Friday, February 26, 2010

Da Bus


9:50 Huana Cao Zip line tour.

Like a stupid Canadian (and I wasn’t the only one), I showed up at 9:45. Already waiting were 2 couples, one family of 5 and a group of indo-Canadians, three girls, one guy, mid twenties. Ha!

Bus came at 10:20.

Late, even by Mexican standards.

When the bus pulled up, I was the only one to smile. It was a regular bus, dirty white and green, with unwashed windows, some tinted, some not, and an engine that sounded like something you here in the WW2 movies when the big trucks grind their way uphill. Inside it was worse, with broken seats, darkened air conditioning vents that long ago had stopped working and odd lights that looked like nozzles to spray fire retardant or something. The seats were threadbare and already three quarters filled with people going on the tour.

I snagged a good seat while the rest of the my peps filed in. “What a piece of shit bus,” one said but I thought, yes, exactly, how cool is that? Welcome to the real Mexico. No A/C. No suspension as far as I could tell and windows so dirty, you couldn’t see out.

Way more fun. (Though it is odd to realize how Margot-positive I was in the beginning of this trip.)

The drive to the next resort was painful as the driver drove agonizingly slowly along the speed-bumped resort roads, each bump spine-jarring. I felt bad for the people who had to sit in broken seats but hey, I had to sit beside a swarthy fellow who kept trying to speak Spanish to me. Nice guy, probably nice as hell, but I kept having to turn, shrug and say, errr, no hablas that espagnol. It never stopped him though so I just did a lot of head bobbing and nodding and smiling. Later, I think I found out why he was so friendly.

Also on the bus was a fellow who had no neck. He sat in front of me, perhaps 5’6” tall, easily a good 250 pounds with neck fat rolled up onto the back of his shaved head.

Now I know I’ve written about guys with no neck but to actually see one was quite something. He had a HUGE head for one thing but at the jaw line, his neck was so thick and fat, it flowed into this shoulders seamlessly. 360. Front, back, sides. All flowed right into his torso. When he turned his head, his neck gathered up like a thick blanket but still it looked like his neck was part of his head.

Now, there are some people I take an instant liking to. Dunno why. Sean was one. Nissa. Bruce and Lil. Others. Then there are people I take an instant dislike to. Dunno why either. The no-neck guy I took an instant dislike to the moment he began complaining about fucking everything. Now he wasn’t the only one so why I decided to not like him is the mystery, why not dislike the kid behind me who said the same thing or the *nice* Mexican fellow beside me?

But dislike him I did. He had a big voice that filled the entire bus and he talked the whole way there, why truck drivers matter in the world, why he hates this and that, how he had been told one price for this tour and now they were trying to rip him off (again, which might have been true but drove me nuts). However, I am not one to confront a hefty no-neck and tell him to shut the fuck up so I leaned back, nodded at my Mexican friend who was trying to point out something on the side of the road and listened to other people.

Beside, me, one seat back on one of the broken seats, was a young boy, perhaps 12, who looked like he was on a bus to Dachau. After the operator explained what we were to expect and how safe it all was, he walked up and down the bus and asked if there were any questions. The boy raised his hand. The operator came over.

“What if something falls off?” the boy asked in a shaky voice.
“Like what, amigo? You?”
“No. No. Not me. What if, like, my sunglasses fall off?”
“Then they are gone.”
“Oh.”
“And what happens if you get stuck in the middle and you can’t get back?”
“Then we come and get you, amigo, don’t worry.”
“But what if it’s really far?”
“Then we go really far to get you. This is not our first time.”
The boy looked at the seat in front of him, then down. “Has anyone even fallen?”
“Not one person. Do not worry. Safety is very important to us. You will be fine.”
“Ok.” But it looked like the boy (Jesse) was not convinced. He chewed on his lower lip, turned to stare out the dirty window and, I think, imagined all the horrors awaiting him. Poor kid.

Thing is, he was not alone. After listening to all the safety issues we had to be aware of, a lot of us were rethinking the wisdom of this adventure.

(the picture is of the bus, looked worse the closer one got.)

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