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.
"Anythin foehnny, Lancaster? Anythin you'd like to share wit all of us?"
"Sorry," Zach said while Bill was speechless, wanting to run away from the place. That served them right. Gallagher was one of the few who could put the two in their bounds. I never really had understood what they found so appealing in being mean. Perhaps they were just masking their internal insecurities with aggression.
"Good!" Mr. Gallagher nodded before he turned to all of us and said, "I don't care abooeht your little petty fights, goehys. You are young adults and can handle matters yooehrselves. But what I don't like and won't tahlerate is insoehltin people when dey request accommodations. Is dat clear?"
"Yes, sir," the class said, in unison.
"Is dat clear? Mr. Lancaster and Mr. White?" He reemphasized, staring at the two boys.
Everyone looked at Bill and Zach. Timothy was laughing on the inside, watching both the "idiots" — as he called them — get roasted.
"Yes, sir," they said sheepishly; their face flushed with embarrassment. Jackson and David Taylor sniggered.
We pulled over by the side of the road and began eating until we were done, after which we hit the road again. The coach passed through three mountain passes, went by four abandoned hamlets, three villages, two bridges, a ghost town, and two small cities before Sergio decided to stop once again at a truck layby to rest for a while. Also, he had to get some gasoline.
"We'll be stopping for thirty minutes. Those of you who want to go to the toilet, feel free to. Those who want to stay, that's fine. Please make sure to dump all your dinner trays in the bins outside. Do not litter the bus. It's not your property, and I'm not your maid," Miss Seagale said.
"That's a nice painting you've got there," I commented, glancing at Hernanda Wilkinson's painting while I walked down the aisle.
She smiled and looked at me. "Thank you, Kirt," she said, her cheeks turning rose.
"Hurry, Kirt!" shouted Bill Lancaster pushing me out of his way, causing me to fall on a seat. When I got up, Lancaster was in front of me. "Couldn't you [Explicit] move if you wanted to talk to your [Explicit], [Explicit]," he said, expletives after expletives at me.
"I apologize," I said, raising my hands up. I can't risk going low to his nature simply because my ego was hurt.
"Hmmmph! [Explicit]" Bill said as he walked past me, grinding his teeth, followed by Zachary White.
"Are you okay?" Hernanda asked.
"I'm fine."
"Have a seat," she offered, with a pleasant smile. "I usually wait until everyone gets out. I don't like wasting energy standing for everybody to get out."She chuckled, as her eyes sparkled. She moved in to make space
"Thank you," I said as I sat beside her, waiting for everybody else to go out. "That's smart. I should have thought of that." I said after everyone except the two of us had left.
She smiled and continued sketching what appeared to be a flower as if she didn't hear what I said. I smiled as I stared at her drawing first and then at her face, not knowing what to say.
"Kirt, do you want to go out?" asked Mr. Gallagher after coming into the bus, noticing that we were inside.
"Oh, yes," I said, seeing that I had my dinner tray to dispose of.
"What about you, Hernanda?" he asked.
"Me too," she said. She put aside her sketchbook, took her dinner tray in hand, and followed me out.
First, I dumped my tray in the bin while Eduardo Rodriguez had taken the bus to the fuel station, just across from where we were, to load gasoline and pump some air into the tires. Then, I went to the bathroom to relieve myself. I had been holding on for a long time, and I can't express the sense of ease I felt after letting go of a lot that I had held back in my bladders. The toilets were clean for a public bathroom. Perhaps, not many people passed by that lay-by.
When I was walking out of the bathroom, stretching, Eduardo Rodriguez had brought the bus back to the parking ground of the layby. Sergio stood to the side, staring at the mountains in the distance, puffing on a cigar.
"Hey!" I said, walking up to him.
"Hey!" he replied. "How do you find Bolivia? Do you like it here?"
"I do. I've never seen such a beautiful country as this," I said, looking at the hills. A mist began to descend on the mountain tops that bathed in the mild moonlight. "But where are the rainforests? I've only seen mountainous terrain and conifer forests so far; but, I never really saw any rainforests as the movies show."
He exhaled and took another puff before replying, "You mean greenery and trees?"
"Yeah!"
"You'll see more of that when we cross Sucre. This part of the country is near the Andes, so it is barren and mountainous in many areas, but, if you go past Sucre, you'd be surprised." He exhaled.
