Hey Everyone!

First, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! Momo and I are in Puerto Iguazu, passing the holidays. As I write, a group of Argentinians are blasting cumbia music into our window at 2:30 am. Thus, I decided, it was a perfect time to blog about this.....experience. Argentinians, just like Peruvians, and probably most Latin American countries, celebrate Christmas the night of the 24th after the clock strikes twelve. They dance, drink, laugh, eat lots of food, and play loud music throughout the night. My guess is that they wont stop for at least another hour or so. Lucky momo is fast asleep while I continue to struggle with the haunting images of cumbia stars running at me in my dreams. Throughout Peace Corps, I was rudely awoken many a morning (6 am or earlier) to the infamous cumbia music. Too early for even an advanced Spanish speaker to listen to it. Anyway, this is not my home (which I miss very much right now since Christmas is a family tradition for us), not in my country, so I respect and heed to their traditions. Everyone needs a little fun sometimes!

Back to the bus story: Now, if you know anything about me, you would know that I am not one to get bored. I generally find things interesting, curious about other people, and can find ways to entertain myself. But continuously going from bus to bus, like we did from Puerto Madryn to Buenos Aires, then an hour later take a bus from Buenos Aires to Iguazu, can put even Buddha to the test. In the last 48 hours, we spent 37 of those priceless and irretrievable hours on the bus. Second of all, the Buenos Aires bus station is a mad house (Christmas eve added to the never ending chaos). 70 year old ladies were pushing me into buses as they were pulling up, just to see if their husbands was sure to bring the wine and beer. There was no order to the arrival and departure of buses, 10 buses left for Iguazu within 30 minutes, and the guy with the megaphone was murmuring, nearly inaudible to what he was saying. Luckily, we found our bus, not at the gate it was supposed to be leaving from, just before we left. We were actually the last people to board. Good thing too, because I have a feeling that the company wouldn't have returned our money if we missed it. We get to our seats, the back row on the bottom floor of the bus, look around and find that every seat is completely filled, and the bus was...less than nice. At one point, some un-identifiable brown liquid dripped on me from the roof of our floor. The floor was wet and gross, bathroom smelled and slimy (worse than some of the latrines I have seen in Peace Corps) while the bus whipped around the highway. Poor people on the second floor rolling around in their seats like chickens in crates. For those who haven't been on a double decker overnight bus (most Peace Corps Volunteers know what I am talkin about! Especially those that went to Ayacucho for Semana Santa) should be aware that the top feels every turn as if they were falling off the cliff. Sometimes its not so bad, but sometimes you literally roll around in those seats.

Anyway, 37 hours on buses, starting to get antsy. So what do you do when you get bored on a bus??? Here are some ideas, tested out by yours truly:
1. Count how many time the 14 year old prissy girl in front of you goes to the bathroom
2. Steal a cup of hot water and put whatever you have that dissolves in liquid into it to see what it tastes like
3. Steal another cup of hot water and add 4 packets of creamer, 2 packets of sugar, 1 packet of skim milk and see what it tastes like
4. Place everything served for dinner (mashed potatoes, pasta, jello, mystery meat pastry) into your mystery meat sandwich
5. Yoga. Note:not good with a wet floor and leaky roof
6. Hold your body up by pushing your hands down into your seat (great exercise)
7. Strike up a convo with the creepy bus worker with a work shirt buttoned down 2 too many buttons in a gay singles cruise ship fashion, to see if he will hit on your seat partner
8. Make up a motion picture in your head to the sound of a movie that should be playing but the screen is broken on the bottom floor so all you hear is screaming and slashy sounds.

Some Ideas for the bored, at least.
Merry Christmas,
Teigan