The eight hour journey that passed in the wink of an eye.....(23 December 2009)

….. for some. We got to the bus station an hour ahead of time – waiting rooms don’t feature here so we ended up sitting on the dusty pathway trying desperately to understand the departures information. Think of the usual British Rail incomprehensible announcements but also in Mexican accented Spanish – am sure you understand our issue! The eight hour overnight bus from Palenque to the warmer plains and Merida, some 346 miles was something like a usual British Airways flight. First of all it was late – about an hour so it was well past midnight when we left. It was quite like premium economy as the seats went back a bit further than World Traveller and the leg room wasn’t too bad. And the turbulence was so bad all the way, no drinks or anything were served! Actually there wasn’t a trolley service but it was really bumpy for the whole time, just like a bad flight. Mexican roads, even these main ones are full of potholes and speed bumps so the driver speeds up, slows down over the bumps and a mile or so later the whole thing is repeated, again and again ad infinitum…. There was one other difference to a flight too – five times during the trip, we were stopped and searched by a variety of police and army – the last stop was conducted by two army guys, complete with machine guns. One stood at the front of the bus by the driver, machine gun aloft, and the other, machine gun by his side strolled slowly up and down the bus giving us all searching looks. Oh, and to add to the disruption of the night we stopped at two other places where passengers got on and off. But the other similarity to a BA flight is that Ant slept the whole way – he always says turbulence rocks him to sleep, and that is what happened! He didn’t even wake at each search stop, so poor Gill had to cope with machine guns alone! He went to sleep before we had pulled out of Palenque bus station, woke up sleepily at the Campeche stop for at least thirty seconds, and then was finally woken at 8.15am when his watch alarm went off (it does this every day and our joint technical skills can’t sort it out…..) He sleepily turned off the alarm about thirty seconds before we turned into Merida bus station. So from now on he has no excuse to always travel business as “I won’t get any sleep in economy….” holds no water any longer. Gill on the other hand was awake all night, so now has an excuse to have to go first in future!


So we arrived safely in Merida, the cultural capital of the Yucatan peninsula. It’s Xmas eve so click this link for our Xmas greeting….. (take care it’s almost as bad as “Crazy”!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLLSxmbNtSw