I finally stumbled upon my luck, when I had already decided I would not look one street further. I was knackered, disappointed and angry. I had asked at several clothes shops, underwear shops and sports shops, and walked past hundreds of other businesses.

Then one saleswoman called me from a clothing store. It was one of those little shops inside a kind of a small market hall that consisted of just eight shops on both sides of a corridor. "What are you looking for, can I help?" she asked, and resigned, I answered, "You surely don't have bikinis, do you?"

"Of course we do!" she answered briskly. She was there with a friend, both of them in their fifties. The shop was perhaps six square metres and covered from the floor to the ceiling with clothes that looked like they were all about to fall from the shelves. Eagerly, the woman pulled a plastic bag from one of the shelves, and together with the friend, they started emptying its contents onto the counter.

There was a swimming suit and two sets of bikinis. No different colours, different models, not even different sizes. Just those three, take it or leave it. The women lifted the bikini tops to hold them over my chest; that was the amount of trying on there was to do. They concluded that the black one fit me perfectly.

I left the shop with a new black bikini in my bag.

In general, I try as much as possible to avoid posting photos of people without their permission, unless they are in large groups and thus not that intimately portrayed. In this post, however, I felt like it would have been impossible to picture the topic without showing a couple of faces too.