Bus trips

I am so thankful that my last overnight bus from Olinalá arrived promptly this morning at the Tasquena bus station in Mexico City at 4am despite the driving rain for the first two hours of the trip along the sharp curves of Guerrero. I attribute the success of the eight hour trip to the driver’s sidekick / relief driver, sketchy though he was.

On my Sunday evening bus ride to Olinalá, the bus driver’s sidekick was his 10 year old son, who did a good job of keeping him company despite the distraction from Rambo in the background. The noise from this highly plot-driven movie (joke) drowned out any possible sounds from other passengers, including the cat. I only heard the cat when he first boarded the bus. The distinct, desperate meows for help and jumping garbage bag were the only clues of the cat’s presence on board. Thankfully I was not sitting close to the pet’s owner, as it was no doubt a lively ride.

I am sure the driver also appreciated the last hour or two of the trip when one of the passengers regaled all of us sitting near the front of the bus with a monologue of tales from his drug smuggling days. He was coming home to Temalaquilcingo, a pueblo outside of Olinalá, after two years of living in Sonora. The bus driver disappointed him when he said that this bus was not carrying any drugs. I was thankful. I have no idea what the driver sidekick thought of the whole scene.

Last night, on the return trip to Mexico City, I traded listening to drug smuggling stories for a lesson in swearing. The driver’s sidekick showered his speech with every profanity that I know in Spanish and many more new variations of the words and phrases. The rich vocabulary was not want expedited the trip. With three hours of highway driving remaining, the bus driver sprawled out across the first two seats, while the sidekick drove. That is why we arrived at 4am on the dot. I should mention that there was a quick and shifty change of drivers as we pulled into the station, the original driver quickly wiping sleep away from his eyes.