Obstacle 1: The bus
We had to take the bus from where we were back to our apartment in Toronto to get rid of the rest of our belongings and do the final cleaning. Plus, it was easier to get to the airport from our apartment.
Greg had booked the bus tickets. We had taken the bus before. We went to the bus stop we had been to before. It was sweltering hot and our bags were waaaay too heavy.
We got everything out of the car. The bus was due in about 15 minutes. And then a gentleman drove by in his pickup truck and rolled down the window.
“You waitin’ for the bus?” he asked.
We said we were.
“The bus stop hasn’t been here in about 8 months,” he told us. “The new stop is down the road near the variety store.”
!!!!!
We packed up our bags, which now weighed about 100 kg each and drove very quickly down the road. Thank goodness it was only about 10 minutes down the road.
I hadn’t eaten at all that day so I had to get something in me or I would pass out. No sandwiches at the store but he did sell jerky. I grabbed a bag of that, two bags of pretzel bagels, and four bottles of water.
Outside with our 200 kg bags, I was scorched by the sun after not even a minute.
We waited in the shade for 2 minutes and watched the northbound bus pull up. I wasn’t fooled because I had been fooled the last time I took the bus. Plus the guy in the variety store had told me that the northbound bus would be pulling up first. Greg wasn’t quite so sure. I don’t blame him. I am not generally a reliable source of information for anything direction-related.
He discovered for himself that the bus was indeed headed north. Two minutes later, the southbound bus pulled up and we lugged our bags, which now weighed 300 kg each, up to the baggage compartment.
It took Greg, the bus driver, and three other people to get our bags in the bus, but then we were on our way.
So, we just missed missing the bus. The kindness of strangers saved us from a very tedious outcome.
