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Crowded Bus from Rio Dulce to Flores Guatemala
At one PM I boarded a bus from Rio Dulce bound for Flores — one tick away from Mexico. One minute later I realized that I would be riding this bus for three hours without a seat, crammed in between other unfortunate passengers without seats, resting my rump [...]
SOMEWHERE, Guatemala- 7 hours was the time it took to ride a Fuente del Norte bus from Rio Dulce, Guatemala to San Salvador.
That was six weeks ago.
Now it seems as if I have been sitting in a traffic jam for around three hours — a traffic jam out in the middle of nowhere:
The [...]
RIO DULCE, Guatemala- The town of Rio Dulce sits in the far east of Guatemala along the river of the same name. This is jungle area. I have not been to this part of Guatemala before — and when I think about it, this is the third time that I have traveled in Central America, [...]
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GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala- “Vehicular chaos,” was how the newspapers described the bus driver strike in central Guatemala that occurred last Monday morning. But the strike was more of a blockade than an actual strike. The drivers drove their colorfully painted, artfully decorated buses out to each major highway artery into Guatemala City at 4 AM [...]
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ANTIGUA, Guatemala- “They are shooting each other in San Lucas,” a travel agent spoke to me as she made phone calls trying to reroute tourists on private shuttles around the road blocks.
The bus drivers of Guatemala said Ya Basta — they did not get into their buses this morning, rather they chose to block off major roads around the country. Transportation is grinding to a halt, all of the schools are closed, Guatemala’s gears are grinding.
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ANTIGUA, Guatemala- We walked through the automatic sliding doors of the airport and into Guatemala beyond. Airport doors are like portals to other dimensions, you do not what you are going to get when walking up to them in the safe confines of the arrivals hall, and then — BANG — the doors open:
You are in another country.
Guatemala. I have been here before, in 2008.
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CAP HAITIEN, Haiti- There are two main public transport options for getting from the Dominican Republic to Haiti overland.
1. Take an express bus from either Santiago or Santo Domingo.
2. Take a local bus to the border, walk across, then find transport on the other side.
Neither option is very difficult.
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Few people who live anywhere near inhabited areas — towns and cities — seem willing to walk more than a few blocks to get to where they want to go. Instead, they take some form of public transportation.
This is almost a given in any part of the world. If you ask directions to a place [...]
A travelogue entry about taking the 9:15 AM bus from Santiago’s Metrobus station in Los Jardines to Sosua on the northern coast. The two hour ride costs 160 pesos ($4.50) as of February of 2010.
“What do you think of this place?” I asked my wife, Chaya, as she peered out the window of the sleek [...]
Bartering Prices for a Bus Ticket
Travel Tip
The following is the algorithm that I often use for negotiating bus fares in areas of the world where rampant tourism has created a double tier pricing system where locals pay one price and foreigners a higher rate.
Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In Jordan this tends to [...]
No Buses in Iraq
I left the front door of the Gara Hotel in Duhok with my full pack upon my back and Chaya at my side. We wanted to either venture north to a little mountain town called Amadiya or east to Arbil. The provincial capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Duhok, is not a big city, [...]
Bus from Antigua to Panajachel
Bought a ticket on a tourist shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel, Guatemala. 30 quetzales (around $4) is the cost for this two hour voyage from the Universal Travel Agency in Antigua. This is a little more money than I would like to pay, but it is not bad. If it was [...]
Nicaragua North of Managua
Old women with heads wrapped in bright colored scarfs smile toothless smiles from the backs of pickup trucks. Another woman who is all wrinkles from stem to stern tries to sell me fried goods from the window of my bus. I am riding through the Northern Nicaraguan countryside and the morning sun [...]
Tica Bus to Managua
Getting near the lee side of a Tica Bus journey to Honduras. In Managua. This is the third time that I have been in this city. The first time I had nothing to gauge it off of because it was my first stop in Nicaragua, the second time I thought it was [...]
Going to Honduras
I am now back in Costa Rica after five days in Panama. It was a good swing down there. Glad I went. Now I am getting ready to go to Honduras. I got on an archaeology project at Copan. I am going to try to make it there in one clean swoop, so [...]
Tica Bus to Panama City
Rode the Tica Bus from San Jose, Costa Rica to Panama City yesterday. Good ride. Comfortable bus service. I wrote Travel Tip #6- Avoid International Bus and Train Services earlier to warn against the economic disadvantage of taking international bus services, but I found that these quick, direct buses in Central [...]
Travel Tip #6- Avoid International Bus and Train Services
Sometimes, while traveling, you just want to cross a horizon in one foul swoop, and quickly get from one country to another. In many large cities and prime tourist locations there are buses and trains companies which cater to this desire by offering services that cross international [...]
To PortugalLisbon, PortugalOctober 2007Homepage: http://canciondelvagabundo.googlepages.com
Arriving by sea to Spain from Morocco only presented me with one real option: Go to Portugal. I had previously traveled in the north of Spain and I did not visit Portugal. I feared that if I were to travel across the Spanish Mediterranean after not finding a strong [...]