We’d teamed up with a Swiss couple to share a taxi to go and see an out-of-town ancient Inca site.
At one point on the way back to Cusco/Cuzco at the end of the day, we got stuck trailing at a snail’s pace behind a mini-bus, which gave us a good view of it from behind: the inside was so jam-packed it was just one black mass of bodies and one couldn’t see any gap through to the other side of the bus. We could also see people hanging off the bus by the door, balancing one foot on the bottom step to allow room for one more foot from a different passenger. The bus was listing on that side, with so many more bodies hanging on to the steps, and we were very worried that at any moment it might completely keel over.
Then there was a gap in the traffic from the other direction, which allowed us to overtake. After we passed the mini-bus, we looked back, and saw what we couldn’t see from behind the bus: a few more people balancing on the front bumper, with one of them balancing precariously on the end of the bumper nearest the door, left arm fully stretched out to cling onto the vertical side of the door by his fingertips. Two more were hanging on to the windscreen wipers: one to the right windscreen wiper, the other to the left windscreen wiper directly eye-balling the driver through the glass!
(Cusco/Cuzco, Peru, 1986)
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