"Wow!" I said, chuckling.
"Do you like forests?" He exhaled tendrils of smoke that swirled in the air before vanishing into the atmosphere.
"Well, I've never been to a tropical one, but I have been to temperate forests back home in the States where I've camped a lot. So yeah, I kinda do like forests."
Mr. Gallagher came by. "We're all set, Sergio. Kirt, go inside de boehs!"
"Bye, Sergio," I said as I made my way back, waving at him. He smiled and waved back as he went to throw away his cigar before boarding the bus.
When I got into the bus, I saw that Bill Lancaster had occupied my seat. Why do you have to simply provoke me every time? "Hey! I sat there. That's my seat."
"It was, loser," said Bill Lancaster.
"Yeah, loser," Zach parroted.
While I did want to fight back, I chose the higher ground and just walked towards the front of the bus, to find an empty seat.
"You could sit with me," Hernanda offered
I looked at her. "You're sure?"
"Yes," she said, smiling, turning red as a canary. "I'd love it if you could sit beside me."
Nothing could match how glad I was that Jackson King and Timothy were asleep. Otherwise, they would have embarrassed me by winking at me and saying, 'Ooooh! Someone's in love' for the entire duration of my time with Hernanda. I grabbed my bag and moved next to her, at the same spot where I had sat while we were waiting for everybody else to go out.
Sergio started the engine, and we hit the road again, going by a few houses and then entering a region of monotonous terrain, with thick foliage appearing on both sides of the road progressively.
"So," I began.
Hernanda gave me a light smile with her cheeks red. "So?" she asked.
My heart was throbbing, not out of fear but out of a pleasant feeling. Adrenaline levels peaked in my body. Only by running around the bus fifty times, I thought, I could disperse the buildup of energy that I suddenly gained. My skin tingled while my breath quickened, while I was speechless. My cheeks and ears were warm, and through my faint reflection on the window, I noticed that I had turned as red as raspberries.
Hernanda laughed, her innocent, playful eyes glistening under the dim yellow lights of the bus. Her eyebrows were raised, and she had cocked her face to the side, biting her lower lip to stifle a smile. Then, she pointed at the window."Aren't those mountains beautiful?"
I strained my neck to have a look at what she was pointing but couldn't see what she was trying to show me. "Where?" I chuckled.
"Can't you see them? There!" she pointed. I bent forward and peered into the window. Her hair fell on my face, covering my eyes. "I'm sorry." She giggled as she pulled it away from my face.
"I can see them now! Wow, they're... astonishing!"
"And taller too."
Our conversation went on and on until one of us fell asleep, inducing the other to doze off.
When I woke up at 4:30 a.m., I noticed that Sergio's assistant was driving the bus while Sergio was sitting alone in an empty seat three rows behind the driver's. Since Hernanda was asleep and I didn't want to fall asleep again, I gently removed her head from my shoulder and walked up to sit with Sergio for a chat. We were in eastern Bolivia, and it was greener there.
For a long while, until he had to take his turn at the steering wheel at about 12.30. p.m, Sergio and I spoke. He told me about his time in the Army, and how he and his assistant Eduardo Rodriguez were close childhood friends. He also spoke of his ancestry, that his ancestors were "pureblooded" Spaniards from Navarre. After the independence of Bolivia, his family's wealth was squandered because they refused to join the revolutionaries against the Spanish crown.
At about 12:30 p.m, we passed by a town where children waved at us while adults sat on chairs outside their homes, smoking and staring at us go by. Sergio had taken the wheel, so I walked back to my old seat beside Hernanda. When I found it occupied by Miss. Seagale, I noticed that Timothy's had a spot. He disliked window seats, so when I asked him to move in, he moved out and allowed me to sit beside the window. That was kind of him.
Timothy was my best friend, and we've been best friends ever since we had met each other for the first time in Wolfgang. One thing that I admired a lot about him was his resilience and strength despite what he had gone through in his childhood. He had never let it affect him, and that was something I applauded. Timothy had gone through the most heartbreaking of experiences that anyone would wish they'd never go through. While he was just a little child, he had seen his parents brutally killed in front of his own eyes.
When he was seven years old, his parents had taken him and his brother on vacation to a ghost town in Appalachia. There, they had stayed in a house that they rented from someone who had later turned out to be an illegal occupier of the property, upon investigation.
