Full Cama or No Cama
By Caroline
I’d rather be in a semi-coma than ride in semi-cama. Let me explain.
When you buy a bus ticket in Argentina you get three levels of service: Semi-cama is the lowest, cama is in the middle, and full-cama or first-class is the highest.
The first bus ride we went on was full-cama. This was probably a bad idea considering we got used to the service. When we got on we were served olives on a stick, which seemed pretty fancy to me. Afterward the waiter came around and gave us ice cold sodas and offered whiskey to my parents.
Our personal TV’s turned on and music started playing. Soon we were served cheese and a roll and later came trays with our dinner - breaded steak, a mixture of potatoes peas and carrots, a roll, and for dessert a cupcake.
After dinner wine was served to the adults and a movie began to play. Halfway through the movie our waiter brought champagne around and little pieces of candy. After the movie Conor and I reclined our seats which went all the way back like a real bed. There were walls in between each row and a curtain between each seat.
Our waiter walked around and collected our trash. He even tucked Conor and me into bed with the provided blankets and pillow.
I slept pretty soundly considering the whole night there was a thunderstorm outside.
We were woken at 7 and given breakfast which was a roll with butter, some yogurt, orange juice, and a toasted medialuna with ham and cheese. We arrived shortly after breakfast.
Our next ride was a lot less luxurious.
There were no full-cama buses heading to Salta, our next destination. We booked four semi-cama seats.
When we boarded the bus I knew things were going to be bad. First of all it smelled like coffee mixed with peanuts. We were going to be on this bus for 23 hours so I knew the smell was going to get on my nerves. Second, our seats barely tilted back. How would we sleep. Third, there was barely any leg room. These were just the things I noticed when we first got on the bus.
Right after we started moving they served us lunch (this was at 11 am). Lunch was a small ham sandwich and 5 pieces of NASTY hard candy. Then the movie started playing. There were no audio jacks so there was no way to hear the movies in English. You had to decipher the Spanish subtitles. Twenty-three hours with no chance of being distracted by movies! I thought, this is gonna be a long ride.
Conor and I just listened to our Ipods and read a little for ten and a half hours. Finally at 9:30 we got dinner - a cold slab of gray rotting chicken, a dry roll that made me gag, and a biscuit thing for dessert. I didn’t eat any of it. Good thing we brought snacks.
That night I probably slept one hour total. The rest of the time I listened to my Ipod. No breakfast was served on this ride and we got off the bus at ten o’clock in the morning feeling cranky and a little faint from lack of food.
My dad said: “They should have served the whiskey on this ride.”
For me its full-cama or no-cama.
