This had become our mantra.
Odin, looking delirious and dishevelled at 6am in the morning, repeats – ‘Everything’s going to be ok’ as his stomach churns and makes awfully loud moaning noises, obviously complaining about the service station hot dog he had consumed earlier.
T, wincing at own stomach cramps from bad service station chicken – ‘Yeah, everything’s ALWAYS going to be ok… Until it isn’t.’
Our bus had returned from re-fuelling and we continued forward on our journey towards Bonito chasing after all our luggage… And then the bus broke down, in the dark of night, in the middle of nowhere, and had been broken FOR 4 HOURS, when it was only a couple of hours away from Dourados where we were meant to catch the only twice a day connecting bus to Bonito.
We finally make it to the Dourados bus terminal at 9am that morning, having missed our 6am connecting bus by a long shot, and were fortunate enough to find a lady at the ticket office who spoke some English.
The nice lady informs us that the next bus to Bonito leaves at 4pm that afternoon.
T – ‘Odin, ask her if the bus will drop us off at either one of these destinations in Bonito that’s written on the post-it note?‘ referring to what we had assumed were the names of suburbs in the town of Bonito.
Odin to the lady – ‘Will the bus take us to here in Bonito?’ hands over the post-it note.
The lady reads the 2 names on the note and is confused –‘I’m sorry my English is not so good, and I do not understand … These are the names of bus companies.’
Odin & T – ‘aaah…’. Then giggling. ‘No wonder everyone looked angry and confused whenever we asked if this was where the bus was going!’
Luckily, even though we had been jumping on Brazilian buses demanding to be taken to a ‘bus company’, miraculously we were still on the right path to Bonito.
Lesson – Even when all the odds are against you, (it’s a foreign country, you don’t speak the language, you smell like a hobo and have lost all of your luggage, nobody understands you and you have to deal with your own naivety and arrogance) life will correct itself, and everything will always be ok.
Until it isn’t.
Tiara in Transit 