Ginger: Adventure on the road

A leisurely morning and enjoying our luxurious, huge rooms in the CasaReina in Puebla.

A walk to the zoocolo. Lots of baroque churches in this area! All a little different and beautiful. The cathedral in Puebla is very similar to the one in Mexico city but about ¾ scale. Beautiful tiles inside.

We walk back to the hotel to collect our suitcases and take 2 taxis to the bus station. The bus system in Mexico is efficient and reasonable. I wish that we had an equally good system in the States! We buy some sandwiches, chips and drink to take with us. The schedule says that it is about a 4 hour drive. We settle in and off we go. The bus is comfortable, the scenery is majestic. A little too cloudy to see the Pica de Orizaba, the highest point in Mexico.

All is fine but in the back of our minds is a comment that we overheard to the bus driver as we got on the bus. “There may be a blockade on the road to Oaxaca.” Well, our 4 hour trip turned into a 21 hour adventure. About an hour outside of Oaxaca, the bus came to a stop. Buses and trucks were all stopped, snaking along the road as far as one could see. Different stories about if it was a teacher strike or something about the town and building a hospital. Whatever it was, we weren’t going anywhere! We wait an hour. We wait another hour. Everyone on the bus is very accepting and quietly chatting, taking a stroll, sleeping. Another hour. Ah! We're moving! Traffic is coming from the other direction! All is looking good. Oh dear, after about 10 km, we stop again. Starting to get dark. Surely, they will get tired and go home and we can continue. Another hour.

We make friends.

Looks like we will be there all night! I pull out a bag of nuts that I had in purse for I didn’t know what. We have some sweets that we’d gotten along the way. Another hour. Still no movement. In the middle of the night, Juan and a few others walk down the road to where the road block is. The protestors plan to be there until their demands are met. Hmmm. This could be days, weeks…….

About half of the people on the bus decide to walk and catch a taxi on the other side. We decide to wait until daylight.

A nice sunrise on a pretty, pastoral scene with a line of trucks and buses as far as the eye can see. The bus has been able to move us a bit so our walk is a little shorter (about 300 meters).

We pass a bus and semi truck placed across the road which makes a very effective road block! There is a gas station at this point and we are able to get 2 taxis to take us the rest of the way to Oaxaca.

We never felt any danger but it was a big inconvenience and they certainly didn’t win any friends or sympathy with us!

We arrived at our hotel in Oaxaca about 10 in the morning. I had called the hotel so they knew we were stuck on the bus over night. Since we didn’t make it, they didn’t charge us for the night and had our rooms ready for us and greeted us warmly.

A quick check-in and off to get some breakfast. Oh, it is nice to be off that bus!!! After breakfast, a quick orientation to the area around the hotel and now it is time to sleep horizontally!