Sunday, August 05, 2007
Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido
For this part of the trip we had two options. 1st class bus costing $240mx and a 10 hour journey or second class bus costing $100 mx and a 7 hour journey with a more direct route. Any traveller with a sense of adventure would choose the second class option and that´s what we did. I´ve been on the 1st class buses here several times, but never the second class for a long journey.
1st class option gets you DVDs of some recent films, air-con, security and lots of leg room.
2nd class gets you there.
Now that is what I was thinking when I was on the bus, little did I know that things would not be so simple. Fistly as soon as we got on to the open road the old American school bus (with the leg room for a child), had a puncture. What did surprise me was the speed at which the wheel was changed. A bit further into the journey the driver stopped to put some more oil in the engine. A bit further the driver stopped to inspect the smoke coming form the side of the bus. There was of course another stop to put some more oil in the engine. After 8 hours we arrived. Well, we arrived at Pochutla, 65km from Puerto Escondido with the driver refusing to go any further. After contesting this we got $40mx back. There was two guys trying to get to Puerto as well so we shared a taxi. One of the guys was German and about at a guess 6´2´´ so I said to him to take the front seat as he had longer legs. We started moving and then the driver stopped and got out. He opened the boot and some guy put his bag in and jumped in the front on the German guy´s lap. Puerto is tropical and very sweaty, not nice. A 45 minute taxi ride had us eventually in Puerto. The taxi driver said our Hotel was just down the street. Only after asking some locals did we find out that he had droped us in the wrong place. So another taxi ride did finally get us to Hotel Buena vista.
It took some time for me to convince Lisa that the 2nd class option was the best option. Not sure how much convincing it will take in the future!
1st class option gets you DVDs of some recent films, air-con, security and lots of leg room.
2nd class gets you there.
Now that is what I was thinking when I was on the bus, little did I know that things would not be so simple. Fistly as soon as we got on to the open road the old American school bus (with the leg room for a child), had a puncture. What did surprise me was the speed at which the wheel was changed. A bit further into the journey the driver stopped to put some more oil in the engine. A bit further the driver stopped to inspect the smoke coming form the side of the bus. There was of course another stop to put some more oil in the engine. After 8 hours we arrived. Well, we arrived at Pochutla, 65km from Puerto Escondido with the driver refusing to go any further. After contesting this we got $40mx back. There was two guys trying to get to Puerto as well so we shared a taxi. One of the guys was German and about at a guess 6´2´´ so I said to him to take the front seat as he had longer legs. We started moving and then the driver stopped and got out. He opened the boot and some guy put his bag in and jumped in the front on the German guy´s lap. Puerto is tropical and very sweaty, not nice. A 45 minute taxi ride had us eventually in Puerto. The taxi driver said our Hotel was just down the street. Only after asking some locals did we find out that he had droped us in the wrong place. So another taxi ride did finally get us to Hotel Buena vista.
It took some time for me to convince Lisa that the 2nd class option was the best option. Not sure how much convincing it will take in the future!
