When it came time to say despedida to Oaxaca, I did so one hour earlier than the rest of my Intrepid group. The reason? There had been a stuff-up with the bus transport bookings – someone had reserved one too few seats on the San Cristóbal coach trip – Hector (our guide) had nervously approached me on our final night at Oaxaca Casa Arnel, asking for a huge favour as he put it, would I please, please, volunteer to travel “Napoleon Solo” (a lame example of faux Cockney rhyming slang probably only fathomable to aficionados of 1960s television spy dramas) on the bus leaving at 8pm, rather than the scheduled one for the tour departing at Nine? The dilemma was clearly causing the affable ‘ector much angst. Standing there on my doorstep he seemed visibly distressed… he explained he had earlier asked two of the young punks in the group but they had “alpha-boy bonded” with each other and refused outright to be separated even for one night (how touching!) Hector’s gratitude overflowed when I answered his request in the affirmative! In fact I had no hesitation in agreeing to take the early coach. I was as happy to leave at eight, it was only one hour difference when all is said and done.
Oaxaca: this wasn’t the overnight bus to Chiapas but given how long the trip took, it might well have been!My only one concern (prior to departure) was that now I was riding on my ‘patma’ I would need to have all my wits about me. Several days before the overnight trip to San Cristóbal de las Casas Hector had reminded us of the warnings issued by Intrepid which featured in the tour itinerary – they stressed that there were inherent dangers posed by overnight bus journey between Mexican cities…to quote directly from the Intrepid travellers’ guide about the handiwork of petty thieves who sneak on board long-distance, inter-city night buses at stop points along the way: “These opportunistic individuals are not only an annoyance, they are also unfortunately extremely talented. They wait for passengers to be asleep to skilfully search through carry-on luggage in search of cameras, money and credit cards”.
So, with this reiterated warning resounding in my ears, I freely admit I was feeling a bit apprehensive about what might befall me without any travelling companions to watch my back. Hector walked me down to the coach terminus in Oaxaca and issued me with directions on what to do on arrival at the tour’s next destination. After a short wait we were called to board the Chiapas bus, upon finding my allocated seat at the back of the autobus I discovered a pleasant and unexpected surprise…Hector had cautioned that the bus would be ‘chock-a-block’ full all the way, but au contraire I found that I had the luxury of an empty seat next to me! With the baggage quickly loaded in the under seats’ stowaway (and my all-important bag number slip secured in my top pocket), it was not long before we were away. It was now about 20:00 hours and fully dark. The extra room to stretch out was good fortune indeed on what was promising to be a very long, boring and testing solo overnight ride. After ferreting out my airline eye mask from my hand luggage, I made sure that I had affixed my bag securely to my person for the whole journey.
Actually it was in this bus, an ADO autobus, that we trekked from Oax to San CristoI settled back for the long haul on Highway 185D…the bus, an ADO (one of Mexico’s most popular autobus fleets) did live up to the advanced publicity, it was comfortable, well-fitted out, air con, on-board toilet, TV screens, if not quite being the cutting edge latest in luxury road travel (I’d still rank the Inka Express trip on the Ruta del Sol from Cusco to Puno (Southern Peru) as número uno). Starting off from the Oaxaca terminal, I had entertained the thought of trying to get some shut-eye✲ on the trip but the strategically placed and glaringly distracting television screens put paid to that notion. Resigning myself to the reality, I glanced fitfully for several minutes at the screen which was showing, appropriately enough, a Spanish-language movie.
Cantinflas in his most famous role as PassepartoutOn the road with Cantinflas
When I eventually twigged to the fact that it was a biopic of Cantinflas, I overcame my hitherto disinterest and started to watch the film. It was hardly a great movie but I did learn a lot about Cantinflas that I was unaware of…firstly I had forgotten that he was in fact Mexican and not Spanish (which explains why it was featuring on this inter-city Mexican road trip). Ninety-five percent of the world’s audience-goers who have ever actually heard of Cantinflas would associate him with his role as Passepartout in the universally well-known Hollywood movie Around the World in Eighty Days. But what the biopic brought home to me was just how important and instrumental – and versatile – a figure he was to Mexican cinema and to the country’s entertainment industry generally…I was aware of Cantinflas the beloved actor and comedian, but what the movie revealed was the other strings Cantinflas had to his bow, he was also a writer, producer and singer, certainly credentials to be celebrated as (one of) Mexico’s foremost entertainment “Renaissance Men”.
According to Hector the trip to San Cristóbal from Oaxaca was about nine to nine-and-half hours (covering a distance of 600 km). At about 12:30 in the morning the coach pulled over in complete darkness near some all-night street stalls. Nothing was said by the driver (no passenger announcement) but he got off, lit a fag and was soon joined by a couple of the Mexican passengers (I was the sole non-Mexican or if you like the token gringo on the coach!). After about 15 minutes everyone re-boarded and we set off again. I was puzzled at the reason for our stop but thought to myself that at least this was roughly half-way to San Cristóbal, so we had some sort of milestone on the long trek into the night!
Unscheduled stop on Highway 185D
Most of the next part of the trip to Santo Domingo Tehuantepec was uneventful, too dark to see anything outside and sleepless, I passed the time by groping round in the dark of the interior trying to find items in my bag and continually re-positioning my back on the seat support so as to ease any pressure on my dodgy L2. There was the one event/non-event on this leg of the drive…we stopped at some kind of official bus check-point or way-station, the engine was turned off and the interior remained in total darkness – again there was no on-board announcement. Although this went on for a while I wasn’t perturbed, I assumed that they were just doing a mandatory spot check of the vehicle or such, and in a short time we’d be back on the road. But the delay went on and on, still no word from the driver, still in darkness. Occasionally, the silence was punctuated by a loud, whirring noise on one side of the bus. After about an (unexplained) hour of sitting around, the bus engine was suddenly switched on and we resumed the trip. I found out later that they were changing one or some of the tyres…updating of passengers is obviously not part of customer service on ADO buses, we were figuratively – as well as literally – kept in the dark all the time!
