![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Crazy bus rides in Chiapas
Aug. 5th, 2005 06:22 pmMy best friends will always have far more exciting lives than I ever will...
I was on a bus last night from San Cristobal to Palenque to visit the famous Mayan ruins. It was only a 5-6 hour ride but at 11pm the bus was held up by highway robbers!! A masked man demanded money from all the passengers. By the time he made his way down to the middle of the bus to the exact row where my friend and I were sitting, he was called off. phew! my heart was pounding. Makes me think twice again about taking the bus overnight in this part of the country. I am headed back to San Cristobal tomorrow during the day. But I do have to cross over this same stretch of road overnight one more time next week in order to catch my flight from Merida in the Yucatan back to the States. I'm going to try for an earlier bus and choose a seat way in the back.
The only problem with sitting too far back is that there's another danger. On the 12 hour overnight bus ride from Oaxaca to San Cristobal, the driver drove too fast around the curves. At dawn, the bus shaved a little to closely to some rocks on the moutainside breaking two huge windows towards the rear of the bus. Mind you, this was a "first class" bus ride. Fortunately, most of the passengers sitting in the back had already gotten off at a previous stop. But one woman stood up to brush off pieces of glass, which fortunately breaks into safer pieces than other types of glass.
So my strategy for my next long bus ride? Sit in the back but on the driver side. I'd rather smell the toilet in the back than get showered by glass or robbed.
Other than that, I'm having a great trip and meeting wonderful people.
I was on a bus last night from San Cristobal to Palenque to visit the famous Mayan ruins. It was only a 5-6 hour ride but at 11pm the bus was held up by highway robbers!! A masked man demanded money from all the passengers. By the time he made his way down to the middle of the bus to the exact row where my friend and I were sitting, he was called off. phew! my heart was pounding. Makes me think twice again about taking the bus overnight in this part of the country. I am headed back to San Cristobal tomorrow during the day. But I do have to cross over this same stretch of road overnight one more time next week in order to catch my flight from Merida in the Yucatan back to the States. I'm going to try for an earlier bus and choose a seat way in the back.
The only problem with sitting too far back is that there's another danger. On the 12 hour overnight bus ride from Oaxaca to San Cristobal, the driver drove too fast around the curves. At dawn, the bus shaved a little to closely to some rocks on the moutainside breaking two huge windows towards the rear of the bus. Mind you, this was a "first class" bus ride. Fortunately, most of the passengers sitting in the back had already gotten off at a previous stop. But one woman stood up to brush off pieces of glass, which fortunately breaks into safer pieces than other types of glass.
So my strategy for my next long bus ride? Sit in the back but on the driver side. I'd rather smell the toilet in the back than get showered by glass or robbed.
Other than that, I'm having a great trip and meeting wonderful people.
