A warm, pre-dawn rain streamed off the brim of my safari hat and soaked into my supposedly waterproofed shirt as I stood at a wide spot on the side of the muddy, twisty, narrow, mountain road in the Andes.

I hadn’t been given a specific time the bus would show up — just that it would be “early.” On my travels, I’ve learned time isn’t really the predictable thing most people think. Sixty seconds in a minute. Sixty minutes in an hour. Twenty-four hours in a day. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

It’s not.

Traveling also taught me patience, and a lot of ways to entertain myself while waiting for things that may — or may not — happen.

So, I waited in the dark, chilly enough to almost be uncomfortable, but not quite cold enough to shiver, and pondered what to do if a pishtaco — a Peruvian, mythological, sort of serial killer bogeyman — showed up.

If you hadn’t had the bright idea to go searching for that anaconda, we wouldn’t be in this predicament, The Dress lectured me.

The Dress is my long-sleeved, floor-length, black velvet traveling companion.

Looking for an anaconda at 8,000 feet in the Andes was your idea, I retorted.

The Dress never appreciated my snarky rejoinders, and ignored me.

When my guide in Machu Pichu heard me say I liked snakes, he mentioned he knew where an anaconda lived, but it wouldn’t be easy to get there. I didn’t care. Neither did The Dress. We hadn’t seen an anaconda yet, and had some extra days built into our schedule — in case adventures happened — so, we traveled to a remote village, only to discover the snake had “gone.” Whatever that meant.

Our guide received a call and had to leave for a family emergency, hence why The Dress and I stood at a wide spot in the road, waiting for a bus that would take us in the general direction of Aguas Caliente, near Machu Pichu.

As the rain stopped and the sun rose, a few more people arrived, giving me hope I was at the correct wide spot in the road. They mostly appeared the same to me. There was only one side of the road for it to be on, though. The other side ended in a sheer dropoff, hundreds of feet straight down.

A bus lumbered up the road. It looked like someone had given an ancient school bus to some hippies. Bright, colorful depictions of flowers obscured most of the faded yellow paint.

It wasn’t any kind of officially sanctioned bus. Just a local service that sporadically took people from very remote places to slightly less remote places.

Windshield wipers, well, the one on the driver’s side, had done a valiant job of clearing a perfect arch of the mud that liberally coated the rest of the windshield.

The driver wore mirrored sunglasses and his long, black hair flew around his face as he headbanged with all the enthusiasm of the most hardcore heavy metal fan.

He brought the bus to a sliding stop in the mud, the door folded open, and the bus blared we were on the Highway to Hell.

Not the strangest ride I’ve ever been offered.

I long ago stopped being shocked at hearing random American music even in the most far-flung places, picked up my backpack, and followed the rest of the passengers.

Inside the bus, the front seats were missing, and the floor was packed high with assorted bags, satchels, cardboard boxes, wooden crates, chickens, goats, and a pig. The back seats were all occupied, with passengers squashed together like sardines.

I wasn’t sure when, or if, there was another bus. As I stood in front of the steps, debating whether the goats might be more friendly than the pig – the chickens all had a crazy look to them, as chickens often do – a hand attached to an arm encased in a long red sleeve reached down from the roof of the bus and waved to get my attention. I peered up into a hooded, sun-weathered, wrinkled face.

The man grinned, pointed to me, then to a ladder at the rear of the bus.

Do it, do it, do it! The Dress chanted.

The Dress often makes implusive, and possibly reckless, decisions from the warmth and safety of my backpack in hopes of a photo opportunity.

“We can ride on top?” I asked the bus driver in Spanish.

He nodded. Or he could have still been headbanging.

I climbed the metal rungs, discovering I had a total of three red-robed companions, and found a place on the rounded roof among the various boxes and crates. Four thin metal bars formed a low rectangle around the edges. They didn’t look like they’d hold in a sneeze if it really wanted to get out.

Given the twisty road, I wondered if perhaps I’d been shanghaied into catching luggage if it was in danger of sliding off the slanted roof.

The volume of the music dimmed, and the bus lurched into motion. As it rounded a hairpin turn in the narrow mountain road, I grabbed a frayed rope to stop myself from sliding across the roof and falling into the abyss.

At the next turn, a car approached from the opposite direction. Whenever this happened, somehow there was always a magical vortex that widened the road exactly enough so the two vehicles could pass each other without one plunging to its doom.

Not just in the Andes — it occurred wherever buses traveled one-lane, slippery, dirt roads with sheer drop-offs that were definitely not wide enough for passing traffic. As far as I could figure, vortex magic worked on the collective sheer belief of the passengers, or some benevolent travel god, and only if there were no guardrails within a certain diameter.

