SURVIVED THE HUAYCO-18 hour bus

4AM Friday August 19, 2011

I’ve just survived one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.  Our bus left Lima at 10am on Thursday morning, should have arrived in Huanuco 8 hours later at 6pm, but due to the Huayco, arrived in Huanuco at 3:30 am. Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s a 17.5 hour bus ride with little to no cell phone coverage. It was a really hot day, but the stewardess kept threatening that if we use the air conditioning, the battery of the bus will die and we’ll never get to Huanuco. There was a baby who was in dire need of a diaper change, but there were no diapers. It was awful. I calculated that I could covered more ground, biking from 10am to 9pm, than we were able to by bus.

On the “Central Highway” of Peru, which only has 1 lane in each direction, our bus essentially moved 15 meters and then waited in bumper to bumper traffic for 15 minutes, then would move a little, and wait again. Meanwhile, there are these little cars that are essentially fed up with the delays and decide to drive on the opposite lane in order to pass the people who are driving according to the Peruvian laws (but then again, who obeys Peruvian law?)  Nonetheless, this causes even more delays because the vehicles in the other direction aren’t able to get out of this gridlock traffic when both lanes are being taken up.

Finally at around 6pm we get to the actual Huayco. It looked like someone had poured 10 tons of sand and dirt on the highway, so there was only one lane due to this. Of course, they let all of the vehicles traveling towards Huanuco pass very slowly, and then tell us to stop. To stop for 2 hours while 4 Peruvian construction men try to fix the road a bit. As the buses are double decker, we in the 2^nd floor start stomping our feet over the drivers head, in order to show our discontent. I try to explain to them that it’s not really the drivers fault. He also wants to pass this Huayco zone. 

After 8:30pm, the 4 construction workers had had enough for the day and decided to leave. Our bus was the first to pass, and since we were the first in line in our direction, the rest of our trip (maybe 6 hours) should have gone smoothly. But the trucks and vans in the other direction were taking up both lanes. Many Spanish vulgarities and honking ensued. Finally we are able to fit through, but there are giant rocks in our lane (I’m convinced someone put them there to spite us).   Both of the drivers of our bus rush off to push them off the road so we can pass.  

Meanwhile, Rabbi Tarlow is sitting at my side through the whole bus.  He’s a great guy. The thing is that we have very different opinions are essentially everything. He’s an Obama-hater from Texas, who tells me that I’m not from the USA, because New York really isn’t the USA. “Daneel, you need to spend time in real America,” he tells me. He also tries to convince me that since I don’t really pay taxes, I shouldn’t have the right to vote. He’s really into talking about politics and I simply dislike conflict from political conversations and tend to stay away from such controversy.  One thing he has done for me though, is show me the importance of critically analyzing politicians and veering away from media biases. Still, he's a great guy whether we agree or not on politics, and I'm excited to help him convert 5 Huanuequñans and officiate a bar mitzvah with him.

 Greatest name for a Van company in Lima

In other news, a dear friend of mine, tried to send me a letter in the second week of July to my address here in Huanuco. After 3 weeks, I had given up all hope of ever receiving it. I had gone to the post office to ask how long a postcard from the USA could take, and she told me a month or more.  Today when I got back to the Holzmann house in Huanuco, I saw the card sitting on my bed. It had arrived after 4.5 weeks. Snail mail in Latin America stinks.