In New Orleans I had had the foresight to buy flu medicine. Not that I was ill, but I wanted sleeping pills to knock me out on the longer bus journeys. I couldn't find any pills designed for just sleeping so I took the flu medication designed to help people sleep through high fevers, chills, runny or blocked noses and nasty coughs. It was perfect, medication made for experiences as uncomfortable as the greyhound.
The journey was supposed to take about 15 hours. We expected that to mean about 17 hours. Around one o'clock at night I took my pills and prepared to doze off, hoping to wake up in El Paso. Right before I fell asleep we were parked at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, Texas. The bus driver announced that two of the lug nuts had come loose, or disappeared, or something. I can't remember exactly, I was drowsy on flu medication but there was definitely a serious problem with the engine, or the wheels.
I woke up seven hours later in the same petrol station. It was around 7am. Having been half-asleep at the time of the announcement I didn't quite understand what was going on. It slowly dawned on me that this bus was going nowhere soon. A young latina woman told us everyone was going to go eat at this cafe. We followed her to go get breakfast. It was a Mexican cafe and we didn't understand the menu at all. Worst of all there were flies and bugs everywhere in the cafe. It was very off-putting. We decided not to eat there. I walked about ten minutes to get to a supermarket we could see in the distance. I bought six muffins and some chocolate milk.
Our new bus showed up around 9am. The bus station in El Paso had been contacted around midnight and they had sent a new bus out around 4am. We arrived in El Paso around 2.30 in the afternoon. The whole journey had lasted about 25 hours.
