Alternating between shade and sun at every turn in the road, we coast by broken-down houses and auto-body graveyards with our bags between our legs. We pick up more passengers, we move on... and then our tiny bus (that we picked up before crossing the border into Belize) breaks down and we shuffle our belongings - followed by Belizians, Mexicans, and a few random Dutch – onto the Belizian form of public transit: An old US public school bus, painted white. The seats are cracking at the edges and from our spot midway towards the back (between the tough kids and the nerds), we can read 3 signs in the front: “no smoking”, “All American”, and “Your Children’s SAFETY is our Business” and I can’t help but wonder: At what point exa ctly do U.S. public school districts give away their buses? And, to distract myself from the worries brought on by THAT question, why to Belize?
The ride to Belize City takes a couple hours, then we hop off and head away from the bus station to find an ATM, as we still have only Mexican Pesos (apparently useless as far as neighboring Belize is concerned). On our way, drivers stop to roll down their windows and state that the bus station is the other direction. We stand out a bit, being the only white people in the area, and the bright backpacks probably don’t help either.
We get out money (with more helpful directions from locals) and head back to the bus station to find not schedules or ticket counters, but a few rickety school buses with drivers mumbling their destinations before leaving. We search around and wait for the magic mumble “San Ignacio” before boarding. The bus drives for a couple hours, picking up some people and dropping off others until we reach the capital city of Belmopan, where the bus loads up with so many passengers that some have to stand to fit. This is apparently illeagal (though clearly noly enforced at official stations), as the driver and assistant tell everyone to sit down until we leave the station.
Many of the school bus seats (made to seat 2 children) are holding 2-3 adults, some with luggage. We have our backpacks between our knees and our side bags on our laps, and yet are joined by another passenger as we try to nonchalantly edge our way out of the station. Apparently, we are not altogether convincing. The security guard boards the bus, glances down the aisle, and tells everyone who doesn’t fit in the seats to get off the bus. This in turn leasds to a yelling match between the driver and the guard, some departures, some furtive last-minute squeezes, and one woman pretending to not understand any English. The guard repeats the request in Spanish (the woman, clearly Hispanic, continues to feign ignorance), then he directs her towards the door, barking orders at the other standers and still in a yelling match with the driver.
To add more entertainment, every time he turns his attention to the driver, a cacophany of inslulsts, hises, complaints and curses bursts out from the safely-seated passengers. He yells some more at everyone (“I am a police officer!”), turns purple, and finally writes a ticket for the driver before getting off the bus. The driver exits the parking lot, the assistant yells an obscenity at the guard, and we pick up the standing passengers a block or so down the road.
Another couple hours of lush grasslands and trees, colorful and ramshacle houses and road, and we arrive in San Ignacio. We will never look at a school bus the same way again.
P.S. Here are late photos from Palenque and Oaxaca, Mexico:
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| Palenque, Mexico |
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| Oaxaca, Mexico |
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