04

The propeller plane from Bonaire to Curaçao took fifteen minutes, long enough for a glimpse of the open water between the two islands, though I'd spent an hour at the airport waiting to board it. We landed mid-afternoon into heat and dust, and ours seemed to be the only plane on the tarmac.

The bus stop was a single pole. I walked straight past it and had to ask someone, who kindly pointed me back. A sign at the top said the next bus was in half an hour.

Another half hour. But I was on holiday, and wasn't slowing down the whole point?

A taxi to my hotel would have taken twenty minutes and cost $40 to $45. The bus would take an hour and cost $2.

Money was the first reason. After several days of tourist prices for breakfast, lunch and dinner, a twenty-minute taxi ride was where I drew the line. But it wasn't the only one. I wanted to see who rode the bus on an ordinary afternoon, and which neighbourhoods a taxi would skip.

I sat on the bench in the heat, and after a while two backpackers in their twenties joined me. They were exactly who you'd expect to find waiting for a bus in the Caribbean sun. I was less expected, someone who has made the 24-hour journey between Washington and Singapore enough times to have grown fond of a seat that fully reclines. Part of me wanted to know I hadn't gone soft.

The bus, when it came, was cleaner than any bus I take to work in Washington. You paid the driver before a turnstile let you through, a small piece of engineering that solves a problem my own city hasn't. Each passenger greeted the driver with a bon tardi as they climbed on, and he greeted each one back. It wasn't just friendliness. It was respect, offered and returned, one passenger at a time.

There was also a minibus adventure later in the trip, but that's a story for another day.

That afternoon turned a habit of mine around.

Most of the time, I spend money to buy back time. The Lyft when I'm running late. The cleaner, so a Saturday is mine again. The direct flight, even when the one with a layover is cheaper. It's one of the most sensible trades a busy life offers, and I make it without thinking.

This time, I made it the other way round. I paid in time.

What the time bought wouldn't show up on any receipt. The island beyond its beaches and the tropical fish beneath its clear water. A whole busload of bon tardis. A small private proof that I could still sit on a hot bench and wait.

Once you start looking, the reverse trade is everywhere. Cooking dinner from scratch when delivery is one tap away. Learning a language when the translation app works fine. Writing a card by hand when a text would arrive instantly. Sitting still for twenty minutes in the morning, with a full inbox waiting. None of these are efficient, and that's not what they're for.

They're also the trades we're quickest to give up when life gets full. The pottery wheel gathering dust in the garage. The half-finished Coursera course, for a career change you haven't announced yet. The project that feeds one side of you and doesn't pay the rent.

So many people I know are saving those for later, for when life calms down or the full-time job is no longer there. A friend in her fifties didn't pick up a paintbrush again until she retired. It's as if time spent that way has to be earned first, and the hours only become worth it once nothing else needs them.

I understand the logic. I've followed it most of my life.

But I'm not sure it holds. On a bus in Curaçao, the hour was the whole point.

I saved $38 that afternoon. The hour was worth more.