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Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Inland Trip Notes (Part 1 of 5)

7 March 2006
Barra de Navidad

We're back on the boat in the lagoon after our first bus trip to some inland cities here in Mexico. These are some miscellaneous notes regarding the trip in general. The entire report contains more detail than most of you are interested in, but I'm writing it both for our benefit and for those cruisers who plan to make a similar trip.

We used "The Rough Guide to Mexico" (July, 2004 edition) and a January, 2006 trip report from S/V Secret O' Life as our references. As to be expected there were several errors and/or outdated info regarding hotels/restaurants in the Rough Guide (RG).

We made no reservations for bus travel or hotel stays. We did usually remember to check the bus schedules for our return leg when we arrived in a city, but for the most part we were just very lucky with our connections. I reviewed hotels listed in the RG, and had an order of preference based on price, description, and location before we arrived in each city.

The buses we took were all varying degrees of First class service. When we looked into Second class service it seemed to take about a third longer (e.g., a four hour trip on First would take six hours on Second), for only three to six dollars less per person. A "stewardess" gave us a snack (usually something a step below airline food) and our choice of a drink (bottle of water or can of soda) as we boarded each long distance bus. These are very comfortable buses with bathrooms and movies, think about the fancy tour busses you see running around popular tourist cities in the US. Much nicer than Greyhound. All the movies shown were dubbed in Spanish.

We tried to keep hotel costs to a minimum without staying in flea bags. Asking to see the room before committing to payment is very important! Rooms with a single bed ("matrimonial" - a small double-sized bed) were cheaper than those with two. The beds were usually hard, often with lumpy pillows. No room was without its faults but we planned to spend most of our time out touring and mostly wanted a place to sleep and shower. When we had TV it was never satellite (local broadcast stations in Spanish only). No room came with wash cloths, only one came with a hand towel, and all included a small bar of soap. We usually paid only one night at a time with the understanding that we might want to stay over another night and would let them know in the morning. This way we could move to another hotel if we wanted to.

All of our transactions were conducted in Spanish. I don't recall speaking English to locals during the trip.

The prices noted include tips where applicable.

We ate a lot of street food because we happen to like it and because it's inexpensive. I don't recall any particularly memorable meals during this trip probably because we deliberately kept them simple. I found the chilaquiles (usually one of my favorites) to be wetter than on the Baja which I didn't care for.

We were unprepared for the high elevations of Guadalajara and Guanajuato, and had some trouble with the extremely dry climate. We tired more easily, and woke up every morning with a sore throat. Next time I would take a saline nasal spray and eye drops. The good thing is that my hair wasn't frizzy and we never felt sticky.

We traveled with a normal sized ("school") backpack each, fanny packs, and my small canvas shopping bag. John could get away with shorts for the bus rides or during the day, but he always changed to slacks at night and I never wore anything but the latter. This was a wise move since no one except children wore shorts in any inland city.

Expenses Summary (six night/seven day trip for two; averaging the peso at 10.5 to the dollar):

Transportation (all buses): 2,023 pesos ($193)
Lodging (6 hotel nights): 1,950 pesos ($186)
Meals/Snacks/Drinks: 1,526 pesos ($145)
Total: 5,499 pesos ($524)
Approximate number of hours spent on bus travel (local and long distance): 24