Taking a break along the road in South America
Pink, Pills, and Prying Eyes
It was the following morning, and I had gotten over not having been allowed to take the cacao pod home – it would have been a nice souvenir, unlike what most people get as souvenirs, but then again, Canada Customs would have impounded it and possibly charged me with god knows what offenses including the smuggling of whatever…. Best to not have cacao smuggling on your rap sheet, it could be misunderstood by less brilliant officials at some point in the future and hamper access to the land of the free and the home of the brave…. It was time to make our way to the bus station and get to the next destination, Maracay, and from there onward to the final destination of the day, a small seaside town called Choroni. Not having to worry about any language problems since I was traveling with my friend, getting to the station and getting the ticket was no problem, and soon we were on the right bus going in the right direction. We settled into our seats and the conversation flowed freely and easily, while the countryside rushed by our window.
When the bus slowed down we were in mid-conversation about something or another related to literature and culture, possibly movies and art; regardless, as the bus slowed down neither one of us was paying attention. Suddenly the door was thrown open and a trooper stormed in. Every body out! I was somewhat nonchalant, I mean, what could happen in broad daylight along a busy highway? The routine was not so much different from the previous time I had been ordered off a bus. The passengers were sorted into two groups, Venezuelans on one side, foreigners on the other – that was me, in my own little group all by myself. Passport produced; then I was asked to identify my bag, which was then unceremoniously dragged from the bus and tossed on a table. And I blanched for a moment. It was their intention to go through that bag with a fine-tooth comb, in broad daylight in front of 50 other bus passengers (mostly women), and I thought with a flash of the toiletries bag, and then with a shock of the package of bandages in another pocket of the bag, I had totally forgotten…
Sleeping bag and pad, pillow, minimal clothes, basic first aid, some toiletries.
Discomfort at another search…
The Venezuelan passengers were asked a few perfunctory questions, then left to stand at the side of the road. I, however, stood for an irresolute moment and then unlocked the bag. My friend asked what the idea was, and why I was being singled out (quite daring I’d say), and he got a grunt in reply (about as much of a response as I would have expected). Slowly my bag was being unpacked, sleeping bag, socks, shirts; a frown at the inflatable pillow, but there was nothing suspicious they could find in any of those items. Next came the zippered compartment that held the back pack straps where I had also put my Croc knock-offs. All this time my friend was trying to engage the members of the National Guard in conversation, but it just seemed that the more he talked, the more they were dragging the search out. Not having found anything objectionable in the main compartments of the bag, the next search went for the pocket that I had wished they would overlook. Filled with small souvenirs I was asked what I was doing with Canadian flag pins, and a couple of luggage tags with Canadian flags on them. Nothing. Just to create goodwill and promote Canada. Then came the next items in the pocket, a few small packets of tissues – borderline smuggling, as there was not a tissue to be found in the entire country – but I only had 2 packets. There was only one item remaining in the pocket, and I had moved myself directly in front of him in an effort to block the view of the other passengers, and I was trying to look as carefree as I possibly could… And at the very moment he started to reach for the package of bandages, something distracted him for a moment; he looked up and he shoved the packet of tissues back in the pocket, blocking the package of bandages. He looked back down in the pocket and saw nothing else. A grunt, and the pocket was zippered shut, and the final pocket was opened, the one with my toiletries bag…
Pink flowers…and 50 pairs of eyes
There really was no way that I was going to hide that bag from anyone’s sight. You see, I had had to ditch my own black, no nonsense toiletries bag back in Canada, as it was too small to carry the few items that I wanted to take with me, and at the last moment. So there was nothing for it but to ask my mother if perhaps she had another toiletries bag that I might use for the trip. Within moments I was presented with a choice of three different bags of different sizes, but all with the same decorative patterns of pink lilies and lilacs with a smattering of leafy greens. One of the three suited my purposes, and I had to decide between taking a few less items, or toting around a pink toiletries bag…I opted for the pink floral design, figuring not many people would see me with it anyway, but here I was, in the middle of Venezuela, with a busload of mostly female passengers all wondering what was keeping the national guardsman so long, and I could feel their collective eyes burning in my back as they stared at what goods were being pried out of my bag.
The bag, the pills….
The toiletries bag was produced (with what I thought was a malicious little grin on the guy’s face), and despite my best efforts to keep it hidden from the view of the crowd surrounding me, he seemed to sense my discomfort and waved it around a bit before opening it up. He heard the rattling before he saw the bottle. And there it was, an entire bottle of Tylenol, enough medication to relieve the headaches of an entire squad of National Guardsmen for a year. Everything else was packed back into my bag, then slowly he lifted the bottle of Tylenol as though he was going to replace it, but then came the question directed at my friend “Could I donate the jar of Tylenol to the guardsman?” There is a catch-22 in such a situation – if you give the bottle away, you might be back on the bus in 30 seconds – if you give the bottle away, you might be arrested for drug trafficking. My friend took all of 1 second to answer that “no, impossible, as I needed at least 2 per day for my health.” He stared at the guardsman, who stared back in return, but then decided that it was too hot out there to continue the charade any longer. With another grunt he put the bottle back in the pink bag and tossed the colourful package back into my bag, the pills rattling inside. I locked the bag, turned around and 50 pairs of eyes suddenly found something more interesting in the trees and rocks. I tossed the bag back into the storage compartment and calmly thanked the gentleman before slowly walking back to the open door of the bus. As we settled back into our seats, I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank god he didn’t get upset about the Tylenol and bust me for drugs trafficking,” I said to my friend. “Nah, that would have been too crass even for them with so many people watching,” was my friend’s reply. “But why were you so antsy about the other pocket with those souvenirs? What was there that you didn’t want him to find?”
“Oh,” I replied, “I stuffed a bunch of condoms in with my bandages – emergency supplies”.