On the fifth day of their stay, a little girl — almost twelve years old — had come to the cabin, telling Timothy's mother that she had lost her way. Since there was a storm outside, Timothy's parents had let her in, to stay with them until they could inform the police the next day.
That had been the mistake that got them killed. If only Timothy's parents had not let the girl enter the house, Timothy wouldn't have been orphaned, deprived of his parents and brother. The girl had turned out to be a trojan horse who had helped her 33-year-old "boyfriend" break into the house when everyone had been sleeping. The two of them then had mercilessly slain the entire family. Only Timothy had survived: he had been hiding in the closet, watching the whole ordeal.
When the Police had arrived the next day to investigate a case of 'illegal squatting,' they had discovered Timothy screaming and yelling, refusing to come out of the wardrobe. They had also seen one of the worst carnage in their entire career: the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition, especially that of Timothy's brother. Even at the time of the field trip, the two who had murdered Timothy's family brutally were still on the run. The Police had never been able to discover them; I knew of the case in-depth because it made headlines. Several true crime podcasts discussed the slaughter, so there was no lack of information about that tragic day.
At about 1.00 p.m. we stopped for lunch at a restaurant in some town. I don't know the name; the only thing I remember was that the food there was terrific, though spicy, and that the locals found my Spanish accent - Iberian with a lisp - adorable and funny. After having lunch, the journey resumed. Everybody had fallen asleep due to a hearty meal, including Timothy. I stayed awake for a while, staring at the fields and houses pass by until I fell asleep to the lullaby of the groaning engine.
I had a dream. I was underwater, gasping for air. I surfaced, but the current overwhelmed me, like hands trying to push me down into the water. I couldn't breathe; I felt like I was breathing through a straw. My lungs were hurting. When I resurfaced, finally triumphing over the water, I floated down the river unconscious until I smashed into a rock that split my skull open.
My heart racing was pounding when I woke up, panting. To confirm that I was not drowning and that it was all a dream, I frantically touched my surroundings, and, Timothy. My face was wet since the window was open, and it was raining heavily outside.
"Everything okay?" Timothy asked, having been woken up by me touching him.
"It's... It's just a bad dream."
"Your parents and the fire?" Timothy asked.
"No. Not that. About the Camp."
"Oh," Timothy said, before returning to sleep.
The bus was then stranded in a long traffic jam. It was 4.30 p.m.
"Why is there so much traffic?" I asked after I sat beside Sergio in the seat right across from the driver's in the same row.
"Some drunk bloke crashed in the middle of the highway, resulting in fifty more collisions. At this rate, I fear we'll reach Roboré only by tomorrow morning," he grumbled, staring at angry motorcyclists fighting with van drivers.
The bus moved at the pace of a snail. The jam was so thick that some vendors began selling snacks and goods to frustrated drivers who were stuck in the traffic jam. I heard many curses being uttered by angry drivers.
"Sra. Por favor!" a man yelled at a woman who was pressing her motorcycle's horn numerous times.
"Ayyy! Idiota!" another man shouted at that lady, vexed. If only she weren't a woman, he would have grabbed the jackscrew from his vehicle and would've pounded her brains out. Frustration saturated the air outside as people tapped their steering wheels, hoping that the roadblock would be over soon. They wanted to go home after a long day at work. By the looks of it, many of them seemed to have had a terrible day at work; they showed it through their rage on the road. Glancing at everyone, a sea of anonymous faces, I wondered what everyone's story would be: their downs, ups, moments of happiness, and those of tragedy. Though they appeared to be regular faces, there certainly was a backstory to each and every one of them.
Everyone else on the bus began to stir from their naps, two hours into the traffic jam. Some, like me, were just staring at the rain droplets on the window. Mr. Gallagher was playing a video game with Franciso Adelante while Miss. Seagale was speaking with Hernanda about her painting.
Fortunately, three hours later into the traffic jam, a Bolivian Army division helped clear the roads. As the vehicles quickly advanced, thanks to the Army's effort, Sergio waved, in gratitude, at the soldiers who waved back and smiled at us, wishing us a safe journey.
At about 2:30 a.m., we reached Roboré. Our accommodation was arranged in a hotel. We stayed in the hotel until 10:00 a.m. the next morning. We were split into groups of 3 and assigned one of the many jeeps that had arrived. I was to ride with Francisco Adelante and Jackson King in the lead jeep, driven by Sergio. After the automobiles were allotted, Sergio helped everyone carry their bags - which were still in the bus's storage compartment - to their vehicles and at 10.00 a.m., we left the driveway of that hotel. For about twenty minutes, we journeyed along the highway out of Roboré until we found an exit into a jungle trail.
