Pimp my Bus

July 21, 2010: I feel that the bus I was on yesterday to Lima was the end product of MTV’s silly show…Pimp my Ride. But this case it was, Pimp my Bus. It had 2 toilets, seatbelts, an overhead light that worked, a button to push if I wanted service, Wifi and even a computer with a printer. They had a safety video showing the exits and what to do in case of an emergency and a movie with John Travolta who was dubbed but had English subtitles – a rarity. Another odd rarity was that my two bus drivers that shared responsibilities somehow didn’t seem like addicts to some sort of illegal stimulants. Lunch was an added treat for it was hot and served with sturdy plastic utensils. The bus seemed to have everything I always wanted or dreamt about a bus having but it was lacking one minor thing...seats that converted to life jackets in case we went off the road into a large puddle or body of water.

My experience was so similar to an airplane, it assisted me in directed my mind right to the toilet making me think how nice it would be to join the 5 foot high club. Forget the mile high club – that is so 90’s…anyhow, FAA regulations has made this almost impossible to perform without getting interrupted and potentially becoming a candidate to getting mace to your face or even worse...your exposed “parts”. It doesn’t matter though, since I am traveling alone…no matter how hard I could have tried, this obstacle was unlikely to be overcome in such a short period of time.

Rolling into Lima gave me flashbacks of rolling into Los Angeles, California. The red lights extended beyond my vision. The traffic here is unbelievable…unbelievably bad. Remember that for every minus there is a plus and the pluses here are big pluses because today was my day to capitalize on these pluses – actually yesterday night I capitalized on my first plus and had KFC. My second plus was McDonalds and the third one was Starbucks. So…nice.

I know I brought this up before but I cannot believe how much joy I get when walking into these large international fast food establishments – my smile today extended from ear to ear, looking like that clown Ronald. It really is not because of the success of some of these Northern American companies…it is because walking into one of these places really does takes me home…in my mind. I am sure it is the same for people here in Peru and anywhere else in the world that is traveling internationally who perhaps gets a little homesick and would like some sort of food that reminds them of home without having to go home. It is not anymore just a place people from the US grow up on…it is also a place that people from around the world grew up on.

Being on the pimped out bus where I was served some good food to eating at all of these fast food places...it is going to be difficult going back to eating mostly food from the street vendors - where it is common to find multiple hairs in one meal with some of them unfortunately…being curly.