El Destino

The road runs west from the city of Ibague. For two miles the road flexes itself straight like one of the monotonously constructed freeways in the United States. On a clear day early in the mornings at sunrise, one sometimes, if he is lucky, catches a glimpse of the Nevado del Tolima-that ubiquitous, omnipresent snowcapped peak that reaches over 17,500 feet to the heavens. In the early morning when the pastel of red and orange of the sunrise w aft away the cloudy morning veil of dew, the mountain goddess reveals a perfectly conical countenance with a touch of rouge on the icy glacial top. At the end of the two mile straight away, a small sign underneath a plummeting nearly perpendicular arrow on the right side of the road just before the plunge begins, stalesimpassively: Cajamarca 40 Kilometers (kl.) Armenia 110 kl. Cajamarca which is only 24 miles away is close to 6400 feel, a dramatic rise in elevation of 2500 feet in just 24 miles. And then even more spectacularly from Cajamarca to the linea-the crest of the Cordillera Central--the same road climbs to over 11,000 feel, an ascent of 5,000 feet in just 18 miles. The bus driver, the truck driver and the taxi drivers in the colectivos all quickly slip the gears down to break their vehicles steep descent to the bottom of the canyon. Within a few minutes the bottom is reached, and the ascent to Cajamarca begins.

The bus climbed slowly in second, until it gained momentum. The road however, is just not ascending: it rises and then levels off, curving in and out of the mountain, carving sandstone colored cicatriz on the side of the green mountain slopes. On the other side of the canyon where the river appears from time to time getting smaller and smaller, a mirrored image of the road appears across the mountain gorge where another road runs like a belt along the midriff of the far side mountain slopes bisecting them into two layers; that road however, is going to a very remote village because it is not even paved. Billows of smoke kept chasing the vehicles that traversed the mirrored image. On the paved side of the road, the bus driver of the Flota Magdalena had just spotted a Bolivariano, the red, blue and yellow bus of the major competition. The Colombians dubbed the Flota Magdalena "la Muerte Amarilla" or the Yellow Death because the company has the dubious distinction of sending more buses to the bottom of the precipitous Colombian canyons and losing more lives than any other company, a distinction that seemed to perversely amuse the Colombians.

Some evil spirits gripped the soul of the Magdalena bus driver because suddenly the bus lurched forward as the driver downshifted into second. The driver pushed the accelerator to the floor. The yellow in the other bus must have been one of the inciting factors because the driver was not going to let anything yellow go in front of him unless it was the yellow and black of the bus of death. The Bolivariano was still a couple of curves ahead. The driver kept pushing the accelerator down and down, shifting around the curves. The bus reached a higher level now, and the road curved in and out and back on itself. Now The Bolivariano in front was only a curve ahead; John and his fellow passengers saw it pass in the opposite direction. The passengers in the other bus looked across the chasm as the Magdalena pursued them although at that point the two buses were going in the opposite directions of the horseshoe. They stared across the chasm at the Magdalena and its hapless passengers. Some of them waved. What blind idiocy this was, for this unhappily spurred the madman Magdalena driver on his pursuit of them. Some of the women, both in the Magdalena and the Bolivariano, nervously crossed themselves, and some were reciting their Hail Mary's with their rosaries.

For the less hardy, the rocking of the bus and the swiveling around the curves gave a queasiness of the stomach very close to seasickness. Suddenly, a head popped out a window. "Bang! Bang! Snap! Wisp! Click!" All in a row, up went the school bus variety windows. Organish/white globules of pabulum and mucous—the vomit of the nauseated passengers-streamed past the closed windows. Or nearly so, except for the poor campesino in the end seat in back who was sleeping, head bobbing back and forth. Blop! Some of the pabulum hit him right in the mouth and his left eye simultaneously. No sooner had he been than one of the children in front of him began feeling the same urge. Down went the window. The sleepy campesino, now fully and irately awake, scrambled quickly to close his window as another streaming batch of curdled vomit came hurting back; luckily, he succeeded, as the barf splashed innocuously on the outside of the window. The poor campesino was still cursing like mad from the first mishap. He couldn't get the patch of vomit off his face quick enough. He finally succeeded but, oh the stench. Down went the windows again, as the nausea of the passengers temporarily subsided, to alleviate the malodorous asphyxiation.

The driver, of course, was very aware of the plight of his charges. Even if he did not look back, the stench within the bus of drying vomit could not help but reach his nostrils. Yet instead of slowing down, on he went in suicidal pursuit. The chase was having its toll on the other bus passengers as well. Dual streams of barf belched out of the windows of the Bolivariano. That driver was not going to let the Magdalena pass without a fight, so his passengers too would have to pay the price. Around the curve the buses came. Now the two buses no longer were going in opposite directions, because the Magdalena had caught up to the Bolivariano which had stalled behind a slowly climbing fully loaded truck. The road begins to climb again. The loco driver of the yellow death kept beeping his horn raucously, tauntingly at the other bus driver. As the Magdalena tried to pass on the curve going up the hill, the Bolivariano would veer out in front to cut him off; and he fell back behind.

Whoosh. A car nearly whacked the Magdalena as the driver cut back in the nick of time. He laughed hysterically at the daring maneuver of his arch competitor and the panic-stricken face of the driver of the car. The laughing subsided quickly, as the crazy bastard was becoming impatient. It became apparent that he wasn't going to pussy foot around for very much longer. Si era macho, entonces—

The Bolivariano was still ahead with the truck in front of it. John looked ahead to one of the curves higher up and low and behold, another yellow bus of death was descending full speed ahead, whipping around the corners. He must have electric brakes, John surmised, to be going down at such a clip. Then predictably, the Magdalena driver, no longer caring about his passengers or anybody else, swerved to the outside, floored the accelerator, and blared his horn, slowly overtaking the queue. First, the Bolivariano, and he were neck and neck. Slowly, then, he pulled ahead of the Bolivariano, and then paralleled the tailgate of the truck with the front of the bus. Around the bend, two curves ahead was the other Magdalena. "My God," John thought, "what injustice!" How he had wanted to serve his country and the Colombian people, and now to die so ignominiously in an insane bus accident on this stupid Magdalena. "If only he makes it through," John swore, "I'll personally kill him with my bare hands."

He was now neck and neck with the truck. Only a short distance more and he would pass it. But oh, that other Magdalena, it too had entered the last curve, and now the buses of death were both on the same curve on the same side of the road. "Step on those brakes, you damn fool, for Gods sakes, step on those brakes," John pleaded silently, closing his eyes, preparing for the crash. The other driver must have heard John's silent plea, for he slammed on the hissing air brakes. John's bus barely slipped by the truck, cutting it off and nearly pushing it off the road into the canyon yawning two thousand feet below. Thank God for the other bus driver who sped past as he released his foot from the electric brakes. All the passengers in unison heaved a huge sigh of relief. The windows went down letting in the cool brisk mountain air, refreshing their spirits and reminding them of the glory of being alive. Even the barf stricken campesino managed to indulge himself in a great yawn of relief and a big smile.

The road was now clear ahead. It leveled off and stretched out into more gentle sinuous curves. Cajamarca was ahead.