Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,18
blown-out tire splayed over the pavement.
“A bus went over the mountain!” a man called from a few rows back. Wara took a deep breath and knit her shaking fingers together in her lap. A plump Quechua woman on the other side of Nazaret answered loudly, “It’s the accident from two days ago. The one from the news.”
Old accident or not, the bus passengers were curious. The door of the minivan slid open with a hollow whine and everyone spilled out, cautiously tiptoeing over to the cliff. A humid breeze whipped at their hair from across the ravine and the sunshine seared their shoulders.
“The Road of Death, living up to its name,” a woman muttered. A chorus of gasps rose upon viewing what was once a large, sleek tour bus, belly up in a tangle of trees a thousand feet below. Horrified, Wara could make out the tiny stick forms of what appeared to be bodies sprawled on the way down to the crash.
“Good heavens,” an elderly man stammered. “They’re just going to leave them here?”
“The rescue teams have been working since the accident,” replied a skinny kid in a hoodie. “They find the survivors first, then bring up the bodies. They’ll probably be back tomorrow. It’s getting late.”
As Wara stared wide-eyed down the precipice, the magnitude of rappelling down that sheer cliff to attempt a rescue effort hit her. Her head spun and she backed away, hurrying to the minibus where the driver was ordering them all to return.
Nazaret never made it back to sleep during the remaining hour ride to Coroico, and Wara did her best to focus on the primitive beauty of the living mountains and not the valley below.
The first tinges of dusk were just beginning to paint the expanse over the mountains when Coroico came into view, all coral-tiled roofs jutting out over an emerald mass of vegetation, like a man riding a foaming wave into the thin air over a precipice that dropped into the valley below. The bus followed winding roads and soon arrived at Coroico’s main plaza, a square affair surrounded by touristy restaurants and tour guide offices. The rubber wheels of Nazaret’s suitcase bounced over cobblestones as she and Wara walked towards their hotel.
The Hotel Bella Vista was four blocks from the plaza, and Wara sagged with relief as she entered its cream-colored hall and spotless wood parquet floor. A beautiful brick fountain gurgled in the atrium, splashing water across smooth pebbles.
“It’s good to be back,” she muttered, heading towards the room she always reserved at the back of the hotel. It was really good to be anywhere, after seeing the fate of that bus down in the valley.
Inside the room she and Nazaret had reserved, a giant plate-glass window was framed by crimson and gold curtains. Though the sun had sunk a little more behind the mountains, the amazing spread of the valley below was still visible in muted tones, proving why this hotel was called The Beautiful View. Beyond the crimson curtains, tangled tropical life stretched out far below them as far as the eye could see, blanketing the soaring mountains in emerald array. A winding river cut through the middle of the valley, and wet salmon-colored clouds clung to the tops of the mountains that were still lower than the town of Coroico.
Wara and Nazaret fell asleep right after dinner from a tiny pizza restaurant, and didn’t move again til morning.
She and Nazaret spent the next day exploring the tiny tourist town: horseback riding over the emerald mountains, lunch at the little German café, then a walk over towards Casa Bonita for homemade organic ice cream. Crashing for a while in Coroico’s main plaza under the stars seemed to be the perfect ending. Wara and Nazaret collapsed on a bench and stretched their legs out next to a tinkling stone fountain.
Groups of fair-skinned tourists, wearing khaki shorts with hiking sandals and socks, sat around the plaza laughing too loudly and munching Pringles and Snickers bars that the local stores kept on hand for the healthy flow of foreigners brought to their town by the adventure tourism industry. A young Bolivian couple strolled by with their son and a pair of Mickey Mouse balloons, munching hamburgers wrapped in plastic sacks.
And near the tinkling fountain, a group of women in dark Islamic robes stood quietly, passing out pieces of paper to anyone interested.
“Looks like Islam is growing here, too.” Nazaret had also noticed the Muslim girls, trying to share their faith