Paranoid Czechs go into hiding from the mafia

March 4th, 2010: Traveling with others you don't know very well can be sort of entertaining and at times...short lived. The next time I wait a few days for someone, I must make sure I talk with them for more than 20 minutes. Take for instance my experience today at the bus station with my new friends from the Czech Republic.

Taking a three hour taxi ride to a town to transfer to a bigger bus, we purchased a ticket which we ended up returning for some strange reason and sat around to wait for another departure.

Two hours into our wait, my Czech friend Susan sort of saved me from this awkward situation I got myself into when I was practicing my spanish with these three women - who after an hour, told me they wanted to make babies with me and one of them even threw in that she wanted to go to Las Vegas. Susan comes barreling up to me, barking in broken english, "We need to get out here now!" She continues, "The mafia controls this place and they are not letting us leave!" as she panics. And the paranoia keeps rolling out of her mouth..."Cant you see! Don't you know anything about the mafia in the US?!!!" I told her we had gangsters as I laughed.

Susan seemed as if she just injected a whole vial or some illegal narcotics straight into her heart or secretly consumed a six-pack of Red Bull. Her words were so fast I seemed to understand czech more than english at that moment.

"It is not safe and we need to get out of here quickly. They are going to eliminate us (simulating a knife across the throat). We stand out and it is bribery - you do know what bribery is!?" Susan snaps at me. "They just sold us bad tickets and keep changing time and I don't trust them. We go!"

Telling her that I was going to stay at the bus station she was shocked telling me, "You are not going with us? Why?" I questioned how they were bad tickets if we just got our money back. Susan said, "We got our money back to silence us and keep us quite. We exposed them and they will get us. They keep changing the departure time to keep us here, cant you see this!"

I let my czech friends go and get a hotel room to go into hiding from the mafia. Her husband was pretty quiet on the matter. I think Susan wears the pants, underwear and condom in the relationship. That must be the reason he was walking around the hotel in speedo like underwear - she is wearing the boxers and he is wearing the panties. If anything I was in more danger with them around as the stood next to me in their shorts and money holder swinging outside their clothes. No wonder why they were robbed in Caracas.

So, I now wait at the station with no tent and equipment for my upcoming trek. I decided early this morning that I wasnt going with them anyhow - they are going to do the trek in two days (12 hours up and 10 hours down) when I want to do it in no less than six. This sort of changes my plans so I will have to figure something else out. I might have anywhere from a 10 to 14 hour layover so I have plenty of time. I have not yet purchased my ticket because as she said...the mafia is keeping me here - laughing. It is nice not having any time constraints. If I get a bus out of here tonight, I do...if I don't, I will tomorrow - it will all work itself out.