Fear Factor Peru: Molina Express

There are certain things to be feared in life. Bears, Prostate Cancer, Sudden Public Incontinence. Call me unmanly or faithless, but I think Death is also one of those things. All faith or knowledge of a glorious afterlife aside, the actual process of dying is scary. Not what comes afterward, what preceeds. Whatever event or occurrance caused your hum-drum daily routine of being alive from one minute to the next to have a sudden attack of spontaneity. A fatal bus ride for example.

Before my ride aboard Hank Deux, I used to associate hammocks with sunny summer afternoons. Grammie`s back yard. A few of you, like me, probably remember a particularly "swinging" hammock on the well kept lawn in front of Christy Platt`s house. That`s all changed since the Henry II oddessy. Likewise, my gossamer childhood bus memories of Grizzly Adams lunchboxes, Josie the happy candy-giving bus driver and safe yellow transportation have been knelt down and shot from behind into a common grave by a truly fear inspiring assasin. The Molina Express. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Obviously, for me fear is a factor. I`ve always felt like the crowd pleaser Fear Factor (albeit a guilty pleasure) was missing the boat. Is it really scary to move rats from a bucket to a scale with your mouth, eat an elk penis or bob for brains in a vat of cow`s blood? They could rename the show Gag Factor. "Congratulations Sharon, you clearly have...(pause for added drama)...NO Gag Factor!!". Even when they do manage to pander to people`s fears (usually heights) there`s so many safety precautions that there`s no real fear involved. Unless you have a phobia of $1,000 harnesses and pretested lifesaving rope combined with 10 foot free falls. Come on guys, sign some waivers, lose the ropes, recruit some desperate hobos and make those people fear for their lives. If, by some fortuitous NBC fluke, I was given creative control of Fear Factor I would take it international. Farm it out. The real fear lies abroad. My first outsourced fear-job would be to the Molina Express Bus from Huancayo to Ayacucho Peru.

As the bus leaves Huancayo, Joe Rogan informs the contestant that his only task is to sit in the window seat above the back right tire. The only rule is that he must look out the window and down during the whole trip. No grabbing yellow flags or walking on top of the bus, just sitting and watching. Sounds easy right?? Until the mountains close in and suddenly the bus is on a 800 foot ledge, maneuvering a switchback that hangs the back right tire over said ledge, sending little rocks tumbling downward. Like a mini preview.

From personal experience, I know that the Molina Express would be a great Fear Factor. Of course a 13 hour bus ride would require a lot of dramatic overediting, but that`s what the guys at F.F. are used to. My adventure on the Bus of Death lacked an annoying taunting Joe Rogan and sadly also lacked a cash prize at the end, but there was no lack of fear. The fright began when I sat down and the nice lady next to me explained that 2 days prior, a bus from the same company had slid off a ledge and roled over twice before barely catching itself on the last flat, just before a nice 50 meter plunge into the river below. 6 Dead, many injured. This is the point where Joe Rogan yells in your ear "SIX DEATHS!!...12 HOURS OF PRECARIOUS SWITCHBACKS TO GO!!". But there`s more...the crashed bus didn`t only belong to the same bus company as the one we were riding, but was following the exact same route!! This is when Joe starts talking to the other contestants about whether or not I`ll make it through.

For me, this was when I started calculating odds. If a Molina Bus chrashed and burned 2 days earlier, the odds were low of it happening again....right??? Unless...Unless Molina consistantly hires incompetent drivers. It`s an ugly game your mind plays at this stage in the show. A survivor from the crashed bus was sitting nearby. I congratulated him on his bravery for taking the same bus 2 days later, and secretely hoped he didn`t have some sort of bad-bus mojo going on. The level of tension on the bus took a cattle-prod to the ass when the bus we were on, passed the wreckage of the bus we would have been on if we had left our previous destination 2 days earlier. 48 hours less in Iquitos, Guayaquil or Huaraz. Curtains.

I normally would have admired the river at the bottom of the canyon for it`s powerful churning chocolatey color. It looked like the Colorado in those rafting pictures. But from above the back right tire of the Molina Express I could only see Chocolatey Demise. Like the fate of Augustus Gloop, but without the suction pipe salvation or the Umpa Lumpas to pull me out. A Homicidal Willie Wonka River on Steriods. I really thought I might die, several times.

Aside from being cut into the side of a treacherous ledge, the road was in what we`ll call off-season condition. This road was lower maintenance than even the best girlfriend could ever hope to be. On two different occasions, all the passangers had to get off the bus because the road was so bad, our added weight would have sent the bus toppling over and down the ravine. The brave driver inched across, escape routes racing through his mind. On one such "everyone off" occasion we had to shovel dirt from a recent landslide to level out the road to a passable grade. The Peruvians were amazed that an American could shovel dirt. "Muy bien Gringo!! Chambeaste!!". A lady told me that once she was stuck like that for 2 days while the men fixed the road. Improv Road Crew.

Two Australians were on the bus as well. At one such scary moment, they decided that their lives were worth the 100 km walk to Ayacucho. They wanted off, and I`m sure if there hadn`t been such a language barrier, they would have convinced the driver to leave them there on that ravine ledge. Cue Joe Rogan, "SIX HOURS LEFT AUSSIES!! HANG IN THERE, THE ROAD GETS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER!!". After some coaxing, they reluctantly got back into the bus, but they were traumatized. When I ran into them again in Cuzco, I found out that instead of taking another backroad bus from Ayacucho to Cuzco, they had added another 2 days and the price of a flight to their trip. In order to avoid another Death Bus experience, they had backtracked to Lima on a nice, paved highway and flown to Cuzco. I`m not kidding, Fear WAS a Factor.

We threw rocks into the deep spots of river crossings and waited for a backhoe to make a washed-out switchback drivable again. A smart Ayacucho local would sell T shirts on the bus: "I Survived Molina Express, Huancayo to Ayachucho -- Rainy Season ´06". Fortunately, we didn`t slide off any ledges, and there were no deaths. It`s not that I didn`t enjoy the Molina Express. It was exciting. It was just a little more adventure than I had bargained for. If they had advertised it as a "4 Wheeling Passanger-Bus Adventure Tour", I probably would have payed a few extra bucks for the kicks. And of course if Joe Rogan had dangled $50,000 in front of my face, I would have done the ride duct-taped to the outter ledge side of the bus, soaked in cow`s blood, while chewing dirty rats for 13 hours. You know how many more bus rides $50,000 will buy...how long you can travel on that kind of cash??? Thank you Joe Rogan.

(for more info on these awesome bus rides, check my buddy Tom`s blog... www.botrash.com )

(check out a few other pictures of the Death Bus ride.)


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