I kid you not

[Internets, today is the day I humiliate myself!]

After we had bought our climbing permits, we were on our way from Mendoza to Penitentes (by bus). The previous night we had spent strolling around Mendoza. Marius and Catalina even had an ice-cream at around 12am. Yup. In Mendoza, all ice-cream shops (and there are many, many) are open until the wee hours of the morning. So the next day I was pretty tired. In an attempt to keep myself hydrated, I had also drunk a lot of water, and still kept a 1.5 liter water bottle with me, just in case I got thirsty. I did not have the chance to go to the toilet in the bus terminal because I had nobody to leave to watch my bags. It was extremely crowded and Marius was already watching over Catalina's and Lili's bags.

At some point through our journey it hit me: I had to go toilet and I had to go NOW. So I waited, and waited, and waited and waited because I knew that there was going to be a bus stop soon. And it was. Just that it was this very crowded bus station. I rushed out of the bus, told the driver that I am going toilet, only to have him yelling after me: "No bano, no bano!" Oh boy. And the driver seemed reluctant to stop in any other place. And I did not want to inconvenience anybody.

So I sat. And I waited. And I waited. By this time we were going through a canyon and I was sweating profusely. And getting more and more desperate. Don't get me wrong. I can hold it. For a long time without any major issues. I can hold it. I had been holding it for about four hours now. Then it hit me.

Adrian, one of my exes, told me once that guys have a major advantage over girls, in that that they can pee in a bottle when they really have to. Give you a coffee if you can figure out what I did next. My engineer mind was still able to rationalize that there was no way in which I could actually use the tiny hole the water bottle provided. So, what to do next?!! By now I was sweating some more, and every bump threatened to wet my seat.

Because I had no tools with which to cut the plastic, I started chewing the plastic at about 15 cm from the bottle's neck. After chewing for a while, I used my driver license to cut through the tiny hole that I made. At this point Catalina, who was sitting in the seats in front of me with Marius, turned to see what was I doing with that plastic. When she saw me and realized what was on my mind, she first scolded me [as is her style] and then went and told the driver to stop. Now remember, I didn't want to disturb the driver or the passengers. Anyhow, the moment we got out of the canyon, the driver stopped.

To the left: a rock wall. To the right: a large bush of cacti. CACTI. No biggie. I rushed in and did my thing. Rushed back to the bus and all was ok.

Spent the remainder of the day picking cacti thorns out of my underwear and other parts.