The entrance to the illustrious Andes mountain range from Mendoza, Argentina. The road to Chile cuts between the giant peaks, across flowing white water and down several dozen switchbacks. -JMH For the most part I try to forget about the gut-wrenching, debilitating anxiety that occasionally opts to take hold and strangle me at rather inopportune times. Then again, there are very few instances that provide a good time for a panic attack. And the international bus ride from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile is certainly not one of those times.
I always get a nice cocktail of excitement and nervousness when I'm about to go somewhere new, whether it's boarding the plane for an adventure down south or just relocating from one town to the next. After more than 19 hours on a bus from Salta to Mendoza, I figured the second leg of our joureny - from Mendoza to Chile - would unfold just fine.
Alex and I had front and center seats with a panoramic view of what's supposed to be one of the most spectacular drives in the world. The bus sneaks right through the rocky, snow-capped Andes that divide the two countries.
But despite my initial effort to quell my creeping nerves, I am graced with the beginnings of a full-on panic attack. In walks the fight or flight reaction. Out walks any rationale. Feeling particularly trapped and calustrophobic, I crawl to one of the unoccupied seats in the back with the less impressive, less daunting views.
It's well past time to pop a pill, so I take the belated anti-anxiety drug and crawl into a ball with my teddy bear - yes, I still carry a teddy bear when I travel; mostly because it makes a nice pillow - and try to transfer to that safe place inside me.
The welcome sign at the high altitude border crossing from Argentina to Chile. They appear to be on the lookout for produce, but even after an hour in process, I somehow got through with two oranges and an apple. -JMHI go through the routine of asking myself just what it is I'm afraid of. Is it the bumpy, swaying, slightly carsick feeling of the ever-winding road? Is it the steady elevation climb through the second largest mountain range? Is it the fact that if something were to happen, even altitude sickness, could I even understand with the language barrier? Is it the surrounding desolation of the massive, barren mountains? Is it the white crosses cluttered in every other curve of the road or the overturned semi-truck?
Well, yes, yes, it's all of these things. But I'm a traveler, right? An adventurer even. It's supposed to be part of the fun.
Next, I start to bargain with God. Or whomever.
"I promise I'll never complain about being fat again," I plead. "I'd rather have 10 extra pounds of soft flesh than what feels like 200 extra pounds of suffocation."
"If you make this stop, I promise I'll ... ," I continue.
It's not unlike the morning after a serious night of partying, when your head is pounding and you're praying to the porcelain gods. Only this time, the panic, it's not exactly my fault. I didn't ask for it and as far as I'm concerned don't deserve it.
Twenty minutes pass and the severity of the panic continues. Twenty five minutes, still there. Finally, 35 minutes after I self-medicate the anxiety begins to ebb.
I finally sit up and peek out at the view. Spectacular. Magnificent. Incredible. All those grandiose words that people use to explain this place. I am driving through the Andes, after all.
"So why do you have to be such a baby?," I ask myself, no longer afraid and now just angry.
Why do I let my dudas, as Alex and I have come to call doubts, creep in and take control? I didn't save money for a year to spend my South American travels curled up in a ball in the back of a bus, did I? Get a grip!
And I do get a grip, albeit a little one. Alex stays in the front to enjoy his 180 degree view of the mountainous ride, 30 downhill switchbacks and all, while I stick to my window seat further back, still averting my eyes when the only thing to see is a cliff face and its drop off. I just better not even give myself the opportunity to envision the news story reporting the 60-person tour bus, including two young Americans, that careened off the side of the road in Chile.
I'm better off lip-synching to Fergie on my iPod anyway.
- JMH
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