Mexican buses

Now, some random facts about Mexican buses:
- There are first class and second class buses, and in most cities, there are also first class and second class bus stations. If you ask at the first class station if there's a cheaper bus, or even ask directly if there's a second class bus or bus station, they'll probably say "no". I lost some money because I learnt that too late. In some places there are even third class buses. 
- The first class buses are pretty good, but nothing compared to the ones in Argentina and Chile. But then again, Argentina might have the best buses in the whole world, so that's not a fair comparison.
- First class buses also often have a website with times, prices, and even the option to buy online. All of this is quite surprising, to those who got used to traveling in Latin America - in most countries in the continent that's not the case at all. It is sometimes a bit complicated to find out exactly which company goes where, and I'm not aware of a single website that has a search option for all companies in the whole country. This one is pretty good, though: http://www.ticketbus.com.mx/wtbkd/autobus.jsp
- There's also something called a colectivo, which are vans that usually go out whenever they fill up, and are run by smaller, local companies. It's sometimes cheaper and sometimes more expensive, I haven't figured out if there's a pattern.
- The local buses in most cities I've been to don't have a specific color or number to tell them apart. They just have all the different places they go to written on the windshield. It can get really confusing, and the ability to read fast, especially in the dark, is a must, because if you don't signal them to stop, they won't. 
- Surprisingly enough, even in the colectivos it seems I always get the same price as locals. Not once have I felt I was being deceived or charged tourist prices.
- In most colectivos and local buses there's the driver and the ayudante, or the guy that collects the money. A lot of times, the guy that collects the money also sits at the window and shouts the destination at people, trying to convince them to get on the bus. This is much more common in Oaxaca and Chiapas than in the rest of Mexico. Maybe it's the Guatemalan influence...
- Not to get too far ahead of myself, but man, are Mexican buses so much nicer and newer than Guatemalan ones. That's not necessarily a good thing, though. I know many a traveler that missed Guatemalan buses once they crossed over into Mexico. 
- I don't know if this is real or just a feeling, but it seems to me that in Mexico, if somebody sat next to you and then a double seat opens up, they'll move over there every time. It might be because I'm a gringo, but I'm not sure. Anyway, that struck me as different.
- As with many other things, urban public transport inside Mexico City is quite different, and it's a whole different type of mess. 
- the photo has nothing to do with buses, I know, but hey - there are tuc-tucs in Oaxaca! 

The Gaping Hole: Buenos Aires & Montevideo- May-June 2008

As I've mentioned before, I'm writing these blog posts several years after the actual trips described in them. They are heavily based on the group emails I sent back home while traveling, emails that served as a kind of travel journal for me, as well as a way to both tell my family and friends what I'm doing and showing them I'm alive and well. Now I'm faced with a bit of a problem, since I have nothing written about the end of my South American trip, which spans a month and a bit in Buenos Aires and a 1-week sidetrip to Uruguay. I don't know if I didn't write anything at the time because of the enormity and complexity of Buenos Aires - both as a city in itself and as a bundle of personal history, complications and emotions for myself - or out of simple laziness. It's probably a bit of both. What I do know is that it wasn't for lack of time; I probably had more free time in Buenos Aires than at any other point of that trip. And several long trips later, I can say that I've learned that often the relationship is an inverse one: the more free time I have, the less of it I spend writing long, detailed emails about what I'm doing.

What I will do right now, is post a combination of translations from the notebook I kept (world-famous from the FTTN sections in this blog) and my not-so-hazy (I hope) memories. I'll try to keep it relatively short...

Istanbul travel recommendations

Keeping up with a recent theme, here are some of my suggestions for a visit to Istanbul.

Maybe they're obvious, maybe not, but I’ll start by mentioning some of the main tourist attractions:
The Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet), Suleymanie Mosque, the New Mosque, and many others - all beautiful and everyone can enter freely as long as they take off their shoes and cover their legs and shoulders. Entrance during praying times might be restricted. The Turkish word for mosque is 'camii'. 

Iguazu and Esteros Del Ibera- end of April 2008

When I finally got to Iguazu, after the 24-hour bus, I went to the hostel I had booked. Yeah, I know I've said I never book hostels, but this was a special case. Everybody talks about the amazing Iguazu HI, and I was told it was the only hostel in town and that you have to book in advance. All three claims turned out to be either wrong or semi-true. It's a huge and pretty impressive hostel, probably the biggest I've been in, with a capacity for 220 people, a big pool, ping pong and pool tables, and buffet and BBQ nights. Quite good, but not really my cup of tea. I prefer the smaller places, where you actually get to meet people, instead of kinda swirling around in the general confusion. And it was a bit outside the town, so it was a little difficult to get food, which makes most people take their famous all-you-can-eat meals. Which were not bad, but relatively expensive. 

