Tiara in Transit

The next public bus heading for Bonito was that afternoon, at 4pm, giving us a few hours to ride out the hangover by eating and passing out on the hostel lounges for a few hours.

T, awakes with a paranoid jolt, calls out – ‘ODIN!’ looks around in a panic, worried that Odin had already left.

A few minutes later there’s a distant and desperate ‘TIARA!’ cried out as Odin is also jolted out of his nap with the fear of being left behind scarred into him.

We make it to the bus station and jump onto our bus to Bonito, a town about 10 hours drive away that was the next stop for the Tucan tour bus which had all of our luggage.

The guy at the information desk had written down 2 names on a post-it note for us and instructed – ‘You must go either here, or here, for Bonito.’

Speaking fuck-all Portuguese, we held onto this post-it note like it was the new Hope, and continuously asked the bus driver and transport officials to reassure that the bus was indeed going to either of these destinations. Unfortunately, no-one understand us unless we pointed to the bus and said ‘Bonito?’.

A couple of hours on the road and our bus pulls into a bus terminal.

The bus driver announces something in Portuguese that we didn’t understand and everyone starts getting off the bus. Still drowsy and half asleep, Odin and I follow the crowd thinking ‘It must be a pit stop’ and figured as long as we stuck with the other passengers on our bus we would be fine.

We check out the food stalls at the terminal. Odin orders a hot dog in pastry, and I order a deep-fried crumbed potato and chicken cone.

We stand out the front of the terminal eating and keeping a watchful eye on the bus.

T, with sudden realisation – ‘Great! I just ate chicken from a gas station in Brazil before taking a massive bus ride. That’s just asking for trouble.’

Odin, looks up in a panic and proclaims – ‘ I just ate a DOG!’

At that moment our bus starts pulling away and slowly drives out of the bus terminal. In a panic, Odin and I start running after the bus, waving our arms and yelling for it to stop.

The bus driver, seeing the spectacle before him, calmly signals for us to wait and that he will be back in 20 minutes. We look around and realise that the other passengers were completely calm, even laughing at us.

T – ‘It’s probably just going to re-fuel or something… But I should have taken my daypack with all my electronics off the bus. I have about 2 grand worth of electronics in that bag!’

Odin, always slightly worse off, states – ‘I left my PASSPORT on that bus.’

We sit back down on the curb, and hoped to God that the bus would return with all my electronics, and Odin’s passport, so we could continue chasing after the other bus that had all of our luggage.

T – ‘We don’t do things easy do we?’