In my previous trips to Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, the frequent use of buses forced me to watch the complete filmography of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal. For some reason, those responsible of picking the movies to be displayed inside the bus, during the trip, tend to choose an action movie and, in some cases, horror or kid’s movies. My wife thinks that the responsible in this case is a male individual -bus drivers?- and that would explain the testosterone waste.

In this last trip themes didn’t change much, I got to see a Jackie Chan movie in the road Cuzco-Lima -don’t remember the name of the film, but it mixed karate and bad jokes- and one of The Rock -what’s his name, by the way?- something like The treasure of the amazon, or something, in the road Lima-Tacna. This last one deserves a few comments. Its script was the same old stupid theme: a super-athletic american goes to the brazilian forest to rescue a fellow citizen. There’s a very bad man who exploits the natives and makes them look for diamonds. Also, there’s a guerilla group -no, it’s not Colombia, it’s Brazil, yes- and a treasure that the indians left many centuries ago: a cat made of gold. No, not a puma, nor a leopard. Yes, I know that before the arrival of the spaniards there were no cats, but well. It was a movie of The Rock. Pathetic falls short.

Days before, in the Buenos Aires-Jujuy route, the bus displayed the first three parts of Home Alone, one after the other. Just when the fourth part was about to start, people started to complain and the movie stopped. The DVD must have been stored somewhere safe. The night before an “action movie” named The Tube was on. I think it was a korean film or something, but it took place in Tokio. A terrorist group takes control of a subway and threatens to blow it up if they don’t get something, don’t remember what it was. There were corrupt polititians, a good cop and bad terrorists. It was like Speed but underground. The only new thing was that at the end the hero dies. But, in general, the movie sucked.

The quote of terror was accomplished on the route Cuzco-Lima, by the american version of The Ring. It’s lame but compared to The Rock or Jackie Chan, it deserves all the awards. In the route Lima-Tacna they decided to display an animated cartoon for children, something about a piggy, absolutely impossible to watch. The funny thing -or the least funny thing, should I say- is that the bus was full of people, but there were only two children. Why do they show kid’s movies, then?

That the movies shown inside latin american buses suck is not flash news to me. In a way, I’ve gotten used to the fact. But there are a few things that have changed. Apparently, Steven Seagal and Van Damme are going down. Only one movie of the latter was displayed during the trip back to Buenos Aires. Something about a jail, I didn’t pay much attention to it, I rather read a book I bought in Peru. I was surprised not to find any Vin Diesel movie. It looks like he hasn’t made it to the list, yet.

Travelling for fifteen hours inside a bus is really boring, but if you add to this the bad movies displayed…well…you better have a good book or a discman handy. By the way, if you decide to read, you better use daylight, since 80% of reading lights inside the south american buses are broken.

And, well, if you want to travel comfortably and with everything working out fine, fly first class to Europe, huh?