Anyway, I went to Iguazu for the falls and not the hostel, so... the falls were spectacular. I was expecting spectacular, so it kind of took the edge out of it, but it was still great- the force of it is just... it's hard to describe.

Salta & Jujuy- mid-April 2008

Salta, to my, my sister's and probably my dad's surprise, is more than a city full of Bolivian Argentinians (by the way, it's apparently legitimate to say that, since I've heard salteños joke about it themselves). It's quite a big and busy city - which surprised me - and a pretty one too. In fact, the nickname for the city is Salta La Linda, which means Pretty Salta, more or less. It has a big colonial architecture thing going, and they even have a law there that says that in some streets in the center buildings must have colonial facades (similar to the Jerusalem stone law, I guess). Most impressive, as is often the case, are the churches. It seems it's quite popular in Salta to paint the churches in strange combinations of pastel colours, usually using two main colours. There is also a nice pub & nightclub area a bit outside the center, although it's a designated night life area, so there's nothing there besides the clubs and bars. I find that a bit strange, and much prefer places to be interspersed into the "daylife" city. Other notable features are a great succession of plazas (my favorite one had a small lake with ducks and pedal boats), two pedestrian streets which are the commercial center of the town, some good museums and a nice handcraft market on Sunday.

Mendoza, San Juan and La Rioja- Mid-April 2008

From Valparaiso I continued to Mendoza. But before getting to Mendoza, there was the road there. While traveling in South America, I usually took night buses, to save on both time and money on hostels. But when he heard me mention it, the owner of the hostel forbade me to take one this time- he said it would be a great waste. And boy, was he right. The road winds up and up, almost reaching 4000m. There was one point were you look back, and I seriously think you can see the road switching back upon itself about 20 times. There are amazing mountain views, in a variety of shapes and colours, complete with icecaps and rivers flowing next to the road. The border pass was set in one of the most panoramic spots imaginable, and for about 3 seconds you can even see the Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western Hemisphere. When I got to Mendoza I found out people travel this road up to the border crossing as a day-trip, including a visit to a site called Puente Del Inca (which I didn't see).

Valparaiso- early April 2008

The day after the Villarica trek's soaked ending, I woke up thinking I was going to Mendoza, decided by midday to go to Santiago, resisted persuasions from my latest group to go to Valdivia, and ended up on the bus to Valparaiso. I had left Patagonia after about 2.5 months there. But before I reached my destination, there was an unpleasant surprise: I was careless enough to leave my camera in plain sight and fall asleep on the bus, and when I woke up it was gone. Fortunately, I had spent a good chunk of time uploading and backing up all my pictures just before boarding this bus, so nothing was lost. Except, of course, the camera itself. But I had found that camera anyway (that's a different story, though...).

Valparaiso (AKA Valpo) is probably the most “south american” city I had been to at that point: loud, busy, unorganized, blending many European/colonial, local, and just plain strange architecture styles, colourful, and most of all- full of life. It's strange that it's in Chile...

The Aysen Region- End of Feb. 2008 (2nd part)

The day after we came back from the trek, we continued up the Carretera Austral, into Coyhaique. Coyhaique is a surprisingly big city in the middle of the Aysen Region. It has around 50000 inhabitants, a couple of big-ass supermarkets, traffic lights, a big central plaza, ice cream places. Even after being told "it's a pretty big city. Much bigger than you would expect", we didn't expect it. Especially not after 4 straight towns where you could count the number of families even if you don't know what a hundred means.
I think we were caught off guard, and didn't quite know how to deal with Coyhaique. I'm not really sure what we even did there besides internet, window shopping (jeje) and eating ice cream. We were also staying with an especially apathetic (should I say passive aggressive?) family in the hospedaje (in the Aysen Region there were barely any hostels, it's mostly families who rent out rooms in their house by the night. I should write more about that later...) our first night, so we didn't enjoy it that much. But just the fact that there's a city in that setting, so cut off from the rest of Chile (the only way to get to Coyhaique without a boat/ferry ride is through Argentina) was a cool thing to see.

Public Transportation: intercity buses in Argentina and Chile

One thing that fascinates me while traveling is public transportation. In fact, it really interests me while at home, too. Exhibit A in this case would be the small short story collection I wrote about bus rides in Jerusalem (very originally named "buses"). But I digress. From time to time I will write a bit about the subject: what you use to travel in different places, how it works, who you meet, etc. So first of in this series are the intercity buses in Argentina (and Chile, which are very similar), that are, in my own humble opinion, shaped by visiting about 3% of the world (that number is completely and entirely made up...) the best in the world.