On the path, the vehicle moved violently, swaying like a baby's cradle rocked by a vengeful, babysitter. Droplets of last night's downpour fell on my neck from the trees above. I looked behind me and saw the other jeeps following us. Riding the vehicle behind mine was Hernanda, Alice Boe, and Miss. Seagale. Eduardo Rodriguez — who assisted Sergio in driving the bus — drove that one.
The sun's rays filtered through the leaves of the trees that formed the rainforest's canopy. The leaves were of different colors: some were light green, some yellow, some emerald, and some basil.
The gnarled roots of the older trees dipped in and out of the earth. The ground was completely shielded from the sun by the thick canopy formed by the towering trees, save for the polka dots of sunlight that dotted the soil. Curled, brown leaves and twigs that our jeeps crushed and crunched as they made their way, seemed embedded into the damp, muddy forest floor.
The earthy aroma of wet mud, the odor of rotting fruits, the stench of decaying dead rodents saturated, and the irresistible fragrance of wildflowers combined to form a pleasant, musky scent that wafted through the air.
The birds were chirping, mating, and building their nests while the monkeys were jumping from branch to branch, screeching, howling, and whooping as they watched us go by.
Occasionally our jeeps broke through some low hanging branches that hung over the muddy, jungle trail. It was near one such low-hanging tree that I was nearly bitten by a snake that slipped from a branch.
Speaking of snakes, we passed by an orgy of snakes that were mating, about 20 minutes after I was nearly bitten by one.
Our faces and limbs were splashed with muddy water because our roofless jeeps went over a lot of puddles that had formed during the recent cloudbursts. At one point, Adelante's PSP fell into one. When we had to stop to retrieve it, we found out that the device didn't survive.
Somewhere deep in the jungle, I checked my phone only to find no coverage. Out of curiosity, I pulled out a compass to find out in which direction we were traveling.
"That won't help you, bud," Sergio told me while I was witnessing the compass' needle was spin uncontrollably. "There's plenty of minerals underground," he clarified. "They make compasses go crazy here. The only way to navigate through this forest is by using landmarks such as this tree." He pointed to a misshapen tree that resembled an elf.
"Iron?"
"No. I don't know the mineral," said Sergio.
Many such deformed trees were flanking the trail. When I had asked Sergio how he distinguished each one: "Practice," he said. The fleet went through a zig-zag path, where some of us had seen a jaguar sleeping on a branch. None of us were able to snap a picture, because the vehicles were moving very fast. That is one worn-out cat, I thought, doesn't even care if cars pass by.
"Does this forest have a name?" I asked Sergio after we had left the irregular trail and entered one that curved along the banks of a pond.
"Bosque De La Muerte," he said, trying to overcome the noise of the groaning engine.
"De La Muerte? Forest of death?"
The fleet went along another curve, that time along a lake.
"It's called by that name because this forest was one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the early Spanish Conquistadors' war against the Inca Empire. An entire legion of Spaniards was decimated. The Spanish vanquished the Incas in the end. But, the losses they incurred at the hands of the natives of this jungle terrorized them for generations to come." He took a turn to the left, followed by the rest of the convoy. "Some believe that this forest is haunted, but that's all balonie. The real haunted place is La Tierra Del Sangre. You'd never want to go there because —" Just as he was about to continue, he noticed that a log had fallen across the trail.
He slammed the breaks bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt. Eduardo was startled by Sergio braking. He braked too, stopping a few inches before the other jeep.
All the other vehicles halted in a safe distance from each other. Eduardo got out of his vehicle, and both he and Sergio discussed something for long, frequently pointing at the bark that lay across the path. The other drivers got out, and they joined in. For me, the whole thought of getting stuck was exciting. I loved the uncertainty. I stared at the fallen tree; a massive bark it had. It's going to take a long while trying to move that one.
Finally, Sergio came back, and he took a U-turn, followed by the others. He drove up to the nearest junction and then went down a slope. For the rest of the journey, until we reached Camp, I spent my time admiring the jungle, allowing Sergio to concentrate on driving. I didn't ask him about what was so strange about La Tierra Del Sangre'; for, I thought it was not the right time to ask him that when he was concentrating on leading the fleet.
