Case in point: we arrive to Marco Polo Airport last week, and manage to get a bus to
[Fun Fact: Before I forget, for some odd reason, soda in Europe (or at least Austria, Italy, and Croatia), has very little carbonation, and tastes very flat.]
She says, "Look, just stay here with the bags and I'll go take the map and ask someone for some help." I know the plan is futile, as she generally has problems speaking English with non-native English speakers, but I've got a sinus headache from the plane, and I'm ready to throw in the towel. A couple minutes later she comes back and says that she saw the tunnel the taxi driver was talking about, so we walk through it and come out the other side to a deserted street, which doesn't look quite right. I keep looking at the map, trying to figure out where the hell we are, and then we see a sign for a bunch of hotels/hostels, ours included, and I finally realize where we are on the map. After 4 minutes of hostile silence, we're at the hostel. Tempers subside, and I've survived yet another harrowing "How the hell is this gonna work?" moment.
I think these sorts of moments don't happen too often in your own country, because you generally know who to go to for help. The problem is that when you're in other countries, it's not always clear who to ask. Sometimes the people at the bus/train station are reliable and friendly, and other times the aren't. Often, the people staying at your hostel can offer you the best information out of anyone, given that they've had firsthand experience and have already paved the way, so to speak.
My worst "How the hell is this gonna work?" moment was a few years ago in Costa Rica. I'd been in the country too long, and was about to wear out my 90-day visa, so I took a trip with a few people from the hostel, heading towards Panama. I didn't totally enjoy the people I was with, but they were relatively friendly, and I felt this was one of those times when being with people I didn't admire was better than going it alone.
We show up at the bus station, and everyone's disorganized, because most of the people drank way too much the night before. I'm trying to quit smoking at the time, so after getting my bus ticket, I head to the vender at the corner and ask for a single cigarette, cause if I buy a pack then I'll be more inclined to smoke throughout the day. Well, my Spanish at the time was ok, but it wasn't good enough to handle the confused stare of the guy behind the counter. "A single cigarette, please." He looks really confused. Finally, I resort to caveman speak: "Cigarette. One". A light shines in his eyes, and he says "Oh, you want a single cigarette (using a different word for 'single' than what I'd been using). I was confused because you kept asking for an unmarried cigarette."
I should've taken that as a sign, but even if I had, what would it have changed?
The bus ride to Puerto Viejo (a city really close to the Panamanian border) was fine, and lot less harrowing than the other rides I'd been on in that country. We get to this hostel that everyone is raving about (the long walk there in the darkness with no guarantee of ever finding it was yet another of those moments), and it looks pretty cool, except that I see some things that worry me: a really shady owner, and this one Colombian kid that I'd randomly run into in San Jose, who I also knew was someone to stay away from. I think there were one or two other things about the place that worried me, and I told the people I was with that we should head to Panama the next day. No one believes me though (when I later met them in Panama, they told me that I had been right, because a few of them lost some valuable possessions at the hostel).
I wake up early the next day, and walk by myself to the bus stop. It's the standard no-signs-or-information-just-a-few-benches-and-a-roof Costa Rican bus stop. I have no clue when the buses leave, or where they're going. After sitting there for 30 minutes, I talk to a guy laying on a bench, and he tells me that I have to walk across the street and down to the left to get a ticket from the ticket office. Of course the ticket office would be no where near the bus stop, or have any signs pointing towards it. That would've been too convenient.
I grab my ticket, eat a meal on someone's converted restaurant/front porch, and then get on the bus. I sit next to the guy I'd talked to, and he turns out to be a really cool Israeli dude who seems to know a good deal about traveling in these parts.
"Look, I just need to go to Panama so I can renew my visa here. Is that gonna be easy?"
"Oh yeah man," he says. "All you have to do is just follow me. I'm headed the same direction."
We get to Panama, and that's when it starts. The guys at the border mention that if I give them some money, they'll stamp my visa and let me back in Costa Rica with a renewed visa, but I'm too mistrusting to go through with it, so I continue on to whatever podunk town we're headed to. We hop off the bus, and the Israeli guy informs me that we have to grab our bags and walk across the bridge. I'm confused as to why the bus won't take us across, and then I see the bridge: planks of wood with large gaps in between laid out across rusting beams of steel. My Israeli companion has reconnected with a sort of tour guide, and I ask the tour guide as we're carefully stepping from plank to plank if people ever fall in the water. "Yeah, all the time," he laughs.
