The journey from Managua to the farm felt like a movie I had seen a hundred times but never believed I’d step into.
The kind of scenes Western films use as shorthand for “Latin America” : brightly painted chicken buses, bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, vendors shouting through open windows, chickens maybe –though ironically, I never actually saw a chicken on a chicken bus.
Until now, it had always been background texture. This time, it was my life.
The bus from Managua to the coastal port –the one that connects to the tuk-tuk, the hike, the river crossing –was always full. Always. A two-hour ride, standing-room only, no air-conditioning, no mercy. Once you understand that, the chaos at the bus stop suddenly makes sense.
There is no line. There is only intention. As the bus approaches the terminus, something primal awakens. People stop pretending. Politeness evaporates. The crowd tightens like a coiled spring.
My first time, I didn’t know the rules. I waited patiently. I let bus after bus go, assuming order would eventually emerge. When I was finally first, I stood there, relaxed, backpack loose, optimism intact.
The bus arrived.
And I was immediately shoved to the ground.
Not maliciously. Not angrily. Just… efficiently. Along with a few women beside me, I hit the pavement, scrambled up, adrenaline spiking, heart racing. I was lucky –I got a seat only because I recovered fast enough not to be trampled.
Lesson learned.
The second time, I came prepared. Elbows up. Feet planted. Backpack tight. I watched everything. And that’s when I noticed the men running alongside the bus as it rolled in –like a flank maneuver in a war movie. That’s where I’d gone wrong before. I hadn’t seen the ramming horde.
This time, I pushed toward them. When the door cracked open, I grabbed the frame and pulled myself in like my life depended on it. For a brief, absurd moment, gravity lost. I was airborne, suspended between sidewalk and bus, fueled entirely by stubbornness and fear.
I got on first.
A small victory. Possibly my proudest athletic achievement of the year.
Those days, I would have some comfort. That was not always the case. Many trips were spent standing the entire two hours, pressed from all sides as more bodies somehow fit into an already impossible space. Every stop brought another wave of crunching movement, the bus swelling beyond physics.
Getting off was its own subplot.
The bus barely stops. It slows, maybe. If you’re not already at the door when your stop approaches, you will miss it. So there’s a slow, strategic migration forward long before arrival negotiated –through eye contact, body language, and the universal language of gentle-but-firm shoving.
Claustrophobia is not an option here. Somewhere between the sweat, the bruises, and the choreography of survival, I stopped romanticizing it. And then –quietly– I stopped resisting it.
This wasn’t hardship tourism. This was just life. Messy, physical, unapologetically human.
It reminded me of those films where the camera doesn’t flinch where the scene runs long enough for discomfort to set in, and then something deeper happens. You stop watching. You start inhabiting.
I lived that life. Not as a visitor passing through a montage, but as someone who learned the rules, adjusted their stance, raised their elbows, and stayed upright.
And somehow, in the chaos, I felt more present than I had in years.
No seat. No space. No guarantees.
Just motion.