By now we were at the lowest longitudinal point in Mexico that we were to get, the Pacific Ocean could be viewed to our right perhaps just a couple of hundred metres away…that is if it weren’t for the fact that it was still pitch-dark and the middle of the night! We swapped highways and were now free-wheeling down 190D, deep into the heartland of Chiapis, Mexico’s southern-most state.
More fun with ADO
At the ADO station at Tuxtla Gutiérrez (at least I think that was where we were!) more passengers got off 🙂 unfortunately a greater number of new one ones got on 🙁 … much worse, I had to surrender my adjoining (spare) seat to one of the new passengers, a Mexican guy with the build of a Sumo wrestler¤ (built like a proverbial “brick house” as they say in the Antipodes). The guy consumed so much horizontal space that his swollen, “Michelin Man” sized left arm spilled haphazardly over onto my side of the arm rest, forcing me to bend my right arm at a 45 degree angle and keep it in that fixed, uncomfortable position for the rest of the journey!
Chiapas & the road to SCChiapa del Corzo: salida frustrado!
Chiapa del Corzo looked like a very major bus station, many of the bus passengers got off and several got on. This was where I got confused! I knew from the itinerary that we were going to the state of Chiapas, but perhaps distracted by my aching right arm I somehow thought this was my destination point (momentarily forgetting I was going to San Cristóbal, the following stop). With some very considerable effort on my part and virtually no assistance from the slumbering immovable object next to me, I half-squeezed, half-climbed over Mr Sumo, and made for the door.
When I tried to retrieve my luggage though, the guy in charge of distributing the baggage, to my surprise, refused to hand over my case despite my waving the correct luggage receipt in his face. My entreaties fell on deaf ears as he dismissively waved me away. With my frustration rising, I tried to appeal to the nearest bus station officials but no one seemed to understand (there might as well have been a “No Inglés spoken here” sign) or made any attempt to resolve my issue. Finally, one of the uniformed staff motioned to me to return to my bus, which I reluctantly did. Not relishing the prospect of getting back into my allocated seat by vaulting over Mr Sumo, I sat down in one of the empty seats, hoping it wasn’t the seat of any of the still boarding passengers. But no sooner did I do this when Murphy’s Law raised its head – a Mexican couple immediately turned up to claim the seats and I was forced to retreat further back in the bus. Fortunately the new seat I perched myself on didn’t have a claimant and we duly set off for San Cristobal.
Whilst I was at Chiapa del Corzo I surmised that San Cristóbal de las Casas was quite close, but as things transpired it was still a good 40 minutes or so on the bus. As we drew closer to the destination, crossing bridges and rivers, I had to concede that I owed a measure of gratitude to the ADO employees back at Corzo who, though abrupt in tone, stopped me from trying to exit at the wrong bus station.
Casa Margarita’s courtyardOnce we had reached the San Cristóbal bus station I felt a sense of relief, even though I still had to negotiate my short taxi trip to our hotel and the chance that some local taxi con man might try to play the universal game of “lets rip off the naive tourist”. I gave the first driver on the rank the hotel card and the 50 Pecos note Hector had given me for the fare and everything (for a change) went seamlessly. In just a few minutes we were at Hotel Casa Margarita. I waited a few minutes in the hotel’s charming hacienda style courtyard…the staff on duty (two callow boys both looking about 15-16), who clearly weren’t expecting me, differed round a bit, offering me self-serve coffee in the foyer. I was determined to get my room key and in my exhausted state simply crash ASAP! Only when I reminded them, and a more adult-looking staff member who had popped up, that I had been given the assurance that when I arrived I would be able to get straight to my room, they relinquished their prevarications and showed me to the room.
Footnote:
It was 7am when I got out onto the street in San Cristóbal, 2,200 metres above sea-level, it was quite chilly. The advertised nine-and-half hour bus journey had taken eleven hours all up – thanks to the tyre problems and other, unspecified random tardiness. But I consoled myself that at least I had avoided the fate of less fortunate past passengers on this overnight trek who had apparently been fleeced of their personal belongings.
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✲ I say “shut-eye” rather than sleep because sleep, that rare commodity was out of the question. Every journey I have ever taken on a mobile transporter of any description (air, rail, road, even water) I have found myself constitutionally incapable of sleeping, no matter how tired or sleep-deprived I am!
¤ if he wasn’t a Mexican Sumo wrestler (unlikely), then perhaps he was one of those Lucha Libre wrestlers I had seen in CDMX. A ex-one though because he looked like I imagined retired luchadores look like when they stop training and their previously tautly contained centre of gravity spreads all points east and west!
Another point of difference between the two was distinctly olfactory – visiting the “cotton castle” of Pamukkale, it was nigh-on impossible not to be affected (if not overcome) by the overpowering smell of sulphur in the air, it was everywhere! El Agua’s sulphur deposits by contrast didn’t exude that same hold over our sense of smell (thankfully!).
We headed back to the Zócalo to find a place with a decent lunch selection…reflecting on what had transpired at the cafe, it was clear to me that we had turned up during the afternoon siesta, the locals obviously knew that, that’s why it was empty (unlike the last two times we were there!). But because we were there, they obviously didn’t want to turn away the tourist dollar, so their scheme was to cobble together anything, maybe leftovers (who knows what!) and fob us off with that. Another valuable lesson learnt: don’t enter a Mexican eatery during siesta time! I stored it up alongside strictly avoiding any salad in prepared meals at Mexican restaurants!
