Carnival

Carnival

I do not understand the significance of Carnival. Everyone in some 20 Spanish-speaking countries goes on vacation for the same week in February. People appear from nowhere, the population doubles for a week. Everyone leaves their city to go party. Yet everywhere you go is filled with bodies. I don’t understand the implications, especially when there will be another week off in a month for Easter. Nor do I understand where all the people come from. But this story is about what happened to me over Carnival. Not all the crazy, and more interesting, stuff that happens to everyone else, i.e. bullfights, cheese trucks, promiscuous masseuses, street fires and Sangria.

Carnival begins for me on Thursday, February 11th. Class finished at 4:30. I needed to be at the bus station at 5 for a 6 o’clock bus. Loaded up with 35 pounds of mostly food, my four friends and I board the bus at 5:45. In accordance to the Venezuelan measurement of time we left promptly at 6:45. Not looking forward to a 12-hour bus ride, I feel a bit antsy. I’ve never been on a bus for this long. And in a foreign country. How will I pass the time… I am definitely going to be bored… what can I do… oh, afternoon' Benadryl.

These buses are notoriously cold. They sell coats in this country for two reasons: trips to the mountains and trips on these buses. A/C vents jettison cold air at you from every corner. Smart Wool socks, three shirts, a sweater, and one hat later I find myself in a mild comatose in the freezing cold. I suddenly miss home.

The first stop is 4 hours into the trip, which is really 4 and half hours into the trip (following Venezuelan suite). A bus station is straight out of S. E. Hilton’s The Outsider or The West Side Story. Black, slicked back hair, button-ups with three buttons undone, creased blue jeans, eternally burning cigarettes, gas spills and a modestly lit half-acre of cement. The American equivalent of a Midwestern truck stop. With empanadas.

Bus stops, driver yells, bathroom and food break. Mid-dream I get my stuff together. I need to use a static bathroom because you are only permitted to standup while on the bus bathroom. Having taken my time getting out of my chair I am the last one on the bus, and the doors are shut on the upstairs of this double-decker. Here I am reacquainted with my nemesis. Venezuelan doors. There are 3 kinds of doors here, they either: (a) don’t open, (b) slam way to loud, or (c) reopen at will. This one is an “a” door. The door handle is missing. It won’t open. I spend four minutes trying to find the ‘magic lever’ to open the door. Can’t find it. And I need to go to the bathroom. Last ditch effort. I swing my weight into it. Bam, it pops open.

Alas, freedom is mine.

I descend a spiral staircase to get off the bus. And what do I find but a second door… leading to outside… that won’t open… another “a” door. But this one has a hole where the door handle was. And I thought I was free.

All I want is to use the bathroom. I spot my friends outside the bus and pound on the window to get their attention. One comes over. I slid open a perfectly sized window and ask him to open the door.

“Can’t man, bus driver took the key,” he tells me.

“Dude, I need to poo. How do I get off here?” I frantically ask.

“I don’t know, wait till he comes back?” I am told.

“I’ll be left behind. I don’t speak Spanish. He’ll leave without me. And I’ll be trapped here,” I quickly rationalize.

‘Uhhh, this country…’ I mutter to myself as I sit down on the bus stairs. I am thinking of two things right now. Jason Bourne and how glad I am that I’m not claustrophobic. This would be a panic attack and a half had I not spent weekends scurrying through holes and caves in the Midwest. I chime over to my friend again to come over and hold my backpack. Confused, I hand it to him through the 2.5x1 foot window. I push the window to see if I can’t get it open any more. Doesn’t move. Here goes. I grab the lip of the window and pull myself up. Figuring feet first will be easier, I slide my feet up and through the window. After a little contortion act I pop my hips through the window. My jacket is now covering my face and I don’t know where in reference to anything my body is except for hanging out of a window. Hoping—praying—that my head doesn’t hit anything, I let go and drop 6-feet, into freedom. I just crossed the Rio Grande. Freedom.

But its not over, I haven’t forgotten why that was necessary. I grab my backpack and break towards the bathroom. Over my shoulder I hear, “That’s a guy who needs to shit.” Walking over stained concrete my feet finally find tile. To my luck, the toilet paper vender is MIA. Knowing that in this country you usually pay to use clean restrooms, or toilet paper, in this case, I grab a handful of tp and make for the first vacant stall.

I’ll spare the details. Except that this stall door was “c” door. Midway through doing my business I look up to see that I’ve got spectators. Wonderful, I love voyeurism. Venezuela knows how to make me blush.

Safely on the bus, I’m surprised to feel back in my comfort zone. The same bus that made me nervous 4 American hours earlier. This is calming, knowing I am leaping out of my comfort zone; it is nice to find it again. Especially in such an alien place. This becomes the theme of this weekend vacation.


The remainder of the bus is pretty mundane to Venezuelan standards. However, I am not a Venezuelan, so inherently my mind is blown and I can’t understand how this is normal.

First off, we pass through many security checkpoints. This is funny to me. Customs for entering this country was a man texting while my belongings pass through an x-ray machine. But these checkpoints—to cross the country—these checkpoints could have been administered by TSA. On one occasion a soldier with an AK-47 boarded our bus and looked at everyone’s identification. Maybe automatic weapons are the Venezuelan version of flashlights here, but I didn’t sleep for the rest of the trip.

Second, I needed to use the bathroom (should have learned). It’s a small airplane-like lavatory. Everything is simple enough: a button to flush, a button to wash, but the door doesn’t lock—better go fast. A portion of the wall is torn off and makes for a window and the ventilation system. A trash bag is the stained glass. The hum of the bus and billowing of the trash bag makes for typical Venezuelan elevator music.

I start restrooming.

And everything is going fine.

Until the bus driver, probably knowing I’m in there, slams on the brakes. There is no better way to leave your mark in a restroom that by peeing on three of four walls. I had two options. I could either, (a) prevent myself from peeing all over the bathroom, or (b) prevent myself from peeing all over the bus. Now these were not conscious decisions. Not even spur of the moment choices. These were reflexes. The same ones that save your life or catch a falling pen. I would like to think they saved my life here.

I shot backwards and grabbed at everything possible. My hands met the hole in the wall and tore through the plastic bag. My second hand didn’t find anything. Consequently I spun 280 degrees until my back met the wall. Chet-chet-chet-chet-chhhhhhheet. For half a second I had been human sprinkler. How comical. I’m sure the bus driver was laughing at me somehow.



Asshole buses.





.