Despite the last 9 months in South America being the best 9 months of my life, I have chosen to document the lowlights. Not because the highlights haven´t been extraordinary but because tales of misfortune tend to make for better stories. I apologise for any grammatical errors, unfortunately my English seems to be deteriorating even though my Spanish doesn´t seem to be improving. So in no particular order, the four worst moments in South America…

1. The time I missed my bus

I had already missed a bus in Uruguay and really didn't want to deal with the stress of missing another one. Besides, I was on a time limit as I had to meet my travel companions in Bolivia to start a tour. Therefore, when an American who was going to Bolivia at the same time as I suggested we leave our hostel 15 minutes before departure, I was skeptical. However, we had just met and I didn't feel comfortable questioning his time management skills. Although we were leaving at the same time, we were on different buses. We arrived at the bus station at 12:03am to find that his bus was still there but mine had just left. In a panic, I got in a taxi to try and catch my bus. First getting in the taxi, I was hopeful. The taxi driver seemed to understand my situation and was optimistic we would be able to catch up to the bus. It was not until we got onto the open road and he was driving so slowly that the buses were overtaking us that I started to stress. The combination of seeing the meter rise at an extraordinary rate and the car struggling to make it up to 100km had me sweating like a rapist. I also realized that I didn't have enough money to pay for this taxi and I would need to go to an ATM.

However, all my worries vanished when I spotted my bus pulling up to a stop. I was overwhelmed with excitement. I told the bus driver how we had been chasing him all the way from Salta. I was so excited while he might as well have been Kristen Stewart, a Bolivian man version. He really couldn´t care less about my little story and told me to just get on. All I needed to do now was find an ATM and pay this taxi driver. Asking around, no-one knew where one was and to my dismay I saw the bus driver get back on the bus. Surely he had to be taking the piss, he had just pulled up. This had to be the most time efficient bus to have ever journeyed through Argentina! I pleaded and begged for him to just give me a few minutes to find an ATM and without the slightest remorse, he drove off. I was absolutely beside myself at this stage. To add fuel to the fire, I discovered that the ATM was about 2 metres away. Now I had to wait around until 5am for the next bus. I had hours to kill in the middle of nowhere in the cold with some locals who must have thought I was an absolute fruitloop. One of them came to talk to me and while he was friendly I couldn´t help wondering what he was doing there since he said he didn´t have a bus to catch. I became worried that he was waiting around for me to fall asleep so he could steal my stuff. Unfortunately for him, due to sleeping problems that have plagued me my whole life and an incurable habit of leaving assignments to the last minute, all nighters are my speciality. There was no way I was falling asleep. He eventually left and I grew horribly bored. I got my guitar out and played some songs to pass the time. Suddenly, a herd of stray dogs came runnings towards me, fighting over me to listen to the music. 3am, in the middle of nowhere with some stray dogs for company, I started to question what my life was about.

Before I had too long to ponder this, the bus arrived and I made it to Villazon and feelings of optimism came rushing back. That was, until I went to an ATM to get some Bolivianos out and I realised my card was missing. In my angry and stressed state I had left it back at the ATM in Argentina when I was getting money out for the taxi driver. In South America the ATMs give you cash first and card second. I think this a thoughtless system since a person is much less likely to walk away from an ATM without getting their cash but I had already made this mistake in Costa Rica so there was only my idiocy to blame.

I had some money left over from paying the taxi driver but not enough for my bus to Uyuni. Well, f*uck. I did find some spare Uruguayan pesos left over but had no idea how much they were worth. I went to every exchange place open but no-one wanted my Uruguayan pesos. I didn´t know what to do but I knew I had to get to Uyuni one way or another. My thoughts started to get desperate. Was there anything I could sell? Could I maybe busk for money? Perhaps the stray dogs lapping up my music was a sign. Should I just outright beg...Before having to resort to any of these options I asked the bus company if they would accept what I had and my Uruguayan pesos. First lady said no, second man said yes. He was even nice enough to let me keep the coins I had so I had a few hours up my sleeve and 2 Bolivianos to play around with. 1 Boliviano I used to pay for a bathroom. I don´t need to delve into the details of this experience but suffice it to say, if the bathroom was anything to go by, 1 Boliviano didn’t give me much bargaining power. It seemed everything was out of price range, ice cream -10 Bolivianos, chocolate-7 Bolivianos. I pointlessly walked past the fried chicken several times. Finally, I managed to find a street lady who was selling some popcorn. My heart sank as she said popcorn was 2 Bolivianos. Without holding any hope, I sheepishly showed her my 1 Boliviano and she said she could give me half a bag of popcorn for 1 Boliviano. She only emptied one third of the bag instead of half and this generosity I couldn´t have appreciated more.