I’d been inside buses when the magical vortexes happened, but seeing it from on top of the roof, it was truly frightening. I watched in equal parts fascination, horror, and disbelief as the side of the bus, right below me, floated in space over nothing.

Hundreds of feet below, a ribbon of blue wound through the brown and green landscape. It would have made for an interesting photo, if I could have convinced myself to let go of the rope to grab my camera. But I felt certain if I moved an inch, I would displace the vortex and plunge us all to our deaths, and who wants that kind of responsibility?

Unblinking, I stared until the river disappeared, and the road reappeared under the bus. I sighed and slumped back into my place, uncertain if I wanted to watch that again, or if I could stand not seeing it when I knew it was happening.

One of my red-robed companions smiled and offered me a bottle of water they’d been sharing. Even though I had my own, I accepted and took a big swallow. The that-definitely-wasn’t-water burned my throat and felt like lava in my stomach.

My eyes watered and I resisted coughing. If I breathed that stuff in, it would probably have dissolved my lungs.

I’ve had these tests before — like fermented yak milk the sherpas gave me in Tibet. Maybe it was an altitude thing. The higher in the mountains, the more hilarious it was for the locals to give tourists disgusting, questionable beverages.

I kept the definitely-not-water down, sure my teeth would be a couple of shades whiter when I next smiled. I hoped I still had the tastebuds that worked for cake.

Light-headedness made my head swim. I blinked away blurred vision. But those magical vortexes the buses used? I was pretty sure I could see them.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and waited to see if the material turned to smoke. It didn’t. That was a bit disappointing.

“Not water.” I rasped in Spanish like I smoked a pack a day.

I received three smirks, and one red-robed shoulder shrugged. “There is some water.”

I decided it was probably best not to know what else was in the mix and gave the bottle back, passing on the next offer to share.

Going around another turn, the bus eased to the side of the road to allow an oncoming truck room to pass.

This time, one of the rear tires, the one under my comfy spot, dropped into a pot hole and spun. My heart couldn’t decide whether to stop completely or beat like a jackhammer, and settled on an uncomfortable compromise of starts and stops as the bus tilted toward the sheer drop-off behind me.

Boxes and crates slid in my direction, unaware of the potential vortex violation they were courting. I blocked some with my feet, batted others towards the Red Robes, held my breath, and tightened my fist around the frayed rope. What I thought the frayed rope could do for me, I didn’t know.

My that-definitely-wasn’t-water augmented imagination tried to picture the frayed rope as a secure life line I could dangle from when the bus tipped and my body broke through the thin metal bars impersonating a luggage rack. It didn’t work.

Then, the random thought struck me — I was a genius. I still couldn’t see the rope saving my life, because that idea was ridiculous, but since I was already outside, I could see myself able to leap off the roof and cling to the cliffside as the bus tumbled to its doom.

At least I wouldn’t die smashed with all the crazy chickens. That seemed a rather ignominious death for a Vagabonding Ninja. I decided to ride on bus roofs whenever possible in the future — provided I didn’t die this time.

The abyss loomed behind me. I didn’t look as I slid inexorably backward over the sloped bus roof. There was nothing to grab to halt my progress. The low, flimsy metal bar of the luggage rack dug into the base of my spine as I reached the edge.

My abdominal muscles have never held a crunch for so long in my life as I waited to see if the travel gods loved me, or I was about to hear a snap and plummet to my death.

I’d heard about near-death experiences flashing an entire lifetime before someone’s eyes, but that didn’t happen to me. I had no doubt I could die, but the thing that flashed in my mind was I should have gone to the Galapagos before Peru.

The Red Robes threw themselves to the opposite side of the bus. I don’t know if that’s what made the difference, or if enough passengers finally remembered to believe in the vortex, but the tire under me finally found traction, the bus righted itself, and once again the vortex worked so the two vehicles could pass one another safely.

In hindsight, I still have not decided if I was better off with the that-definitely-wasn’t-water in my system or not.

Fun facts about Peru:

• The Amazon river begins there.
• You can swim with pink dolphins in the Amazon basin.
• Guinea pig is a local delicacy, served complete with heads, eyes, and legs. I did not partake.
• Inca Cola is a popular drink, but it’s not like Coca-Cola. It’s yellow, and more like a cream soda.
• It can take up to 600 hours to create a traditional poncho.

I didn’t almost die in Machu Pichu, but here are some interesting things to know:

• Llamas will photo bomb you – well, it happened to The Dress.
• You can get your passport stamped at the entrance.
• Each stone was cut so precisely and fit together so tightly that no mortar was used.
• At the height of the Incan civilization Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo started his David statue, and the Ming Dynasty ruled China.
• Part of the site was used as an observatory, and no one knows why it was abandoned.
• No one knows the real name of the site – Machu Picchu actually refers to the mountain, and means “old peak.” The mountain seen behind the city in most photos is called “young peak.”