Ruminations of an Expatriate

You may remember that my report of my visit to La Casa de Mezcal included a report of my encounter with Christopher, 27, who plays trumpet in a “banda” and his buddy Marcos, 21, who is stationed with the Mexican military in Chihuahua. Both fellows are from the pueblo of San Pedro San Pablo Ayutla, about a four hour bus ride through the mountains, pretty much due East from Oaxaca, where they had invited me to visit.

So on the morning of Monday, January 21, I arose early; enjoyed a breakfast of a tamale Oaxaquenos, juice, coffee, and bread; and walked the eight or so blocks to, what the locals refer to, the “second class” bus station. And the place is a riot.

The station, from which locals depart for an amazing variety of destinations, is constructed in a huge semi-circle, with ticket booths arrayed along the outside of the arc corresponding to departure points arrayed along the inside of the arc. The bus yard, through which I walked to reach the station, is unpaved, quite rough, and dusty. There were a number of pretty rugged looking dogs foraging through the lot.

There are in the station a number of shops, food vendors, and even an internet cafe. There were a number of fellows at each gate hollering out the destinations served from their gate. Everyone was friendly and helpful.

Entering the station I made my way from ticket booth to ticket booth asking for directions to the one serving the Ayutla route, which I eventually encountered. I bought my ticket and went out onto the platform to await the bus to wait with others.

There was a very friendly fellow waiting next to me, with a new chainsaw, who was returning to his home pueblo, beyond Ayutla. He works in the forest and uses the chainsaw to cut boards from the log, he cuts, I discovered after striking up a conversation. There was also a fellow that drug a queen sized mattress onto the platform, which fortunately did not go into the bus which I eventually boarded. With the exception of one young fellow, none of the other waiting passengers reached my shoulder in their heights.

The bus arrived fifteen or so minutes late and within five minutes of frenzied action everyone had their bagged stowed and was seated in their assigned seats. Larger baggage items were loaded at the rear, through what you would probably know as the emergency exit of a school bus, with the largest items hoisted onto and lashed to a large luggage rack on top. It was a riot.

Those who know me, know that this is the type of authentic travel experience I particularly enjoy.

During the few minutes before the bus departed a fellow boarded to sell small plastic jars of cream he claimed would relieve pain and cure just about any other ailment. I asked if the cream would help chapped lips, to which he responded “claro” (of course). I bought a jar for $10 pesos and slathered a bit on my lips, chapped, I assumed, by the dry air. Only after the application did I read the list of ingredients, which included, amongst other constituents, coyote fat. The green hued cream was effective.

The bus traveled along the floor of the valley within which Oaxaca resides through Mitla and then began its winding climb into the mountains on a two lane, modern quite smooth roadway. The surrounding hillsides remained quite arid until perhaps a half hour out of Ayutla when Pine forest became increasingly dense. The hills surrounding Ayutla are entirely forested and the vistas from Ayutla are stunning.

A bit before Ayutla the bus pulled into a Pemex station and I saw my opportunity to use a bathroom. The driver and attendant assured me I had the time. While exiting the bathroom I heard the bus horn blast and saw the bus pulling out. I ran and jumped onto to the platform of the moving bus. When I arrived at my seat I encountered a very sweet looking girl, of about nine years I supposed, occupying my seat and looking up at me with a very sweet smile. I grabbed my bag, assured the girl’s father that there was no problem, and moved to the very back of the bus where there was an available seat next to the chainsaw owner.

To get there I had to climbed over five bags of something lined up in the aisle which had come aboard with an older gentlemen maybe twenty minutes earlier. I had been in the seat only a few minutes when the bus stopped again to disgorge a couple of passengers and to take on an older gentleman, and older woman and a younger woman. There being no seat for the older gentleman, I got up, crawled over the top of the bags in the aisle, gave up my seat to the older fellow, and spent the remaining fifteen of the trip standing in aisle.

Arriving in Ayutla the bus attendant and the chain saw fellow both informed me that I had arrived at my destination. I disembarked to encounter a couple fellows loading metal onto a pickup and asked where I might find a restaurant. They pointed to my immediate right to a bar. I ascended two stories to a bar with stunning views of the mountains, ordered a beer, and asked the young attendant where I might find accommodations. He directed me to “centro”.

I finished my beers and headed off toward “centro”, which consists of a few stores and a few cocinas, into one of which I stopped for three beef tacos and an orange soda. The friendly woman staffing the cocina directed me to the town’s three hotels, and that’s using the term “hotel” extremely loosely.

I rented a room at the hotel I judged had the nicest views. The room, with the bathrooms around the corner,was $80 pesos, which I can say is the cheapest room I’ve ever rented. I rented a room in a flop house in Denver in 1977, to take a break from my cross country freight train trip, for $5 USA, the story of which I will spare you; but adjusting for inflation I assume the price today would be equivalent to more than $80 pesos.

Later I walked back toward centro to a restaurant/bar I had seen on the way to the hotel. It was a wonderfully decorated place with very good food and great, friendly service. The menu included fresh, locally grown trout.

Unable to contact the fellows I’d met in Oaxaca, owing to a lack of cellular service in the area, I arose early the next morning, having learned the day before the “cooperativo” left for Oaxaca at 6:00 AM and 1:00 PM. I walked down the hill from the hotel and as soon as I hit the main road along came a cooperativo (a Dodge van). I hollered “Oaxaca”, the driver pulled over, confirmed that I wished to go to Oaxaca, loaded my bag in the back, and directed me to the one remaining seat in the very back. The van contained about ten sleeping folks. About four hours latter we arrived in Oaxaca.

Ayutla is a dusty little burg straddling the roadway snaking through the mountains; and other than the grand mountain vistas, and the great restaurant, and its friendly inhabitants, in my judgment, it has little to recommend itself. But traveling there and back was a grand adventure.

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