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the worst bus ride ever?

Planning in advance, we bought our tickets 8 hours before departure time. After stashing our bags at the equipment check, we headed out sightseeing around Medellin. Our last day of "vacation", we were returning to Bogota the following morning. Except for a few bumps, our trip was an enjoyable success. Here is one of said bumps.

The town of Medellin was beautiful today. Without much of a schedule, we walked quite a bit, drank a few cafes, ate and basically spent a lazy day wondering around the Universidad area between the Jardin Botanico and the Parque de los Deseos. We skipped the amusement and science parks. Money. The planetarium was closed. But maybe we ought to have slept the entire day.

Maybe I should blame the guy who was taking the largest dump of my life while I waited patiently for ten minutes as he ruptured his spleen and my eardrums with his Montezumas Revenge. Or the guy in line at the baggage check who was being non-cooperative and holding up everyone trying to get somewhere. Though I am not sure these few minutes would have made too much of a difference in the first-come first-seat arrangement. For the record, we had seats 1,2,3 - the first purchased of the day.

When we boarded, there were 2 seats, apart empty. Andrea in her sweet, little girl voice whined to the lady pretending to have control of the situation that she did not feel safe or comfortable sitting with a stranger. Hell, I didn't either. In one of said empty seats sat a guy in a full head-to-toe body suit. No shit...I don't want to know what mutation of H1N1 infected him.

The stewardess-ish motioned to request a guy from the back to come sit up front so we can share a dirty by the bathroom seat together. By the time he moved and we navigated around him (and the rest of the people still standing in the aisle), a couple had stolen the seat. And when questioned why, jackass guy responded with a virtual fuck you.

Ok. Asshole number one, check. We ended up in what they vacated, non-reclining seats. Ass...No problem. It's only 8 hours. We can do this. The bus left an hour late, asshole yelling at the stewardess-ish in the minutes leading up to departure. The aisles are still full of people. Now sitting. Inconsiderate people. In a chicken bus, this would be totally acceptable. But this was not. In all the buses we had taken collectively in Colombia, the rides were generally nice. Seats comfortable. People friendly. Not so much.

After 30 minutes of the guy sitting less in the aisle and more in Andrea's little corner of the bus, I offered to switch seats as she had this scared, "I am about to get off this bus and cry" look. Being quite a bit larger, homeboy eventually moved himself entirely into his aisle. Now call this a dick move all you want, but no apologies, no requests, no excuse me's were ever said. By the way, seats in the aisle are half the price for half the space.

But my troubles were not over. Andrea drifted off into sleep or watching the horrible version of Rush Hour 3, dubbed in Spanish. Some movies should never be voiced-over. It's just wrong. Meanwhile I had new issues with an old over-make-up-ed awfully-faked blond and her pink painted toenails on my arm rest. After I made an obvious this disgusts me move/face/gesture, she put on her sandals. Wrinkly toes still apparent. Puke.

Eventually those disappeared too after the bus stopped for a longer than required rest. This is not counting the 10 or so random pull-overs to the side of the road to do absolutely nothing. When I re-entered the shithole-of-a-bus, the floor people had managed to find a way to crawl into balls and not outright encroach my space. Of course this meant no one could enter or exit the on-board bathroom which would have been okay if it weren't for people continuing to try.

After two thirds of the trip was over, I finally managed to pass off into dreamland and awake in safeland. Home sweet Bogota. It was a welcoming sight to see the city and I recalled the last time I was so dearly ready to be off a bus and into the comfort of familiar surroundings.