Free Llama for Lunch by Lydia Laube Page B

card for me, I signed it, they took six dollars from me – the price the Mexicans paid – and away I went rejoicing. I actually saved nineteen dollars, the price I should have paid for the tourist card on the way in. Not to mention the thousands of dollars fine I had been sure would be my fate. But there are better ways to save a few dollars.
    The last one back on the bus, I sank relieved into my seat. My neighbour then told me that ‘the chauffeur’ had wanted to take the bus and leave me. I said, ‘He couldn’t do that, my luggage is on the bus.’ She replied that he had said I could come on the next bus. I was stunned to think he really was going to leave me out there in no-man’s land. She told me that he said, ‘The bus will go without the foreign woman.’ But the entire bus load of passengers had stood up and said, ‘No no no!’ So he waited. I was immensely grateful.
    In Texas we stopped at a roadhouse. This place had really dreadful food – fried, heavily crumbed and greasy, or dried up as though it had been waiting for an owner for hours. The staff spoke only Spanish and had trouble understanding me when I asked for chicken. I received two lumps of foul – fowl – oleaginous chicken coated with something even I couldn’t eat. I pulled it off, chucked a lot of chilli on what was inside to kill the bugs and ate it. The chicken was accompanied by a lump of some sort of fried suet that was supremely awful.
    I had intended to take the train from San Antonio to Miami but when I rang the train booking number from the bus station I discovered that this was not to be. There was no train for three days and it did not go direct. You need to change trains in Orlando, Florida, which means staying overnight. At that rate I wouldn’t get to Miami in time to catch the Atlanta , the ship on which I had booked a passage to Peru.
    There was nothing for it but a Greyhound bus. The Mexican bus lines only came as far as here. At the Greyhound station a pleasant black American lady told me that there was a bus leaving in an hour that was going all the way to Miami. It would take sixty hours. Two more nights on a bus! I’ll never make it, I thought. But there was no other option. Although I could have done the trip in stages, I decided to get it over with in one fell swoop.
    I didn’t have long to wait in the dreary bus station, thank goodness. It was vastly inferior to the Mexican ones. The bus was too. No arm rests between the daggy seats, very cramped leg room and no seat numbers allocated. You just got on and fought for a position. Being a good fighter I got a decent seat but before long I had someone sitting next to me: a small Hispanic fellow who didn’t say two words to me – mainly because he couldn’t, I guess – even though we spent the night together! By this time I was not the best in the abdominal department and decided to eat nothing and drink only lemonade. I didn’t really feel like eating. It’s usually time to call the ambulance when I lose my appetite and by the next morning, though I didn’t feel in the least ill, even the thought of food turned me off. I no longer needed tequila to sleep a lot. All that day I couldn’t wake up. After the Hispanic gent got off in the morning I was alone on the seat so I lay down. I don’t think I missed much. I had imagined that Texas ranches would look like Australian back country but they were different – very green, with lots of trees.
    On and on we went, stopping many times. In the evening the bus became crowded again and now I shared my seat with a very, very large American man. He wasn’t fat, just big with hair everywhere possible, and he wore a big bushy coat. We struck up a conversation during which he told me how he had worked in the Caribbean as a construction manager.
    Another night passed. The bus ride wasn’t the nightmare I had expected but I hadn’t been prepared for it. I had no toothbrush, nothing to wash with and no change of clothes. I