Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Bosque de La Muerte

Kirt Heinrich

The route the bus took was circuitous. Normally buses to Roboré - the city we had to travel to first before continuing to the Camp - went via Caracollo to Cochabamba and then to Roboré, taking about 21 hours. On that day, an incident resulted in the closure of the road to Cochabamaba. Hence, the fastest route available was via Sucre, adding an additional 5 hours to our journey.

The first leg of the trip was from La Paz to Sucre. The second leg was from Sucre to Roboré via Santa Cruz De La Sierra. 

By 8:30 p.m., we had reached Machacamarca. The road we were traveling on was an old, double lane road that was damaged in some areas, making it a bumpy ride. On both sides of the highway, it was just barren land we were passing by - a bare desert with little to no vegetation.

"Shut the [Explict] window, dude," Adelante snapped at me, while I was glancing at the monotonous landscape. "It's [Explicit] cold!"

"Sorry." I closed the window. Boy, you didn't have to be so rude in saying that.

At 8:55 p.m., Mr. Gallagher woke up and gave us all our takeaway dinner boxes. "I'm very sahrry goehys for fahrgettin to distribute de dinner packs earlier."

Mr. Gallagher was Irish, still retaining his citizenship despite having a permanent residency in the United States. He was born in Termonfeckin County but had lived for a long while in the United States since he was in Middle School. "I've got a lot of 'Oye-rish' pride in me that I can't give up me passport," he always told me whenever I asked him why he had not taken American Citizenship. He had never even changed his accent during his extended stay in the United States. Dual citizenship didn't appeal to him either. "I'm Oye-rish and I want to remain purely Oye-rish," he'd say.

"Is dere anyone here who has issues eatin when de boehs is moving?" he asked.

We all looked around, waiting for those who wanted the vehicle to stop to raise their hands.

Mr. Gallagher asked once again. "Is dere anyone here who has an issue eating while de boehs is moving? Don't feel embarrassed. We can ask the driver to stop."

Alice slowly raised her hand. Hernanda joined her. During a field trip to Cheyenne last year, I had learned about this condition when I saw them puking after eating something on the bus. They had been afraid and embarrassed to ask the teacher to stop the coach when it was time to eat. As a result, within a few minutes after lunch, they had begun to throw up. Ever since that day, it was school policy to ask everybody about their dietary restrictions on field trips. Well, such a rule existed before that, but the school started implementing it only after what had happened the previous year.

"Okay. I'll ask Sergio to pull over till we finish eating."

Bill Lancaster whispered something into Zachary White's ears, after which both of them burst into laughter. For certain, I knew that they were mocking Alice and Hernanda. Fools.