Bus ride from hell!

After good experiences with traveling by bus during night in Argentina, we decided to do it again on our way to Sao Paulo in Brasil. We should never have done that...


It started nice and cozy, we talked with the passenger next to us and shared a snack.

Suddenly a man started to walk back and forth. Daniel thought he saw a gun under his shirt. Nervous as hell, he turned to Lisa and said:

- It´s a robbery!

Lisa, who didn´t see anything, replied:

- Yeah. It wouldn´t surprise me in this country.

Before we knew it, reality kicked in.

The man pulled a gun out and started to threaten everybody at the back of the bus. Another man, with a weapon that looked like a Colt, took control over the front. At he same time, a third thief made the driver drive off the main road and on to an unknown path towards the woods, where more men were waiting.

Then they drew the curtains, making everything more frightening, and made us give theme our belongings. It clearly didn´t help that the guy in the seat next to us got a gun pointed to his head.

You couldn´t mock around with these guys. So Daniel handed over his wallet with money and credit cards, while the thief grabbed Lisa´s glasses. After that, she couldn´t see much of the stuff going on.


But the thieves didn´t stop there. After ¨cleaning¨ our pockets, they took our small backpacks, purse and camera bag which we had stored over our heads. We felt so helpless, as we sat and watched our stuff being taken, without being able to object against it.

After some 20 minutes, the bus stopped.

- Are they finish now, we whispered.

Unfortunately we got our answer when we heard the robbers open the storage room below us. We heard them helping themselves with whatever they wanted.

At that time we felt naked. No money, no credit cards, no clothes, no nothing.


Luckily, we were a bit wrong. To our relief the robbers threw away the stuff they didn´t want at the front and outside the bus. In the mess we found Lisa´s wallet (for once a full lady bag came in hand) and our backpacks. And Lisa found another pair of glasses. We were saved!

What we didn´t find were our passports, a decent amount of money, our camera (and memory card), our mobiles, electronics, Daniel´s credit cards and some other stuff. So we were lucky compared to the man who lost everything, even the shoes he was wearing.

After several hours at the local police station, where absolutely nobody spoke english or spanish and didn´t seem to care how we were feeling, we found ourselves on the road to Sao Paulo again. A bit more skeptic and afraid. But we were alive. Not broken, not beat, not scarred.


Prior to the robbery we visited a strange dessert, a vineyard and the mighty Iguazu falls in Argentina. Since our camera got stolen, we haven´t got any pictures to show you guys. But we will try our best to keep you updated on the rest of our trip with our crappy compact camera:p