We get to the other side, and the Israeli guy and I climb into a van that he promises will take us to a boat that will take us to the island that I'm headed to (Bocas del Toro). I trust him. A girl climbs into the van with us. Then the Israeli guy turns to me and says, "Sorry, I gotta go. Whatever you do, don't let these guys take you to [some random name I can't remember]. Make sure they take you to the ferry at [another random name]."
Great.
The driver and his buddy (not sure why the van driver needs a buddy...it's just us two passengers) start driving out of town and onto dirt roads. I start talking with them in Spanish, and we swap stories and backgrounds. They tell me that the girl in the car is very pretty. I'm not sure whether to tell her or not, so I just let it go. Then they tell me to tell her. Ok. She seems slightly unimpressed. They ask me where she's from, and I tell them I don't know. "Ask her," they say. She's from the Netherlands. We continue onward.
"This is a banana farm," they point out. "It's the biggest one in Central America." Unending rows of banana bushes (I think they're bushes, not trees) stretch along the road. We pull off to the side of the road, and the driver's buddy walks over to a processing shed of some sort, and comes back with a box of bananas a few minutes later. I guess that's why we needed him along for the ride.
"We're going to [the place indicated by the Israeli guy], right?" I ask.
"No," they say.
"But that's where we need to go."
"No, the ferry already left for the day. You need to go to [they mention the place that the Israeli guy told me not to go to]."
We argue for a bit, and I persuade them to turn the van around. I'm starting to worry about them.
The Dutch girl asks me what's going on. I tell her the situation, and she's says I made the right call. She says she's happy that I can speak Spanish. I feel good about myself.
Twenty minutes later we arrive at the ferry. There are no more boats leaving for the day, except for one, and that's already been booked. "You have to call ahead of time and reserve your seat," the lady at the desk says.
My driver and his buddy tell me that they told me so. I apologize, and ask them to take us to the other ferry. I ask them how much it's going to cost to go to the other ferry. The mention some number. I reconfirm the price. They mention that we might not make it to the other ferry in time.
Thirty minutes later the bus driver's buddy gets out and takes his box of bananas, seemingly walking off into the jungle.
Another 20 minutes roll by. The sun's descending. The Dutch girl's pretty worried, as am I. Where the hell are we gonna sleep if we don't make it to the island?
We finally get to the ferry. The driver asks for the money. It's not the same price he quote before. I argue with him, quoting the price he said. He claims that was just for one person. "Think of how long I had to travel because you made me go to the wrong ferry," he argues. I let the Dutch girl know the price and she's just happy that we finally made it, as am I.
We get our tickets for the ferry, and I ask her for a smoke. "I'm trying to quit, but today's been crazy." "I know what you mean," she says.
I head out to the dirt path behind the building, and some kids are playing baseball. I talk to them about what positions they play, and they get excited that I'm from America. I throw the ball with them back and forth, and I tell them to pitch to me, since I used to be a catcher when I was younger. I catch a few balls and congratulate them on their throwing arms.
Ah, I wish I'd had more practice with writing recently. That story didn't sound nearly as terrifying as it really was.
Anyways, the point is that I just wanted to share all the times when I had no clue if things were gonna work out. Here's some other experiences from my top 10 list:
-Walking from one side of Philadelphia to the other so I could visit my friend Dave. Got lost, started accidentally heading into the ghetto. Decided to ask two thugs if I was headed in the right direction, and they started scolding me. "What you be thinking heading into the ghetto? Are you dumb? Boy, you gots to be smarter than that? Don't you go to college?" Nice enough guys though. Probably prevented me from being mugged/shot.
