blog.fogel.ca

Over the last week, I’ve spent some 40 hours traveling over 2,000 km (so is that 2 Mm??) across Egypt on various buses. Seven rides, three of them overnight.

Just like in Mexico, buses (along with mini-buses too – private vans that follow predefined routes but leave only once adequately full) are the de facto method of long-distance travel Egypt. Every time, me, and every other person (90% men, women are always either accompanied by children or men) on the bus are hoping to double our fun by getting a full half-row to ourselves. I got rejected six of seven times. Six random Egyptian men I got my shoulder snuggle on with for 3-10 hours. It’s kinda like getting your shoulder snuggle on with somebody on Muni or BART – but Egyptians don’t wiggle so much or get awkward about it. They’re old pros at the shoulder snuggle.

Me: “¿A donde va este camión?”

Dude: “México.”

Me: uhhhhh….. that’s funny, I thought I made it to Mexico a few weeks ago.

Yeah, it’s definitely confusing at first. In Mexico, Mexico City is usually referred to as just “México”. I was ready for “La Cuidad” or “D. F.”, but noooooo…. Contextual speech processing is difficult when you you’re picking up maybe a third of what’s going on around you.

Anyway, Mexico City is the second largest aggregation of brainy bipeds to happen, well, in the history of our planet. And given that intelligent life looks like a pretty rare occurrence in this whole ‘universe’ thing, Mexico City may be the second largest, most complex self-sustaining (on the timescale of years) physically localized reaction/interaction/resonance of energy/matter to have occurred ever, and perhaps ever will. And that would, in my opinion, make it a ‘big deal’.

The bus from Acapulco to Mexico City passes through some of Mexico’s most beautiful countryside. The toll highway is completely spotless. It’s landscaped for hundreds of miles, there are tunnels galore, and perfect pavement. You won’t find a road this nice in California. I continue to be amazed at how unbalanced Mexico is… why the F is this highway perfect when just yesterday in downtown Acapulco I was walking by people (literally) decaying on the street? Arg. Anyway, it’s hard to get good scenery pictures with an iPhone, but the countryside is so beautiful that I did get one to come out. This is a random hill…

The highway also went by the tallest mountain I’ve seen in my life thus far, Popocatépetl. It’s hard to see in this picture, but Popocatépetl is there in the background, sitting tall at 5,452m (17,887 ft):

¡Y México (D.F.)! Believe it or not, I only got one picture in Mexico City. This is the National Palace from the Zócalo, at night.

No pictures, but the Mexico City metro is pretty awesome. It doesn’t compare to NYC’s though. It’s pretty much like any other metro in the US of A, except one distinction. There’s nobody asking for change. No beggars. Instead of beggars, the ‘bums’ walk up and down the cars trying to sell stuff. Gum, cd’s, tamales… I wonder if that’s because people won’t give change away, or if it’s because people are too embarrassed to beg, or what? Well, for whatever reason, if you go up the Pacific coast to one of the richest cities in the world you’ll find some 5-10 thousand people asking you for change. Say what? Something doesn’t match up here.

The main thing that struck me about Mexico City… I was expecting more of a New York experience. Mexico City is really nothing like New York. There’s many more people in Mexico City, but it doesn’t achieve the densities you find in Manhattan. The streets are definitely paved and functional, and there are occasional skyscrapers, but nothing like the land of 50+ stories you find in Midtown. Apparently Mexico City’s got money now, but that’s a relatively new occurrence, and I guess time’s still needed for the infrastructure to catch up.

A bunch of bus!

Manzanillo is down on the pacific coast a little south of Guadalajara. The trip from Guadalajara down to Manzanillo is mostly surrounded by fields of blue agave, aka Tequila in plant form.

It actually did rain for a few seconds along the way too – that’s one day with rain per three weeks. Not bad.

Manzanillo is now the busiest port in Mexico, passing up Veracruz a few years ago. Even so – the port looks like a little toy compared to Oakland’s monstrous shipyard. 4 big cranes in Manzanillo… maybe 20 in Oakland? Manzanillo is centered around it’s seaside zócalo with a big metal swordfish.

Manzanillo didn’t feel very gringo-friendly, I think it’s because it’s really an industrial port city at heart – and proud of it. I took off for Acapulco the next morning. 12 more hours of bus down the side of the big beautiful pacific to Acapulco. The highway was slow and windy, lots of military checkpoints, small villages lacking basic infrastructure, and… miles and miles of stunning, deserted, secluded beaches.

