Every time I’ve taken a bus ride (i.e. Greyhound) I’ve felt the need to write about the experience. Today, we’re taking a bus from Sonoyta to Santa Ana, an even smaller town farther south. …
If you read the most recent post, you already know that our Weekly Standard bike team has been hamstrung. A good samaritan accidentally ran over one of our bikes, and Pablo disappeared for the entire day. Status update: We’ve sent one man back across the border to Phoenix to find a new bike, and Pablo stumbled into our motel late last night, very much alive, but moaning about a throat infection. He’d spent the day looking for a doctor’s help, traveling to different hospitals around Sonoyta. The Red Cross station turned him down, but the national Mexican doctors gave him cash and a prescription. They could find themselves in a lot of trouble for helping him, since he’s an Argentinian. Our luck must be returning.
I looked over our timetable last night and decided that, really, this little sideshow happened at the right time. We’re taking a bus to Santa Ana today, but biking there would have been impossible, crushed bike. Everyone has been telling us for days that the road ahead lacks a shoulder and is torn up with construction. Truck drivers say the mountain passes are too narrow for semis to pass each other. Two buses collided head-on last week trying to negotiate the narrow turns. The road is a mess, and so is the state of Sonora in general. The cartel has a strong presence here, and is especially fond of kidnapping people. Davi described the area as “a giant funnel for all the criminals in Central America,” and asked why I wanted to bike there anyway, “there is nothing there, man?”
Taking a bus was the right call. It’s one of many good decisions that we’ve made based on what the locals tell us. From Day 1 it’s been a staple of our routine. Every morning the council, ready to go in bike shorts, hears statements from Google Maps and maybe TripAdvisor, but by the end of the day they’ve been shouted down by half a dozen little old ladies, taco stand owners, and whoever else we’ve met and chatted with along the way. Is it dangerous in the next town? What is the highway like? Where’s the best place to eat.
Asking locals for advice has kept us well-fed, and on numerous occasions kept us safe. We had an especially close call biking out of Tijuana. The road ended in a hillside and we were preparing to carry our bikes up and over to the next street by way of a narrow staircase. A woman called to us from her backyard to tell us we were heading into a bad area and that we’d probably be mugged at the top.
We must have consulted five different people tonight before finding an outdoor grill that sells a quesadilla called a “caramelo,” and a “caramelo jumbo,” which should translate to “caramel,” and “caramel jumbo” but locally refers to some kind of steak. It was delicious. An old charro, or Mexican cowboy, serenaded the restaurant with songs from the revolution. The entire town is like that, actually. We’re staying in a little place called Magdalena, and it’s completely charming. The town is built in the Spanish style, with green central plazas surrounded by shops and restaurants on four sides. Steel pegs have been left in the ground where, once upon a time, you would have tied your horse. I’ll have more to say about Magdalena tomorrow after I’ve seen it in the light. We chose to bike the extra miles from our bus stop in Santa Ana because of the town’s political history.
How was the bus ride, you ask? It was luxurious. Cars are expensive in Mexico. In 2010, the World Bank reported that there were 275 vehicles on the road per 1,000 people (as opposed to 795 in the United States. Everyone takes the bus, and that makes for a great experience. Air-conditioning and wi-fi flowed freely. Every seat could recline. Jackie Chan’s Skiptrace with Spanish voices played throughout the ride. There may have been live music and shrimp cocktail, I can hardly remember, such was my state of rapture. Tickets for the three of us and all our gear cost us just 900 pesos ($48) but the driver took 800 and said not to worry about the rest.
There are plenty of classic American ballads written about Greyhound, heaping undeserved attention on a rabid beast that deserves to be put down. There is a Spanish song though that’s perfect for our journey, and sings of the romance in busing around northern Mexico. It’s called “Sonora Y Sus Ojos Negros”.
Like us, the singer is riding the bus to Magdalena. He’s going to visit his parents. A woman with beautiful black eyes sits next to him. They start talking. As they pass each town—Caborca, Agua Prieta, Carnanea, all places we passed today—they move closer together. By the time they reach Santa Ana, the place where the bus dropped off, she’s kissed him. He believes she was sent to him by a saint, and he sings of her beauty.
