Chapter 2: The Art of Adventure Travel

Inside the bus, Driver Chris had taken off his shirt and he was sitting at the dinette table reading from a business ledger. An incredibly attractive girl with flowing brown hair sat on the mattress close behind him massaging his shoulders. His red-bearded face exuded joy. There was a look in his eyes like that of a wise older person, like travel had taught him much about life. I longed to experience that kind of joy myself, to gain such wisdom and to learn about life on the road.

The huge man I had seen standing by the station door took up the rest of the bench next to him. He was setting up plastic pieces on a tattered chessboard. There was a pack of playing cards on the table next to him. It was a dirty deck of cards made in the seventies with a different half-naked woman on t ...