strange stories

The Midnight Scalp Massage

When you travel in Bolivia, you usually travel by bus.  And when you travel by bus, it’s long, smelly, unpredictable, and occasionally dangerous.  Once as a family we drove from Santa Cruz to La Paz and it was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life.  This time around, Louis and I took a bus from Santa Cruz to La Paz, which was roughly around 17 hours, but we had some good movies, the original King Kong, and the new Batman movie, and some snacks.  It was a terrifying ride but we were asleep for the most part.

Here is where it gets weird.  I was sleeping on the bus, and I felt a hand on my head.  “this is weird” I thought, and I turned to Louis to see if he was trying to get my attention.  I was very groggy and my thoughts were coming very slowly as it was around 4 in the morning.  I looked over at Louis and he was also asleep, and his hands were on his lap.   Then the hand started slowly massaging my head.  I was trying to decide between it feeling relaxing or very discomforting.  I slowly decided upon discomforting.  I pulled my head away and the hand left.  I turned around and the people behind me were sitting as if nothing had happened, just looking out the window, and everyone else on the bus was asleep.  I have no idea whose hand it was but I’m guessing it was the girl behind me.

The Bus Preacher

On the way back from La Paz, when we were about 1 hour away from Santa Cruz, a man stood up in the middle of the bus and started talking.  He was fairly loud so he woke Louis and I up from our sleeping.  This made me upset.  He was very fervent and talked like he knew everything, sounds like an Evangelist to me.  He started talking about something that would change your life, something that if you discovered had the power to change you and make you a new person.  He had a bag next to him and he started to pull something out of the bag.  I was expecting a Bible or maybe some giant sin calculator or a Jesus bobble-head.  He pulled out a toothbrush.

He was selling teeth whitening paste and toothbrushes.  For 1 hour.  On the bus.  Loudly.  At least he wasn’t an Evangelist, I have much less patience for them.

Mock Restaurants

Bolivians love to have American styled names for stores and restaurants.  Here are some of my favorite copy-cats

Quentucky Fried Chicken
Queen Burger
MacRonalds
King Mac Burgers

Today I also saw a long distance phone call centre called “AT&T”.  It wasn’t AT&T, not even close.  I think they also sold chicken.

“Quotation Marks”

For some reason, Bolivian’s also love quotation marks in their signage.  For instance I have seen signs that say:

We serve “chicken”
Please have a “seat”
We have a lot of “ice”
“Hotel”
We sell “phone” cards
Internet “Cafe”
“Money Exchange”
Chinese “Food”
Please “wash your hands”

I wonder what they are really trying to “say”?