So I had a ticket to Uyuni and I was only one bus ride away from finally being united with my friends. And what a bus ride it was. It was the local Bolivian bus so far, far removed from the luxurious buses you get in Argentina. It was a miracle that I even made it to Uyuni. It was the bumpiest, shakiest ride in the middle of the night filled to the brim with Bolivians standing in the aisles but worse than anything it was the coldest I have ever felt in my life. After 4 years in Dunedin I feel this is a big call but the inside of the bus was covered in ice and I was not in winter attire. I finally arrived at 5am and managed to hobble to my hostel and somehow got to sleep despite lack of heating. When I awoke I was greeted by my friends who had done the same bus ride so knew what I had endured. They said that I was lucky that I had done the bus ride at night time as I couldn’t see how close the bus got to the edge and that their seats had been covered with urine. I must say I didn´t feel particularly lucky. However, after a hot shower, a filling breakfast (paid for with borrowed money) and some Bob Marley to ease my mind, the suffering had finally come to an end. 

Those 48 hours- lowlight number one.

  2. That time I missed my plane

I had already missed several buses in South America by this stage but not any planes. The first plane ride I missed was in Iquitos, Peru. Coming back from my Amazon tour, the company assured me that I would have enough time to make my flight but when I turned up 20 minutes before my flight and the check-in counter was closed, I was pretty quick to come to terms with the fact that I had missed it. That was, until a guy arrived 10 minutes after me and started demanding to be let onto the same flight. Realistically, he didn´t have a leg to stand on. To think that he could rock up 10 minutes before a flight and expect to be let on was absurd. However, since there was a chance I could benefit from his protesting I nodded along vehemently with whatever he was saying and added in my occasional ¨si, si,¨ in agreement. Naturally, the flight operators told us to piss off and pay for a flight the next day. Oh well, at least now I had someone to share a taxi back to town with. He spoke of a hotel room paid for by his work. At this stage, I hadn´t had a hot shower in 10 days and during this time I had also vomited more times than I had in my entire life so the thought of relaxing in an air-conditioned hotel room was very tempting. However, he wanted to share a room together so it was adios to him and a 30 Sol hostel it was going to be. It was supposedly a hostel but it was really more of a questionable motel. Services included a locking system so advanced that the workers had to break into the room to let me in. The feng-shui was intuitive, with nothing separating the shower, toilet and bed. If I turned on the shower pressure high enough the water could reach the bed. Convenient for those times when I wanted to be in bed and have a shower at the same time. Perhaps the only criticism was the cleaning services could have been improved as there was still hair on the bed, a fact which became much more disturbing when I turned on the TV to find it left on the violent porn channel.

The next day I decided instead of paying for another flight, I would get to Colombia via the Amazon River. This involved a 10 hour ferry and a 10 minute boat ride. I was highly offended when the skipper tried to charge me 50 Dollars for this latter boat ride. I wasn’t a local but I wasn’t an idiot, there was no way that this 10 minute boat ride was nearly the same price as my 10 hour ferry. I said I would get some money out and on my way asked some locals if it was usually 50 Dollars to which they scoffed and said it was 3 Colombian pesos which is about 2 Dollars. Bitter that this man had tried to take advantage of me, when a different man came to help me with my bags I was relieved to know that not everyone was bad around here, until he asked me for money for carrying my bag for about 2 seconds. When I finally got to the airport I was fed up and just wanted to get to Bogota, so when I got to the front of the counter and they told me there had been a problem with my card, I was at breaking point. I asked how could this be possible when I had received a confirmation email for my flight. My protesting was getting me nowhere, if I wanted to get to Bogota I needed to buy another flight with cash. But apparently even cash wouldn´t buy me a flight as the plane was full. But after some further protesting, magically they had a seat for me. It turned out they had been lying about the plane being full. To make matters worse, when I checked my account the next day the payment for the ticket I had originally bought had gone through, meaning I had paid for this flight twice. I was just glad to finally make it back to civilisation in Bogota despite all the trouble involved in getting there. 

The ordeal and unnecessary stress of getting to Bogota -lowlight number two.

 

