Ten hours on a bus can be grueling. Mind-deteriorating numbness has a way of boring one senseless, and pinching knots in backs and necks as the cushions of the seats begin to manifest into iron maiden comfort. When traveling in South America, however, one is quickly inoculated into being nearly completely resistant, if not at least resilient, to such extended trips.

When you first start to travel the continent, long bus rides begin like trips to the dentist. You dread them before the doors even close behind you. Your supposedly ergonomic seat lies in wait to encase you in discomfort, as the drill-like whine of the engines bores holes in your patience. After a few weeks, workday-long bus trips feel more like cross country plane rides. You abhor the trip, but excite over the landing and disembarking at a new port. You joke about the food, the movie, and the company, but you can bear the challenge. After still more exposure, the rides are akin to sitting at home and simply staring out a window as the seasons change. Vistas pass like a rolling silent film, voices of characters that pass before your window supplemented by buzzing andean music that drones through overused speakers. Buses here never approach luxury cruises, but, either through overexposed ennui, or through the subconscious willing of numbing boredom, they do become comfortable.

Buses from Arica to Antofogasta, Cusco, to Puno, La Serena to Santiago, somewhere to anywhere, they blend like gray haze into the horizon. Talking with other travelers, your descriptions of trips confuse themselves with each other, and names of destinations and departure towns opt to hide themselves among the many that you pass. One town’s bus terminal pretends to be another, and scenery that passes you at night hides in obscurity in your description of the images that keep you awake.

Running images sprint past before your blurred vision and blank staring eyes. Stills of life imprint themselves on your mind to be forgotten later and remembered at strange intervals all throughout your life. Small street booths selling candy bars, black taxis cued up like planes awaiting flight plans, a freeze frame open-street argument, a drunk man peeing on a dog. Fragments of life strewn out through cities and along roads, giving you a through-the-viewing-glass look at moments in the action of life.
Extended bus rides can be grueling, but you begin to accept them, and eventually welcome the freeze-frame lifestyle they provide of the outside world. Your side-lined life passes people actively engaged in the struggle, as you let your diesel chariot guide you past their homes, yards, shops, and lives. Life continues for you like this until you finally arrive at where you are going. Crossing the bus/world threshold, you provide fodder for other looking glass lives as you walk the streets, becoming part of another’s freeze frame scenery.