Losing It

Hey-There, my 62-year-old roommate, had lost it. She was chattering away, narrating the Dolph Lundgren movie on the railway station TV with her own script. Meanwhile, AF—a biologist from the mines outside Perth—dove under the table and napped on his coat. I played pool with our merchant marines and kept my distance from our group, which had lost its collective mind a few hours prior.

The train, which had already been leaving in the middle of the night, was running late. After three days in the desert, we'd all showered in Hotel Samay Wasi back in Uyuni, gorged ourselves on Tonito pizza, and headed to the overnight train-bus to La Paz.

And so we waited.

And waited some more.

The slight air of respectability our group had acquired post-showers started to wear thin. We slobbered and jabbered.

I'm exaggerating. But only about the slobber.

The train finally rolled in so late that I no longer recall the time. We piled into the reclining seats and Hey-There continuing to chatter until a stranger shushed her.

We were on our way back to La Paz.