Driving 70 mph into a Postcard

The worst and best time I had while traveling through Bolivia literally happened within fifteen minutes of each other...  The day began as so many others had, early on a crisp morning under a bright blue Bolivian sky.  I scrounged up some hot water for Naomi's morning ritual tea.  We had broken our larger medical team of 37  into three smaller groups.  Our plan was simple enough,  load three smaller vehicles with all our gear, split up and head in different directions, traveling much deeper into the Andes highlands to those villages that have been forgotten by the Bolivian government.

Hummmm quick math problem: 37 people divided by 3 vehicles, plus one extra driver for each truck equals 13 1/3 persons per vehicle, plus a hundred pounds of gear for each person or 1300 pounds of gear per rig?  An impossible feat I tell you.  Nope, I found out it was possible but very crowded and uncomfortable for everyone and dangerous for Francis standing on the bent back bumper of the AMBULANCIA while holding onto the spare tire eating Bolivian dust.


Soon Naomi speeds off in one direction and I stuffed in the back of the Ambulancia speeds off fast in another direction.  Myself being safely wedged in the back patient compartment, Naomi hanging on for dear life on top of their load.

The first 45 minutes of our advertised 3 hour journey was not too bad except for the tremendously bumpy wash-boarded road. Soon a couple of the ladies began to feel like they were going to throw up and my legs were beginning to get wet from some foreign substance.  I wasn't sure if I had peed myself because I could no longer feel my legs from being crammed so tightly. Or had one of the extra gas cans we were carrying inside with us sprung a leak.  We tried to get our drivers attention to pull over but there is not one of those cute little portals between the patient compartment and the drivers cab like all the ambulances back in America.  Our mute pleas to "please stop" soon became banging on the drivers cab begging him to "STOP" before one of the girls spewed.

 Rolling out of the back of the our Ambulancia I was relieved to find out I hadn't peed myself and it was not gasoline that had soaked my lower pants leg.  One of the extra water jugs had been squashed under our weight and had leaked on me.  As I tried to massage blood back into my lower extremities.  Far off in the distance I noticed a dust cloud coming towards us fast and within a minute or two a beat-up old 4x4 pickup screeches to a halt on our rural dusty road next to our motley crew.  Not wanting to get packed back in the back of our sardine can again I asked one of our translators to ask the pickup driver if he was headed to the same village we were? He was and agreed to take some of us in his rig and I complied immediately along with Audrey jumping in the pick-up bed while a couple of the other guys loaded in the front cab. Standing up holding onto the roll-bar Audrey and I both screamed like little girls (only problem, she was a girl and I wasn't ) as we headed down the dirt road hard and fast. We began to wonder if when we would warn each other about another impending bump in the road and we would scream "BUMP" if in Spanish that meant go faster?

As our new driver reached speeds of seventy miles per hour Audrey and I really began to wonder if we were being kidnapped as the rest of our Ambulancia crew driving behind us fought to keep up with us.  We forgot about every safety measure we both had been taught.  Wear your seat belt, don't stand up in the back of a fast moving pickup, don't scream with your mouth open, you might choke on a bug...  as we drove deep into a Bolivian postcard that was unfolding fast before us.

A patch work of  Quinoa  fields flowing into the base of
the snow capped Andes Mountains

This was truly the most spectacular E-ticket ride I have ever taken in my life.  The only thing I regret about it was not having Naomi screaming beside me, experiencing it with me.  I am trying to talk her into posting some of her own stories about her Bolivian trip.  So to my readers, lets give the shy lady some encouragement to write them down and share with us.