The bus trip from hell

Our trip back from Portugal was interesting to say the least. We go to the bus station at 12:30 to find out where the bus leaves from only to see that there is no bus for Sevilla (our stop over) on the board. After a minor freak out, we found the only guy still working and he told us we just had to wait outside because it didn’t come into the bus terminal. While we were waiting, we met two people who were also studying in Spain. One was from Texas and one was from Poland.

We get on the bus and the driver starts to rip off my ticket. I tell him that Sevilla is only a bus change for us and tell him I’m going to need that ticket to get on the bus for Granada. He assures me that he’s the one who is supposed to take it and tells me I’m supposed to use the receipt. I found it weird, but he wasn’t going to let us on without taking our tickets.

We get to Sevilla at 4:30 am only to find out that the bus for Granada isn’t until 8am. First of all, I don’t understand why they would have a bus at such an asinine time if the connections weren’t even until the morning anyway. Second of all, why don’t they put the time of your bus change on the ticket? Or the station and terminal of your bus change even? (Probably because the Spanish have the business sense of a six year old girl.)

At 7:50 am the bus for Granada arrives. We put our bags underneath and the driver looks at our ticket and is asking why it isn’t stamped. I don’t know, probably because it doesn’t say anywhere on my ticket that I need it stamped, nor did the last bus inform us. So we run inside and there’s a line. At 8:10 am the driver comes up, brings us to the front and mutters something to the woman at the desk. They start arguing about whether this was a round trip ticket and asked when and were we bought it. I told them we bought it in Granada two weeks ago and that the guy driving the bus from Portugal took my ticket. She tried to make us pay but the bus driver argued for us. Turns out, he just assumed we were going to Granada the back to Portugal and that was what all the trouble was about. Really, pal? If we were from Portugal and visiting Granada, why would we have bought our round trip train ticket IN Granada? I swear, the people that work for ALSA (the bus company) are some of the dumbest people I’ve encountered in Spain.

In the end, we got on the bus and got ourselves home. Even though I would never wish to do that hectic traveling over again, Portugal was worth it. The beaches and ocean were beautiful.