The Best Travel Writing 2011 - James O'Reilly [126]
I barely registered that the driver had made the U-turn, I was so engrossed in recounting the tire incident to the back three rows. When the laughter subsided, I gazed out the front window, and heads began to turn. We were now facing the World’s Most Dangerous Road from the other direction. Our giggles gave way to a somber reverence, spreading through the bus like darkness encroaching on a twilight sky. And then, much to our collective dismay, the bus set off into the maturing dusk and began the long drive up Death Road.
We wound our way up the mountain in lingering twilight, exhausted heads leaning on windowsills, watching the blur of green foliage play along the right-side windows. I tried to guess how far up we had gone by inspecting the vegetation, which thinned as we climbed. I was sitting on the mountainside of the bus, next to a young woman who sat meditatively at our window, which was filled with the gray of passing rock. It was hard to tell if she was lost in thought or actually unconscious. I was drunk and exhausted, but couldn’t conceive of sleeping, and so I turned back to the cliff-side windows and watched Cesar watch the road.
He couldn’t have been older than thirty. I wondered if he had a wife and kids. How much did they worry when he went to work? The thought of these hypothetical family members made me anxious with worry and exasperation. Cesar, you idiot! I wanted to shout, Do you know how lucky you are to still be alive, after all the times you’ve come down this mountain?!
He must have sensed my silent tantrum because he turned around to look at me. I searched his eyes for any indication of fear, of pain, of guilt. I only saw a kind confusion, which turned my exasperation to compassion. And so I asked him.
“Oh sure, it’s dangerous,” he said matter-of-factly.
No duh, I thought. “What I mean, Cesar, is…have you seen anyone, you know…” my voice trailed off lamely as I gazed back out at the cliff.
“Oh. Yeah, it happens,” he whispered secretively, though he knew I was the only one fluent enough to understand him. After a beat, he seemed to deem me trustworthy and continued: “The worst was a couple of years ago. It was the Sixth of August, but so many people wanted to do the ride that we said, ‘O.K., we’ll work the holiday.’” A flash of regret passed his eyes, and he furrowed those characteristically sharp Bolivian brows.
This didn’t seem like such a big deal to me. For our independence day, we keep a lot of businesses running. If we didn’t, where on earth would we get all our last-minute BBQ supplies and frustratingly small fire crackers? But then again, Bolivians tend to take their holidays very seriously. (I remembered election day, when motorized transport was illegal, and you weren’t allowed to walk in groups of more than two people.)
“It was somewhat risky,” Cesar continued, “you know, because everyone takes the holiday and so there wouldn’t be a rescue team ready were something to happen to—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Rescue teams don’t work on holidays?”
“Well, for this road, it doesn’t really matter. It wouldn’t—”
“Rescue teams don’t work on holidays?!” I interrupted again. A couple of weary heads turned, but none registered comprehension.
“It’s not like the States, where you can have a helicopter come air-lift you out. You fall, it’s the end.” I gave him a defeated look. “Let me explain,” he said, “there are two types of cliff here. There’s the kind where you die quickly after you fall…”
I had a flash-back to those skyscraper-high precipices. My voice cracked like a fourteen-year-old boy’s when I asked about the second kind.
“Those are the ones where you die slowly.” He nodded with finality.
I would never let Dave talk me into doing anything again. Ever.
“So we took a group down. They were really excited. Everyone always is. I was guiding the back of the group—I’m always in the back with the slower ones.” He smiled at me, which probably