And Acapulco! The first thing you notice about Acapulco is the taxis. The whole city is literally covered with little Volkswagen Bug taxis.

Acapulco’s central zócalo….

The bay of Acapulco is beautiful, even if it smells bad. The mountains nestle right down to the water – a truly beautiful city (from far away).

Acapulco from up close… being blunt, Acapulco is the filthiest, most polluted, most depressing, most crime ridden place I’ve ever experienced in my life. I have a completely new perspective on West Oakland. You think you’re hardcore? In downtown Acapulco, the bums have are literally rotting away on the street. The air is thick with diesel smog. The water is brown. Sewage. Insects. The very first guy I talked to, a taxi driver in the bus terminal, was selling cocaine. Everyone up here in the Bay Area, everyone from the prostitutes in the Tenderloin through the crackheads and gangbangers up and down Oakland’s International Boulevard – we’ve still got our basic needs covered at a level that the general population in Acapulco can’t assume. We have clean water. We have clear air. We have a functional sewage system. Our bums survive. We have welfare. Social Security. I don’t want to say we’re pampered, because that implies that we’re soft, and have something to be ashamed of because we’ve managed to get our basic needs under control. But we do need to realize and remember that even though there is significant variance in the level of privilege we’re born into in the first world, from the perspective of the other 4 billion, we’re really all one and the same. There’s a lot wrong with our society in the States, there’s a lot to work on and a lot to change, but it’s essential to remember how much we’ve done that’s right. There’s a level of pride in the States that’s warranted by our successful creation of community… but yet for some reason doesn’t exist. Keep working to improve, but allow ourselves to recognize and celebrate good we’ve created! </rant>

In Mexico, they take the bus like Americans take the plane. It’s the defacto intercity mode of transportation. But these aren’t like greyhounds or Muni. In Mexico they have three strata of bus travel.

1. Ejectivo. Super special. You’ve got the whole flight attendant type helper going up and down the isles, super deluxe chairs, bathroom on board, movies etc. This is a plane on wheels. Minimal stops.
2. Premerio Clase. This is your standard long-distance fare. They’ve got a bathroom on board, (bad) movies playing, will take the toll roads, stop in most towns along the route. Any place over say 5k people will be served by a first class bus.
3. Segundo Clase. This is the bus that avoids the toll roads, has no bathroom, and will stop wherever people want to get on or off. Well, ’stop’ is relative. The driver will slow down, appraise your physical ability, open the door, then either let you jump on the moving bus or if you look like you’re already starting to decompose, actually stop for you.

If the Primero Clase is 5 bucks an hour, the Ejectivo will be 8 and the Segundo Clase will be 4. Primero Clase is your sweet spot.

I took ABC (Autotrasportes de Baja California) from the central station in TJ to the central station in La Paz. 24 hour ride, but sooooo much more comfortable than the 10 hours from SF to SD. Two drivers, they’d switch back and forth so we could keep going 24/7. I actually got to La Paz rested and ready to go.

Baja’s for the most part what you’d expect: desert. The most treasured resource is shade. Catus everywhere. There are some dusty pines up at the higher elevations along the ridge, and it does get quite cold, but for the most part it’s hot hot hot (it’s hitting 90F and this is november).

One bad characteristic photo of what baja looks like out a bus window:

I didn’t have more than 15 min to get out of the bus along route. If there was anywhere I’d have liked to have more time in it’d be Mulegé.

I’m going to do a few short catch-up posts here. Warning: all photos were taken with iphone! you have been warned.

Megabus is a British company that just started running some medium-distance buses around the west coast. All routes start or end in LA. Their whole deal is the $1 fare. The first 3 or so seats on each bus are sold for a buck each. Nice! I bought my tickets a week in advance, it was $28 bucks SF->LA, then another $5 for LA->SD. I left SF at midnight on wednesday, got to SD at 10AM the next day. Definitely not worth it… take southwest. But this trip’s got a land travel theme to it…

San Diego is a much more of a city than I had thought. It’s not just a suburban desert, there’s a small but lively downtown peppered with new development. I stayed at HI SD Downtown, it’s right in the heart of things. Wandering around SD I ran into the Midway…

The Midway rocks. USA’s every-record-in-the-books carrier, it went into service in WWII and continued all the way into Desert Storm. Airplane buffs out there, what’s this one?

Finally, if you’re in SD, the local brew is Rock Bottom. The brewery is very friendly, lively, a good place to stop by to grab a drink.