We arrived back just after 6pm and drove straight to the bus ticket vendors. The first place we visited had a bus leaving at 7pm. The second one had their bus being loaded as we arrived, and ready to leave almost immediately. That was the bus that I wanted to get on, but after racing up to the mission to grab my bag, when I turned around and looked down the street, the bus had left without me.
My last view of Entre Rios before it disappeared from sight completely.
Instead, I headed down to purchase a ticket for the other bus. It was only three blocks, but it was insisted that I go in the Landrover with Fineke. Well, by the time that we had made the convoluted journey down there and done the bits and pieces that both she and I needed to do while in town, I returned to the mission once again with very little time to spare.
Farewelling all of my good friends there, I picked up my backpack and walked out the door. It would be unlikely that I will return here again in the near future. My work is located in Argentina and I may never get to return to this amazing and fascinating country.
Once aboard the bus, and with my farewells completed, we headed off at around 7.15pm. I snapped a quick shot of Entre Rios as it passed before me and was then gone. Perhaps forever. My memories surrounded me as we continued along the bumpy and muddy main road toward Tarija.
Suddenly the bus lurched upward and came to an abrupt halt. We had just gotten stuck on a great chunk of mud that had falled across the road. There were tyre tracks across it and our bus driver had tried to launch us over it, but we did not make it. He backed the bus off this sticky clay type mud over the road and down the hill a little. Then grabbing a shovel, he climbed out to see what he could do.
Passengers from the bus walking up to and crossing over the landslide.
Many of us aboard also climbed off, into the rain. We recognised that the bus would not make it over with a full load, but with less people aboard it would get up to a faster speed and have a higher clearance, giving it a much better chance. We negotiated our way across the muddy frontier, carefully avoiding the water hidden in the shadows on the other side. There, on the other side, we waited. The rain continued to fall, wetting me completely as I realised that everyone around me was clothed in garments designed to resist the rain.
Meanwhile the driver and a couple of guys dug away at the mud, trying to clear a better passage for the bus. After about twenty minutes of work, the driver climbed back into the bus and with a great roar, raced up the road and onto the hump of mud. The bus paused for a moment, suspended right in the middle of it all, and we all held our breath. Then with another roar, it inched forward and then gained speed, making it right over and back onto the firm roadsurface where we were standing. He had made it. Our journey would continue.
The men working in the headlights and rain to make a way through for the bus.
There were no more surprises like that, but every five metres the cliff-side had collapsed onto the roadway. Some parts covered the road and other times it was just a small amount of dirt on the edge. At times whole trees and plants were relocated at the side of the road because of the subsidence from the excessive rain. The road did have some very dangerous parts where the edge had disappeared into the valley below, and other parts that were extremely unstable. Fortunately we did not know about these problems until much further on, toward the end of the journey when we stopped to warn another bus driver heading toward Entre Rios.
I arrived in Tarija at 11.30pm, happy to be safe and sound, and ready to continue my journey. Little did I know what would lie ahead for me.