Public Transport

Ola Amigo’s, All right chaps!

For those that don’t know once I finished my year living as a bit of an embarrassment to England in New York, Luce and I spent two weeks travelling the West Coast of the States, taking in Vegas, San Diego, LA, Santa Barbara, and San Fran and six weeks knocking about Central America; starting in Mexico (Cancun, culture), finishing in Costa Rica (costa lotta) and taking in Guatemala (did a bit with orphans, don’t like to talk about it), Honduras (excuse me, do you know Wilson Palacios?), Nicaragua (easy for you to say) and El Salvador (nearly died in a freak surfing incident) along the way.

Anyway we’re back now and I’ve got a lot of rubbish to talk so if you don’t mind I’ll crack on. I hope you enjoy reading about my misfortune.

After a brilliant time in Vegas (second best place in the world, hasn’t got a c0ck statue so Basingstoke still pips it) we boarded the infamous greyhound bus for a ten hour journey through the dessert too San Diego. We’d heard the horror stories about a man who was high on drugs decapitating someone whilst they slept because he thought they were out to get him (got to be a myth, you’d definitely wake up). Never the less with this in mind and as a heavy sleeper we decided to rush on the bus and get the seat by the toilet.

No-one wants to sit by the toilet so it’s the safest spot on the bus. Every time someone went to the toilet, part of me grimaced with fear of what was to come and part of me thanked them for saving my life. The more it smelt the further away the nutter’s moved.

Good seats, more leg-room and pleasant aroma equals decapitated whilst sleeping.

Bad seats, no leg room and terrible stench equals sweet dreams son, you should wake up with a head.

Luce was initially a bit disgruntled by this clear logic but she was soon thanking me and every toilet goer when after two hours of two women talking to them self constantly we pulled up outside a prison and picked up 10 new releases. On they hopped happy as Larry and started openly chatting about what they were all in for.

The fella sitting directly in front of me said murder and the fella opposite proudly stated attempted murder. I got straight up and moved to the other side of the bus. Luce said where you going? I said at least he f4cked his up. We’re safer here.

Then the fella in front of us started talking about fraud so I moved again. Luce really fed up with moving said why are you moving now? I said, he’s probably a murderer, the cheeky lil fraudster. Shrewd advice, Luce took it on board.

After another couple of hours of people either talking about murder or to them self, we had a welcome break. Completely different kettle of fish to our welcome breaks though. This one was full of nutter’s, should have been called prison break. Weird little town. We had to change buses so had to wait at a bus station in the middle of the dessert for over an hour. The Hills Have Eyes was a documentary.

There was an ugly woman dancing and singing inside so we decided to wait outside. Straight away we were approached by a fat ugly man (probably related to the ugly dancing woman) asking us to look after his dog while he went inside, he didn’t wait for an answer and went straight in. Before he’d said hello to his sister the dog was gone. Luce was panicking; I said he’ll probably forget he had a dog. Straight up, he walked straight out, lead in his hand, dog nowhere to be seen.

Next thing I know I turn to Luce and she’s repeatedly hitting herself with a bottle of ginger ale.

‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m trying to look mental’
‘Why?’
‘Then no-one will bother us, we got told to do it in our health and safety talk’

So I went inside and started dancing with dog mans sister.

Having survived the greyhounds with all body parts intact we moved onto Central America. The cheapest mode of transport is the oddly named chicken bus. I initially thought it was called the chicken bus in a copycat of the state side greyhound buses. But I did wonder why they didn’t go for lion bus or dinosaur bus in an anything you can do we can do better jibe to their neighbours. I thought chicken bus was a bit weak.

Anyway it turns out it wasn’t that. It was because chickens actually ride on the bus. Not on their own, they couldn’t reach over the counter to pay but with their owners. Everyone has a chicken and they don’t let them out their sight. The film Borat was spot on, you can learn a lot from film. Not just chickens though. Chickens, dogs, cows all welcome, no-one batted an eyelid. Talking of bats… Nah I’m joking, there were no bats, it was too damp. Didn’t see any sheep either, think they’re baaared. At times I thought I was on Noah’s ark. A horse tried to get on at one stop but luckily the driver said nay. That would have been ridiculous. It was silly at times, I don’t want to milk it but we shared one journey with a cow, I had to ask him to moooooove over; seat hoggers. Every time he sat down it rained, he was a nightmare.

In addition to this madness, humans got on and tried to sell you stuff. Fine as a concept but the product selection was awful. If I was selling to people on a long haul bus journey I’d go for your top sellers, bottled drinks and handy snacks and maybe throw in a couple of wild cards like cushions or a pack of top trumps. Not saying I’m right, I’m open to suggestions but they went for toothbrushes and water in a bag, which in its self is a rubbish idea. It’s essentially a water bomb and if you get on the school bus you’re soon wishing you were sat back next to a cow rather than opposite a thirteen year old with a water bomb.

As for seatbelts, they’ve had a go. They’re not quite there yet but they’ve tried. The problem they’ve got is as a first attempt they’ve gone for Velcro. Which is about as useful as when Lucy decided to buy some apples for the hobo’s in San Fran then realised when they graciously smiled at her that none of them had any teeth. Leaving us with eight granny smiths to get through. Where’s that toothbrush salesman when you need him?

In conclusion next time I’m standing at the bus stop in the rain waiting for two buses to turn up at once I’m going to look around and be grateful I’m not waiting in line with a cow, a serial killer and a couple of rebellious sheep.