Back to Mexico City

So here we are again over a month on. We took a first class pullman bus from Puebla to get here (no more 2nd class Mexican buses for us) and checked into this fine hotel. Loving the last bit of luxury before the loooooooooong long journey home tomorrow.

Bus to Puebla

There are buses every 20 minutes or so to Puebla so we didn't bother making a reservation. We heard that it only took 2 hours to get there....

It was a bank holiday so the bus station in Xalapa was busier than usual. The next first class bus with free seats wasn't for another 2 hours so we thought we'd take a second class bus. Puebla was only a short distance away and the 2nd class bus was leaving right away. It was a bit cramped, but fine until it broke down 10 minutes into the journey and for a while we contributed massively to the horrendous Xalapa traffic. The driver asked for all the "caballeros" to get off and push it off the road. David jumped up to help and I stayed behind with all the other weak women. We stood at the side of the road for a while and listened to everyone's stories. "Ive got to be in work tomorrow", "This is the last time I'm travelling AU", "Last time this happened, the replacement bus was even worse".....our replacement bus was even worse and took AGES to arrange and get going. We stopped in a place called Perote for AGES and the journey ended up taking around 5 hours. Ugh!

The journey was interesting however. Lots to look at - fields, mountains and fun things for sale along the way. More pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/jomynard/BusToPuebla

Long distance bus to Xalapa

Today we took the bus from Mexico City to Xalapa. I didn’t think it would be politically correct to joke about being held up by Mexican bandits, but our guide book (recent edition) does actually mention it as a real risk on 2^nd class busses. Fortunately, our friends told us about the deluxe “Platano” bus with a company called U.D.O. We had fond memories about long distance bus travel in Argentina on luxury buses, and were keen to ride one again in Mexico. These were even better than the Argentine ones (although perhaps they now have the extras, we haven’t been there since 2005). Lots of leg room and a leg rest, so the seat almost turns into a bed (think first class plane travel). There are also individual TV screens and remote controls and a place to plug in your laptop. No wireless like on Swedish busses though. There were loads of moves to choose from and I watched El Ilusionista and El Pianista. Yes, I did look out of the window too. It took hours to get out of D.F. (Distrito Federal), then we passed through mountains and even saw snowy peaks and a couple of volcanoes, then we saw miles of fields and then miles of stereotypical Mexican landscape: cacti. I don’t have any pictures because it was raining and I couldn’t get any good shots. Finally, we reached Xalapa with a grinding halt and then a crawl through heavy traffic. Within a few minutes of being in the town, we could tell that traffic is a problem in Xalapa.