The Road to Puerto Escondido

Time to leave Oaxaca and head down to the Pacific. Puerto Escondido was the destination of choice as I had googled "Beach near Oaxaca", feck guidebooks. I had also read that the journey was to take 7 hours, so always one to learn quickly I arrived at the bus station at 9am with bags of crisps, chocolate bars, cake and even a red bull for good measure. I shared the bus station with a whole flock of Jehovah's Witnesses, which must have been on an annual retreat as they arrived en masse with guitars, banjos, 7 wives (sorry wrong sect) and irons (you gotta keep those short sleeved shirts neat and tidy). I joked fleetingly to no one in particular that knowing my luck I would end up sitting beside one. But they seemed all to be heading back to Mexico City.

Bus arrived punctually at 9.30 (the days of mañana, mañana are gone in modern Mexico) and I jumped on and got my seat. A couple of minutes later a lone Jehovah (complete with guitar) makes his way to the bus, says goodbye to his elder brethren and gets on. He checks his ticket and in a millisecond I realised my fate had been sealed. Yes, he grinned, walked up to me, shook my hand and sat down beside me. I was going to feign deafness, a sudden onset of Tourettes, or pretend only to speak Laotian but God (or Jehovah or Satan or whatever they worship) shone down on me and as the bus was quite empty he asked was it OK if he sat somewhere else. You have never heard such a relieved "Be my guest" in all your life.

The scenery en route was amazing as we wound our way down to the coast, more cacti than you can shake a stick at and lofty peaks reaching out as far as the eye could see. I kept myself nourished at regular intervals and was nicely stuffed when suddenly the driver pulls off the road and into this little roadside oasis of tranquillity. He then proudly announces that we have 40 minutes to eat. Sickened by this illogical twist of fate I sat down and helped myself to some ice cold Corona Mexican water. This proved to be misguided as 2 hours later when I could hold my well trained bladder no longer I had to go to the loo in the bus. The toilets themselves were fine, but imagine (well at least the men folk out there) trying to piss a litre of beer whilst a kamikaze Mexican bus driver is hurtling the bus left to right down a windy mountain road. I felt like a sock in a tumble dryer. It was not a pretty sight.

The 7 hours went by quickly and I expected to see idyllic seaside retreat at any minute. 8 hours went by and I put it down to starting late and our long lunch break. I can't remember the reason I made up for the 9th hour going by, but at this stage I was engrossed in "Sister Act" on the bus DVD player. 10 hours and I was guessing the driver had taken a wrong turn, so after 11 hours and 10 minutes (to be precise) when the bus pulled into Puerto Escondido I was passed any strong emotions and fell off the bus into a taxi and arrived at my lodgings soon after.