Are you considering going traveling or taking a gap year in Mexico? Thinking about getting around on the cheap with public transport? Here’s what you need to know.
I have discovered a latent super power I didn’t know I possessed. I attract uncomfortable situations in confined spaces when I travel. How did I discover this amazing ability you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. I started this post off as a review of how to travel by bus in Mexico, but somewhere along the line it turned into an enlightening discovery of my unfortunate super ability…
As I write this my wife and I are sitting in a spacious air conditioned cabin of an ETN bus. Our feet are up, a disturbing Spanish dubbed movie is playing, and our complimentary drink and sandwich sit within arms reach. The bus is weaving its way down the twisting and nauseating roads that mark the trip from Puerto Vallarta to Manzanillo. Behind us two very drunk men are making a valid attempt at drowning themselves in can after can of beer. They have been traveling by bus since Tijuana, and from the belches, moans, shouted conversation, and cigarette stench I believe they have been drinking and smoking all the way. Oh the joys of traveling by bus.
Don’t get me wrong, traveling by bus is a great way to get around in Mexico. We are returning home from the Puerto Vallarta airport on the ETN bus line. The station, which is a short 10 minute taxi ride from the airport, has everything you’d expect to see in an airport terminal: Restaurants, liquor store, kitschy gift shop, cigarette dispensers… everything you need to make a bus trip just fly by. The bus itself is exceedingly comfortable. Footrests, plenty of legroom, air conditioning, what more could a person want?
The tickets to ride from Manzanillo to Puerto Vallarta are very reasonable, the price is $270 pesos (roughly $25 USD) and the trip takes about 5 hours. For me, as you will see, this trip will be a very long five hours. There are cheaper bus lines to take, but for a bit more ETN offers a quality and relatively comfortable ride. If only they’d screen their passengers a little. We chose to fly out of PV because tickets to the States were markedly cheaper, in the range of $100-$150 USD less. For the price of the gas we would have spent, my wife and I were able to ride cheaply and stress free to and from Puerto Vallarta.
The only problem is I can’t look down, or read a book, for fear of loosing my lunch as the bus winds its way down the twisty roads. I can’t sleep either, my new best friends behind me apparently are chatty drunks. Freddy speaks English, oh boy, and his friend is Ricardo. Freddy tells me this is his first time back to Manzanillo in 11 years, he and his friend have been traveling for days from LA. Freddy says this as he belches politely and blows it in my ear. “You ever seen a tornado?” I shake my head. “I have… bleeped crazy man…” and he goes on to recount just how crazy and stressful it was for him. I am inclined to agree because it makes him crack open another beer, one for each hand now. Silently I hope that maybe two beers will keep his mouth too occupied to speak. No such luck.
“What’s your name again?” he asks for the fifth time.
“Stephen” I tell him… for the fifth time.
“Oh ok… so Sam, when was the last time you were here?” I gently remind him for the third time that I live in Manzanillo, while trying to pretend like I am asleep so he will stop talking to me. He doesn’t pick up on the hint and belches in my ear again to prove it. “Oh right you so you must be like… visiting or something?” I had a feeling I could tell him I was the president of Mexico and he wouldn’t know the difference. “How old are you?” he pushes.
“24″
“Wow, you would have been like…” he pauses and counts in his head (his fingers are currently busy holding two beers steady) “you would have been like three years old when I left 11 years ago. Crazy man…” The math didn’t quite add up, but I wasn’t about to correct him. At this point he gets up to relieve himself and have a smoke. In the back of the bus. With children onboard. Filling the whole cabin with his fumes. One of the other fathers gets up angrily and shouts at Freddy, a bit of angry Spanish ensues, and the father ends up sitting back down with his family shaking his head in frustration. Eventually my pal comes back and passes out finally. Now I only have to listen to his drunken snores, his putrid farts, and occasional inebriated shout from whatever he is dreaming about.
This isn’t my first encounter with overly friendly drunk men while traveling on confined spaces. Situations like this have happened four of the past five times I’ve traveled as my lovely wife politely reminds me, while her electric blue eyes shoot angry laser beams. I’m starting to realize this must be my super power. My lovely wife, patient girl that she has been throughout all of these encounters, then very sweetly swears she will never travel with me again. I don’t blame her.
The ETN offices are right off the main boulevard next to HSBC bank in the Salagua area of Manzanillo. If you are nervous about driving in Mexico, or you need to get somewhere and don’t have a car I would recommend looking into a bus. They can be a comfortable and easy way to get around. Just be sure you have plenty to distract you on the long rides, and pray you don’t have my, um, talent.
Apparently one of Freddy’s dreams became too intense for him. With a scream and a kick to the back of my chair he comes out of it. I hear the familiar hiss of compressed air being released as another beer is liberated, followed by a belch and a sigh of relief. I smell his breath next to me, “Hey, what’s your name again?” he asks. That’s six, and I’ve got three hours left on this bus. Nobody said being a super hero would be easy…