Collectivas...Just part of the "Cultural Experiance"

If you have not been to Central America, you may be unfamiliar with "collectivas".  Well they are nine (9) passenger vans usually on their last legs.  Did I say nine passengers?  That may be what they were designed for, however, if you are going to make a profit carrying the populace between village and city, well.....more is definitely better!  The most that I have ever had was twenty-nine (29) in one van.  We were cheek to jowl, babies on laps, bags of veggies and fruit in laps and people hanging out the sliding door.
Cynthia and I have been regulars on the collectiva to Morales.  Cynthia has braces and must go for routine adjustments we find ourselves grabbing the various collectivas.  We are learning which drivers are just a little too crazy for us. We know that the weekends are just plain suicide.
I will admit that I miss read her appointment slip so last Saturday just past noon we found ourselves on our way to Morales.  Our driver started out just fine.  Then just as we hit the curves he really put the petal to the metal and we were flying around blind curves, passing in no passing zones, just the normal driving habits of your friendly colectiva driver.  So when we saw him yesterday with his helper and money collector holloring, "Morales,  Morales, Puerto Barrios"  we got in.  We needed to get there.

As we are going over the bridge that spans our beautiful river we stop and pick up a clown.  This guy is in full costume and has 7 soda cans all attached to each other in a line.  As we pull away he hands the driver a picture of himself on the bridge with the river in the background.  The driver is looking at the picture and commenting all the while we are weaving across the center line on a two lane bridge.

We are heading down the road and the clown starts to sing and accompany himself with the cans.  He holds them horizontally and there must be seeds inside as it sounds like a rain stick.  So he sings his song of going to the beach and seeing the beautiful girl in the white top and pants, who he calls to and declares his love.  She of course ignores him and he is sick at heart with love for her. ( I am telling you about this song...because it was all in Spanish and I understood 90% of it!)

After dropping off 2 people and picking up 4 more in the village of Buenas Aires I notice that the helper is making arm motions to a collectiva behind us.  The other collectiva pulls around us and then stops to drop off his passengers.  We pull around him and then all of a sudden he as pushed us into the on coming traffic lane!  We are half on the shoulder and he has us blocked in.  Yes, we are in a blind curve!  The other driver comes over and yanks open the door and grabs our driver.  There is yelling and accusations flying.  Cynthia and I are trying not to pay too much attention and are hoping that we won't be hit by on coming traffic.  Fortunately,  the other driver leaves and we continue on our way.

We will never know what it was all about.  The ride home was boring...Can't wait till next month.