Here are a few tips to make your bus journey through Brazil run smoother and be more enjoyable.
Know the correct time – If your bus is a no-show, DON’T PANIC! Raised voices, pacing, throwing hands around in frustration while wondering out loud ‘where the f#ck is this bus?!’ does not help. Calmly and politely confirm the time with a fellow local commuter and you may find that there’s been a time change between cities (or daylight savings has kicked in). In this instance we found that Dourados was an hour behind Foz do Iguacu and our bus was not due for another 45 minutes.
Do not settle into a false sense of security – Don’t expect a smooth journey and for everything to go as planned – Something WILL go wrong!
Finally back on the road, Odin and I were deliriously happy, giving each other high fives and big smiles. Then !!BANG!! The bus swipes a parked truck as it turns the corner out of the bus terminal, knocking it’s right side rear-view mirror off, leaving it dangling and banging against the side of the bus.
Odin and I sit in shocked silence as the bus pulls to a stop.. We had only been on the road for 20 seconds.
T, hopeful – ‘He doesn’t need that rear-view mirror to continue, does he?’
Keep the conversation clean on public transport – Especially on a night bus.
It had been 36 hours since we had lost our luggage. 36 hours of buses and waiting for buses. In this time Odin and I had done a lot of talking, broaching every subject, including sex. And if you know Odin (22yr old Australian Male) when he talks, he gets his whole body involved, hand actions, hip actions, so even if you don’t understand what he’s saying due to language barriers, it’s still pretty easy to understand what he was talking about.
Listening to Odin, I noticed an older Brazilian man sitting across the aisle from us in the dark (night bus), staring, and slowly rubbing his upper thigh while watching Odin orally and visually express how he likes to play behind closed doors.
T, interrupting Odin in the middle of his story, whispers – ‘Odin! What’s that guy doing behind you?’
Odin, his hands still in a slapping motion as he pauses from his tale, turns to look at the man who is rubbing himself, then slowly turns back to face me and whispers – ‘I don’t know…’
We sit in an awkward, exposed silence until eventually the man lets out a quiet moan.
T, feeling violated – ‘Well, I guess he’s finished.’
Tiara in Transit 