At about 2.30 p.m., we arrived at our Camp in the thick rainforest, passing by a worn-out sign that read 'El Campamento del Bosque de La Muerte.' As soon as we had disembarked at a site, the jeep drivers helped us carry our bags to a spot near the campfire, which was in the middle of Campamento del Bosque de La Muerte. The drivers then brought cartons of supplies from the jeeps that had only carried cargo to the cabins that Sergio showed them.
After leaving my bags by the campfire near the massive logs that served as benches circling it, I surveyed the Camp while Sergio, Seagale, and Gallagher were conversing over a name list. There was a double-decker bus on one side of the campfire, and a cabin facing it. About ten meters adjacent to the bus, there was another cabin which seemed older but looked well-maintained. I later discovered that there were three cabins in total. The third one was hidden from the campfire by the coach. I found out about that a few days after.
I was surprised that there was no other building other than three cottages, which could only fit a few of my classmates.
"Where will we stay?" I asked Sergio.
He pointed to the bus. "The —"
Mr. Gallagher announced, "Everybody pay attention. I want all of you to gather around me in a circle!"
I looked at Sergio. "What?"
"Go, listen to your teacher," he said.
Puzzled, I joined my classmates in gathering around Mr. Gallagher.
"It's a circle, not a square!" he emphasized.
Some of us moved around, trying to make the circle that Gallagher wanted. But before we could form a circle, Gallagher grew impatient. "Okay, fine. It's a square then. Everybody form a square!"
When all of the students gathered in a square, Mr. Gallagher began to say what he wanted to say:
"Now, Ms. Seagale and I'll be allotting each o' you a capsule on de boehs. We'll call ooeht yooehr names, and when we do so, I want you to come wit yooehr bags, take de piece o' paper wit yooehr capsule number ahn it and go into dis boehs over there. I want to remind you all dat no one is allowed to trade capsules. De first deck of de boehs belongs to boys. De second deck is fahr girls only."
I didn't understand what he meant by "capsule."I couldn't understand why we had to go on the bus either. Is there another leg of the journey we have to complete?
Names were being called:
"Francisco Adelante."
"Tom Finkleberry."
"Rhett Finkleberry."
When the Finkleberrys' names were called, they received applause and laughs from the entire class as if the duo was going on stage. Everybody loved Tom and Rhett Finkleberry: the humorous bunch."
"Jackson King."
"Bill Lancaster."
Then came my name.
"Heinrich Kirt"
Collecting my bags, I walked towards Mr. Gallagher without understanding why we had to board another bus. Mr. Gallagher gave me a slip of paper and pointed in the direction of the bus. Before I could even begin to ask him why we had to board another bus, he began calling out the rest of the names.
When I entered the bus, I was taken aback by its interiors. The breadth of the bus was longer than that of two buses parked side by side. There were no seats at all. Instead, rooms resembling those of a capsule hotel flanked the aisle. Ahhh! This is what they meant by 'capsule.'
The doors of these capsules were a little bit elevated from the ground, so one had to climb into them. Using the paper Mr. Gallagher had given me, I walked up the aisle, looking at the numbers on top of the doors of the capsules to find mine.
Mine was in the middle of the coach. When I opened it, excited to see what was inside, Inside it, the first thing I saw was a bed beside a large window. I later learned that the window, which overlooked the campfire, was made of bulletproof glass. Interesting.
Beside the window, there was was a stowable shelf with some DVDs inside. I can put my books here. On the wall above the spot where one would rest their feet when they lie down, was a TV with a slot where one could slide in a CD. I won't be needing that. I've got my laptop. On the far side of the bed, next to the window, there was a handle that I pulled to discover that the bed functioned alternatively as the lid of a strongbox where one could store their bags and personal belongings. I can put my bags here.
"Do you love it?" someone asked me while I was admiring and playing with this new kind of room.
"Of course, yes," I said.
The boys' toilet and the boys' shower room were at the back of the bus near the spiral staircase that took one to the second deck.
***
Later that evening, the drivers and Eduardo left. It was only Sergio, our teachers and us in the Camp after that. Eduardo went to Roboré. Though he had volunteered to help Sergio that day and the day before, without pay, Sergio insisted that he took some cash before sending him off.