-Crossing Arkansas in the middle of the night with an Australian guy who was hitching a ride with me from Nashville to Oklahoma City. We had very little money for accommodations, so I come up with this brilliant plan to stop by Fort Smith [a nowhere city], head into a local bar/pool hall, and hopefully meet someone who will put us up for the night. My ace card was that the Australian guy would be sure to make us popular. Who doesn't love the Aussies? It didn't really work out though. We weren't let into the first bar we tried, because my Aussie friend was trying to use a photo of his passport, and the bouncer was pretty rude to us, swearing that no place was gonna let us in. We got in at the second place we tried, and although we had a good game of pool, none of the locals seemed inclined to talk to us, and we weren't brave enough to just go up to people and start advertising our situation. We told the bartender about it though. She didn't really believe my friend was from Australia, so that didn't work. I ended up leaving my credit card there on accident, and we decided to just keep going till we couldn't go any further. We finally stopped at a rest stop that had all the trappings of a murder mystery novel, and slept there for just enough until we couldn't take the impending doom of the place any longer. My car smelled so bad after that trip.
-Costa Rica, again. Traveling with Eric, go around the country, get back to San Jose and decide to stay at a different hostel than the last one we stayed at. Can't find it anywhere. It's getting dark. Walking around with backpacks in the night in San Jose is about as bad as walking into the ghetto of Philadelphia. We find some random tourist office. The lady tells us in Spanish to head up the street, then take a right. We start heading the wrong way, and she yells, "Arriba! Arriba!", which we mistakenly translated as "Hurry up!" (she was just trying to say "Up the street", actually). Eric and I booked it as fast as possible, and finally made it to a hostel that looked like a fortress, due to it's impending steel gate at the front, and eyehole that the guard talked to us through. I swear, that place was one of the shadiest places I've ever stayed at long term (I was there about a month).
- Gold Souk (Marketplace), Dubai. Song and I are there just to look around, but I've gotta go pee really bad. Huge tourist attraction, but no rest rooms. Anywhere. We look around for 20 minutes. I refuse to ask anyone. Song is so upset with me, because we just keep walking in circles, but I'm sure that there's gotta be a bathroom somewhere. I'm doubled over cause I can barely walk. We finally decide to ask a guy marketing his wares to take us to a bathroom. He takes us there, and implores us to check out his fine selection of fake Burberry, Gucci, and Ralph Lauren shirts and pants. I feel guilty, so I buy a shirt and slacks. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen Song as mad as that situation, which makes the story eligible for this entry.
- Gangnueng, South Korea. Andrew and I decided to go on a spur of the moment brocation, so we got to the bus terminal in Seoul and asked the lady at information where a good place to go for a an overnight holiday would be. She recommends Gangnueng, as it has good beaches, and is only a few hours away. We get to Gangnueng, and she's right: the beach is great. We stay there for a while, and head off to get some Korean BBQ. That's when our problems start. All we can see are these places called "Pensions", which seem like some kind of rental cottage. We have no clue how much they are, but they don't seem within our budget. We walk around for an hour, hoping that we'll run into someone who can help us out.
We find a really nice hotel that has some live music, so we decide to sit there. The owner ends up sitting in front of us, and speaks to us in Korean. I try to translate, and I'm not doing a very good job, but he ends up giving us a free plate of dried squid (yummy!), and so we dutifully eat it with smiles. We'd already asked how much the hotel was, and it was way beyond our budget, so we eventually head off when he's not looking.
Andrew says he's got to take a piss, and that's when it happens. I'm just standing on the street by myself, and some girls come up to me and ask me if I'm lost. "Finally, some help!" I chat with them, and kind of tell them about our situation, and how we don't have a place to stay for the night. Things are going well, and then Andrew shows up. I don't know if it was his beard or his ridiculously unruly, curly hair, but the girls didn't like the fact that now there were two guys, and so they abruptly left. I shamelessly asked them if they could help us find a place to stay, but no luck.
We end up going to a restaurant overlooking the beach, and order a pretty good Korean pancake. We start talking to the waitress, and eventually she lets us know of a jimjilbang (Korean bath house) that we can stay at for dirt cheap.
We head there, and no one is around. The locker room has a random passed out Korean guy wearing only a towel. Wait, I think I have some pictures somewhere...let me look. Yeah, here's this random video of us trying to decipher yet another weird thing we had seen in Korea the day before:
- The last one that comes to memory is my journey from Seoul to Dubai, which is detailed here: http://ryan927.blogspot.com/2010/10/travel-story-no-pics-part-1.html
It's in 3 parts, so just click on the "Newer Post" button at the bottom of the page to go to the next part. Seriously one of my all time favorites.
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