I’m going to sleep, and so should Mark and Feng. None of us had enough sleep last night. Mark only fell into the arms of Morpheus around 12:30 a.m. despite Feng and I warning him we would need to get up early, Feng doze off but woke up around 4 a.m. because it was hot and stuffy in the room and I closed my Kindle around this time.
But hey, we had a 3.5-hour ride to Curitiba in the morning and these fancy Brazilian buses are perfect for a nap—you can recline your seat and they are usually comfortable.
Making full use of Brazilian logic (gotta adapt!), we bought tickets at 9:35 a.m. for the 9:45 a.m. bus that showed up at 10:15 a.m.
We showed our tickets and passports (you need a piece of ID to buy tickets and climb on board) and found our seats upstairs in the double-decker bus.
“Let’s sleep, Mark,” I said, arranging the throw on my lap because the air-con can turn a pleasant ride into a freezing one.
I closed my eyes, listened to the driver arguing with a passenger about seat numbers and…
“Para usar o Wi-Fi, a rede é o número de ônibus, ‘2905’, e a senha é ‘catarinense4G’, tudo em letras minúsculas, letra ‘G’ maiúscula,” announced the bus driver.
No way! These buses have Wi-Fi? Okay, I gotta try that.
I took the laptop out of the backpack and turned it on. Just for a minute, to see if I could actually get a signal.
No way, it worked! I’m connected! How cool is that?
“Mommy… I want the tablet…”
“No, Mark. You need to sleep otherwise you’ll be cranky all day.”
I’ll just write a quick email then I’ll sleep. Wow, the speed isn’t too bad. Maybe I could write the Balneário Camboriú article…
“Can I have the tablet?”
“No, Mark, we need to sleep … oh, fuck it. Feng, give him the tablet.”
And then I started writing as Elsa sang “Let It Go” on Mark’s tablet. Feng, the only one without a screen, did sleep, which totally proves that technology is bad for your health.
Passengers who boarded the bus with us were all men, businesslike, some of them wearing the suit-and-tie formal office attire despite the heat. It was a change after the ride to Florianópolis and the coastal buses full of families on holiday going to the beach. This time, no chips and snacks were shared among family members and no one took selfie of “me on my way to the beach.” People were staring at the phone or taking calls. The atmosphere was serious.
Would have been perfect for a nap, indeed. But now, there is only an hour left, Mark is playing football on the tablet and I’m trying to reconnect to the Wi-Fi—I lost it when the road started going uphill, in the mountains.
The landscape reminds me of Guatemala, for some reason. A narrow strip of asphalt, misty mountains, dense forest all around, accidents on the road, construction workers digging up the red soil.
The weather is changing. Hopefully, we are leaving the storm behind.
I should have slept, though. We have a long day ahead.
Now I wonder, are there huge number of motor cycles in South America countries?
I am comparing to my country especially in the suburb or small cities where it common for their people to have more than one motor cycle for their mobility between the cities.
The HIghways or toll road only available in Java Island (where Jakarta and major cities like Surabaya and Bandung are). Buses quite rare with their uncertain schedule.
Due to unreliable public transportation system, motorcycle is a huge commodity (even though for some people, their income couldn’t afford to pay the motor leasing payment, but that’s another story)
I found there were many motorbikes in Uruguay, some in Brazil as well but not as much as in Malaysia or Thailand. It depends on the city, actually. Public transit seem to be quite good in Brazil and I see people commuting by bus all the time.
There are more motorbikes in Indonesia compare to Malaysia and Thailand. It drives us crazy!
Motorbikes are also serve as private transportation service (which is banned in Malaysia and Thailand) due to…once again… our unreliable public transportation. There is no commuting train outside Java Island. Alrite, looking forward for your next posts! 🙂
I remember seeing moto-taxi in Thailand. I found it cool, thought I’d try.
Then I saw so many road accidents that I gave up on the idea :-/
On your previous article, it is written in big white letters on the side of the bus : 4G WiFi.
I was wondering, seeing the frequent bus trips you take: have you ever considered to start your winter vacations in South America and take short trips back to the U.S/Mexico border (and board a plane in Houston, TX)?
I think even Greyhound buses (some of them, at least) are supposed to have Wi-Fi but I’ve never seen it work. Sometimes it’s just for cellphone holders of whatever company, say Bell, who can enjoy it. Basically, there is always a fine print, hence my surprise that this one worked 🙂
We never went from South to North, I’m not sure why. It seems… weird to me. Even back in the days (before blogging), we crossed the US by bus and crossed to Mexico at Nuevo Laredo, then South.
I’ve seen that the Megabus buses have WiFi, but I don’t if it works well.
Never taken the Megabus!