Bus-ride to Villa Tunari

12 hour bus ride from La Paz to Villa Tunari: 25 environmental and development NGO administrators, myself, four other interns and a handful of locals board the bus at 5:30pm. it feels like an adult field trip.

as luck would have it, julie [another intern] and I got the seats in the back near the bathroom. but the good news is that the smell of feet is less strong in the back. they only over-booked this trip by two, and one of the cholitas hauls her flourescent bags next to my seat and plops down in the aisle. after eating some kind of soup with spaghetti out of a plastic baggie, she lies down on the floor to go to sleep.

soon it is dark. the bus is not exactly airtight, and there is no heating, so its quite frigid. once out of la paz, we are on the abandoned altiplano. there is nothing for miles and the road snakes alternatively through mountains and high plains. i'm glad it's dark so i can't see the road drop off the edge of the mountain without a guardrail. at times the road is so high all i can see out the window are the stars, and it feels oddly like we are flying through the sky.

around midnight they open the "solo urinar" bathroom (which was locked for unknown reasons). about half the bus takes advantage of this, sporting headlamps to make sure they don't miss the toilet.

at 2am we are stopped by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) who pull various passengers off the bus to inspect their bags. it turns out that only males are suspect, and only those with large bags. females smuggling small amounts of drugs are apparently not worthy of prosecution. we turn up clean and continue on our way.

5:30 am arrive at hotel in Villa Tunari. its is hot and muggy and I can breathe fully again. so strange. in the dark the leafy, umbrella-like vegetation looks like something from Fraggle Rock. we all go to sleep in our various rooms until the conference begins at 10am.