joshua

Seeing as the Otesha tour (see previous post) will be pretty hardcore (living in a tent) I thought “Thirty hours on a bus? Three transfers over three provinces?  Uncertainty around my box-less bike?  Bring it on!”  Oh. The foolishness of youth that you can only see with the cardbord cutout, bi-coloured, 3-d glasses of hindsight.

The bus ride really wasn’t that bad.  I read, I chatted, I slept (a lot).  There is always something interesting to think about when travelling by bus.  The scenery crawling by, the other people trapped in there with you.  One begins to wonder about their stories, or, if you are lucky, one can actually hear a story or two.

My seatmate for the first leg of the trip, from Toronto to Kingston, was a music performance major at U of T, recent graduate and newly-minted small town girl.  She was born and raised in Calgary, universitied in Toronto and has decided to spend the summer in a small town outside of Kingston in the house her parents have just acquired in order to be closer to her.  Telling me of the dress shop and the restaurant she is working in, she mentioned “You just need to walk in a store, and you’ve got a job!”  A vast gulf seperates this experience from the door-to-door resume bombing campaign that is a summer ritual for every student who foolishly decided to be born or spend the summer in Toronto. 

It is very hard to find a good summer job (read: not telemarketing) in the city as a student, although there are many stories of triumph floating around.  These stories being the exception, I would suggest any person attending school or having grown up in a city to walk on the wild side and spend a summer in a small town, it’ll do you good and its much easier to find work.

The rest of the twenty-seven hours were spent in near-isolation with books and a window, punctuated by a smattering of interactions with irate bus operators. 

There must be a vendetta out against bicycles among the bus companies.  I travelled under the auspicies of four different companies while travelling from Toronto to Wolfville (which in itself is kind of ridiculous since each one has a monopoly on their region) and at each juncture I was presented with a severe, pipe toting, mustached face solemnly pivoting from side to side once it laid eyes on my sweet bike.

It all started at the beginning.  I arrived at the Toronto bus terminal with very much hope and very little time to spare (as per usual).  I approached the customer service desk, they point me to the main ticket counter and I ask for a bike box.  The man asks me which carrier I am with, as if the tiny three letter codes on my yard-long, cross country bus ticket would in any way fall above my radar.  I, flabberagsted, respond with a, “Huh?”.  He shakes his head, “I need to know what company you are with, if Greyhound then you need a box, if Coach Canada then a bag.”  This was all new information to me, even though I had informed everyone I had dealt with that I would be travelling with a bike.  After experiencing the throes of ’morning of’ packing despair, being sure I would miss my bus until I got a last-minute pep-visit from aunt Lori and friend Michelle, to be thwarted by bureaucracy is quite depressing.  I got on alright, and found that contrary to the website there was another suitable bus leaving two hours from then, I left Toronto much relieved and in high spirits.

The next roadblock was a young driver from Quebec’s bus company who resolutely said “Non!” to mon bicyclette.  My feeble attempts to reason with him were in vain, and I finally asked him when the next bus was and stepped out of line.  I asked my friend Ryan, who had come down to the station to meet me for a drink, if I could stay at his place, I was in a daze.  I milled around for a few minutes, quite unprepared for this setback, and so was surprised when the driver quietly waved me on after he saw no more passengers would be coming.  Ryan and I hurriedly threw my belongings and bike onto the bottom rack, and I happened to catch a glance of a conspiratorial finger placed across the driver’s lips as I hauled my much oversized carry-on through the bus’ doors.

Shaken, I continued along peacefully until my next transfer, Riviere du Loup, Quebec.  Figuring I would encounter some good-natured East Coast charm in a blue uniform, I naively approached the bus, bike in hand.  At least he tried to be reasonable, “I know, bicycle is my favorite way of getting around, there just isn’t any room!”  I pleaded, I begged, I cajouled, I got my bike on.  Somewhat grimly, I looked forward to the transfer at Halifax for the final leg to Wolfville.

Seeing as I got my bike on a completely packed Toronto to Montreal bus, less packed but not roomy Montreal bus, and a half empty New Brunswick bus, the good-natured and practically deserted Acadian Lines bus would be no problem, right?

“No.”  Without explaination, conversation, dinner and a movie, long-distance all-night phone call.  I looked in dismay at the small, hardened face of this driver, and the bus’ completely empty undercarraige, and was, not for the first time, flabbergasted.  The driver from the previous bus immediately intervened and explained the situation, and the new driver finally succumbed to reason.  That being said, I was about to snap.  Running into an old friend from Acadia, Dan, I vented to him, but was a little to close and I think the driver overheard a bit of the ranting.

I don’t know whose fault it is, mine, the drivers, the head offices, but I found it absolutely painful to travel with my bike.  It was harmless, just like any big package, but for some reason it offended every driver from here to Ontario.  However, let this also be a lesson to you, what may seem impossible or rock solid is always muteable. 

Cheers,

 - Josh

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