Modes of Transportation

1. Planes, taxis. We all know about those. Boring.
2. 1st Class Bus. We haven´t taken one of these yet, but they´re the same as those big ol´buses in the states.
3. 2nd Class Bus. This was how we arrived in Puerto Escondido. The buses range from old school buses to old Greyhound buses to old microbuses. The one we took was a ´70s era Greyhound-type bus, silver-paneled with green-tinted windows. A good number of the windows had cracks in the tinted layer, lending a spider-webby feel to the view. The driver had a little altar in the front of the bus between the two front windows, composed of a rather gorey crucifux and some brightly-colored somethings. There´s no AC, so we opened the bus windows and closed them as appropriate. People get on and off where ever they need to along the route, so it could take anywhere in the range of three hours around the scheduled time to arrive at your destination. Or, as happened on our ride, you encounter a parade along the route and have to detour around it on very narrow dirt side roads that leave about an inch on either end of the bus to turn. Occasionally people get on to sell things like empanadas, tamales, bananas (we´re pretty sure this old woman paid her bus fare in bananas) and most dramatically of all, giant fresh lobsters for 120 pesos per kilo (about 5 dollars a pound).
4. My personal favorite. Camionetas (little trucks). These are taxi collectives that are very cheap (less than a dollar a person) and drive on a certain route back and forth all day. You flag one down in your direction and hop in the back of the pickup truck. There´s two benches on the sides, and a rack on top of the cab and a big tent-shaped tarp over the top. You either ring the doorbell to signal you want to get off, or you knock on the roof of the cab. I love them! You get to ride in the back of a pickup with the wind blowing in your face and the sun shining and it´s a normal way to get around.

-Sarah