A Day in the Life

I was heading home from visiting a friend´s site about five and a half hours from mine, loaded like a donkey with books from the office. I had decided to take a taxi from my friend´s house to the terminal due to the heavy bags I had. But once I stepped outside it was a beautiful day and I decided to walk. Big mistake. I made it to the market, dripping in sweat. I think I could have literally wrung out my t-shirt.

So I´m in the market. And I GET LOST! I know this market pretty well. I´ve been in it more than twenty times. I still don´t really know how it happened. But, there I was. Lost. With two heavy bags. Great. I approach someone and he gives me directions. I head that way and then don´t see the signposts he had explained to me. I make five more turns than he said and ended up in the terminal! SCORE!

I climb into an empty bus and waited for it to fill. A man helps me with my bags and tells me I have precious eyes. In turn, I roll them at him. We finally head out and I make it to the bus stop about thirty minutes before my bus is supposed to pass. Perfection. I go use the bathroom (which wasn´t even gross yet because it was still early in the day) and come back. A bus that goes to my halfway point pulls in. People jump on. Vendors sell their wares. The bus leaves. Another bus pulls up going about a third of the way to my house. The bus worker asks, "Where are you going?" I tell him and he tells me my bus never left the terminal and won´t be passing. He also reminds me that the next two buses I could take will not stop at this bus stop. Crap. And the day was going so well.

So I get on his bus. I plan to get off at a bus stop where the next two buses will stop. Good plan. I settle in for the ride. We pull into another bus stop. The halfway bus is right in front of us. I make a decision and quickly grab my heavy bags and make my way off the bus. As soon as I get off that bus the other bus starts to PULL AWAY. I start running and yelling "suave suave (slow down). The man hanging out the back door signals to the driver and they slow enough for me to jump in the back door. I breath a sigh of relief and settle into a seat.

The rest of the trip was pretty okay. I got to the halfway point and the next bus to my town wasn´t leaving for another hour and ten minutes. Of course I had just missed one by ten minutes. Waiting = BORING.

But I eventually made it home and all was well.

Miss you guys! See you in about six months! Thanks for all the letters and support.