Planning a trip, one needs to take in a myriad of factors, delays, and unforseen events in order to ever arrive. Some of my fellow volunteers, you know who you are, truly live in the sticks, in communities that one needs a GPS device to know whether they're in Honduras or El Salvador. For them, there is one bus, if that, a day that comes through at the least convienent hours possible, and if they miss that then they just need to get down right creative.
Such is not the case for me, Daniel Muldoon, Volunteer for Posh Corps El Salvador. I live next to one of my region's largest highways (read: well paved, two-lane road), making it easy for me to be in the big bad city of San Francisco Gotera or the mostly pleasant Perquín in the matter of a half an hour. About every hour or so, former school buses that look like they were recently on an episode with Xzibit barrel down the road.
But, being as posh as I am, every hour is not enough. What if I miss it? You really expect me to sit on the water pipe that serves as a secondary bus stop and wait a whole SIXTY minutes for the next bus. No way.
Luckily, every 15 minutes or so a pick up appears on the road. These are no average pick ups, these are pícaps.
Buy a pick up, rip off the tailgate, add a roll cage, a tarp, two benches extending across the bed, and a doorbell to signal stops and you got yourself a genuine pícap.
Not only are buses infrequent, they're not even dangerous. Thanks to the pícap I can get around AND get my daily dose of peril, a real two for one. Who said Salvadorans weren't effecient?
In most pícaps there are two benches that seat 12 uncomfortably but if you're not pregnant or severly old, forget about getting a seat. Sure you might get an opportunity to sit, but try to remain seated as you see a 8 month pregnant woman, hauling an impossibly large bag, struggle her way into the truck bed and being forced to stand. It's a guilt rodeo. How long can you sit there, knowing you're the worst human being in the world? Personally, I'm too ashamed to share my own record.
Speaking of records, the fullest pícap that I've ever been on, and I counted, was 36 people at once. That's three dozen people in the bed of one of those tiny 1980's pick up trucks. 12 seated, 15 standing, and 9 people hanging off the back. If you're struggling for a mental image, here:
In my life long struggle to live life on the edge, I sometimes choose to ride the bumper. The reasons for doing so are mostly reckless but there are problems with riding in the middle. If you're over 5 feet tall, your head pin balls against the bars of the roll cage. Being sandwiched in between 15 people, the heat brings on some smells you have never smelt before. From a sheer logistic standpoind, it's nearly impossible to tell where you are while surrounded by a living, breathing, and sweating human wall. More than anything, you just dully stand their like a cow being trucked over to the slaughterhouse.
Conversely, the bumper is pure freedom. The wind frees your from the heat, your six cleared to notice (even enjoy) your surroundings. On the bumper you a free from most things, free from everything except gravity.
There are times when riding the bumper is the equivelent of doing a pull-up at 50 miles per hour. If you're someone that needs a lot of motivation to go to the gym, you need to try it. Sure you might think of giving in to your forearms tightening and aching, but a quick look at the pavement and that semi truck right behind you makes you dig just a little bit deeper.
For the 20 months that I have left here, my perfered mode of transportation and personal trainer will undoubetly be the pícap.
(Before and after pictures coming soon)
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