Monday, 04 October 2004 | I am the passenger

[Tizimín, Mexico]

Sometimes I like the bus ride as much as the destination. For one, it's really the only time I am doing nothing for long enough to totally absorb what's around me. I love slicing through villages like a spy, watching small huts, clotheslines, and bright concrete walls hum past. The people I see lean in door frames below, poke their heads out of cottage windows, and walk their bikes down dirt roads, unintentionally arranging themselves in the most picturesque way possible. It's so captivating that it's frustrating, because I'm never allowed to put my camera away, for fear I'll miss something. (I miss so much.)

Yesterday on the bus to Rio de Lagartos, a brother and sister kept us company by talking to Martin in lightning sentences and smiling for my camera. Once we arrived at the fishing village, we ran into them repeatedly, or, more accurately, they ran up to us repeatedly, asking to have their photo taken and handing us small, green fruit.

The bus ride from Cobá to Valladolid, a few days before, was crowded and dark, but interesting nonetheless, as we were cruising though jungle. The headlights of the bus illuminated tangled green walls for a shallow few feet on either side of the road.

Martin ended up standing somewhere in the middle of the bus, unable to see anything, but I was stuck at the very front, wedged between the glass door and an assortment of strangers. It was the best place to stand, I decided, because I could watch all one-and-a-half hours of the trip through the giant front window. Tunneling through the jungle like that was something like watching the beginning of Dr. Who.

At one point the driver pulled over for a car stranded in the nothingness and added eight people and their luggage to the platform where I was standing. Perhaps that would happen anywhere, but at the time it seemed like a particularly nice gesture. (I randomly ran into the stranded people two other times that same night, which taught me something about the size of the town and/or about the town's abundance of night life.)

I've seen two types of long-distance buses on my trip; the more common type have TVs and padded seats (which are always made of the same busy material). The second type have no TVs, slightly less comfortable seats, and open windows. I like the latter better, mostly because of the open windows, and I suppose because they're grittier and make me feel closer to the outside. (One even had a small ant problem. How much closer to the outside can you get?)

Bus drivers personalize their vehicles by decorating the front window with stickers or fringe or various other ornaments, much of it loaded with religious symbolism. They also have a tape deck within reach, one that's connected to speakers throughout the bus. They tend to play traditional Mexican music, current Mexican pop, or a variety of old American music.

The driver between Tizimín and the Cancun airport had a fondness for Michael Jackson's Thriller, which he played at least twice on the drive, though he mixed in a couple Bee-Gees songs to keep us guessing.

(By the way, I just got home.)