3. That night I spent at Retiro

I had already been robbed once in Buenos Aires but this time was worse. Not because they stole more things, in fact last time they had stolen my bag which had my computer in it whereas this time they only stole my wallet which had about 15 Dollars and my debit card which they didn´t have a chance to withdraw any money from. However, this time the immediate consequences were much graver. My debit card was the only access to money I had and I only had one more night left in a hostel. Using the free wifi at the hostel, I quickly sent an emergency email for help to the parents to send me money via Western Union. I went to sleep hoping in the morning I would have access to some cash while I sent my 4th email to Westpac asking for a replacement card. Instead, I got an email saying ¨I tried but failed with Western Union. Is there any other way? You need to take care of your things, your behavior is seriously worrying.¨ I may have deserved the rant but could it have come after he sent me some money? Luckily I had put a 50 peso deposit at the hostel which I got back as it was my last night there so I had a bit of money for food for the day. It was 4am in the morning in NZ so I had to wait around for Dad to wake up but by the time he did, all the places to get money in BA were closed. I would have no money until the next day. Well fine, I was hungry but this was tolerable as long as he booked me a hostel with his credit card online so I would have somewhere to stay. By this stage I was very low on money having spent it on a bottle of water, breakfast and a minimal lunch. Down to my last pesos and internet being much more expensive than I remembered, (damn inflation in Argentina) and an answer from Dad coming far too intermittently, things were not looking good. The last email I got from him before I ran out of money was ¨call me. Why don´t you get a phone for emergency situations.¨ (My phone had been stolen from the last robbery). I had a mini spasm of anger as I thought, with what money was I going to call NZ, seriously just book me a bloody hostel!!
 
But it was too late. I had about 4 pesos left and it was 6 pesos minimum for 15 minutes of internet so I made my last email a royally dramatic one. ¨I´ve run out of money, looks like I am sleeping on the street tonight so goodbye if I get raped or killed.¨ In reality, I had people to turn to but I didn´t want to bother anyone so I decided that I might as well go to the place where I would pick up the money in the morning which was Retiro bus station. I knew that buses left at all hours at Retiro so I could go there and pretend to wait for a bus and sleep. Retiro bus station is located by a slum in BA and therefore is a hangout for the homeless. A far cry from the respectable neighbourhoods in BA, crime is commonplace at Retiro with stabbings etc not unheard of. Well beggars couldn´t be choosers so off it was to Retiro. It was difficult trying to find a place to sit as everyone smelt just awful and if there were empty seats it was because a homeless person was lying underneath them. I finally settled on a spot, held onto my bag as tightly as I could and tried my best to go to sleep. This was difficult as every Tom, Dick and Harry or Juan, Pedro y Diego came asking for money. 

Anyway, 8am couldn´t have rolled around quicker and I went to pick up my money, which to my pleasant surprise, I got at the unofficial rate. When I checked my emails in the morning I had one from Dad saying ¨how about I book you Millhouse hostel.¨ Well it was a little bit late for that now, wasn´t it! Drunk with tiredness, the thought of going to Millhouse, a party hostel, and having to socialise with other fresh-faced travellers made me want to jump off a cliff. Instead, I checked into a hotel and slept for the next 18 hours. 

I  may have survived the night but there´s no doubting that it was one of the worst nights I had in South America-definitely lowlight number three. 

4. That time our guide screwed us over

From the get-go we didn´t really get along with our guide. He answered our questions begrudgingly and rolled his eyes at us at times, so already we were pondering whether he deserved a tip. After what happened, it was clear he would be walking away with nada. We had been trekking for 3 days so we were completely shattered waiting in the line at 4am to catch the first bus up to Machu Picchu. We just wanted to wait in peace, so when a man in uniform who seemed to be patrolling the line came and told us we needed to leave we were less than impressed. Baffled, we asked why since we had been here from the beginning and had been waiting patiently like everyone else. Apparently our guide had been aggressive and for this, we needed to go to the back. While we had been waiting in the line he had disappeared but we hadn´t thought for a moment he´d be off abusing other tourists. By this stage the line was painfully long. Suddenly, the guy in uniform and our guide started arguing and then things started getting physical and the uniform man started pushing our guide. This was all a lot to take in at this hour and everything being in Spanish made things 10x more dramatic. 
 
I´m not sure how, but they managed to sort things out and we were again united with our guide. We didn´t trust him but since we didn´t have to go to the back of the line we pretended like nothing had happened. But when we got up to Machu Picchu he started to be rude to some other tourists asking them to hurry up taking their photos. That´s when it dawned on us that he was steaming drunk. So when time came to say goodbye, we were worried he would get abusive at us for not tipping him. But he just said ¨and do you have a present for me...?¨ This was a tense moment indeed as we certainly had prepared no such thing but luckily for us he just said ¨or not…¨and then walked away. We couldn´t believe it, we had gotten off scott-free! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying ourselves, feeling like a weight had been lifted off our shoulders.We joked that because we hadn´t given him a tip he would tell the bus driver not to come and pick us up. 

We joked, but it wasn´t so funny when we were left stranded in a small town waiting in vain for a bus that would never come while watching every other tourist get picked up. 

Maybe he had a part to play in this, maybe he didn´t, but all in all an unnecessary blemish on our Machu Picchu experience-lowlight number four. 

There have been many other negative moments during my trip but those 4 stand out as the worst. Even though none of the experiences were remotely amusing at the time, in spite of everything I´d still rather endure 4 more equally disturbing lowlights than have to leave South America! I only hope that I can return again one day soon...