Chicken Buses and Politics - Central American Wrap

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As we head to South America, the take home message from this post is that two and a half months in Central America is not nearly enough. For this trip though, that is as much time as we could reasonably spare. We debated whether a wrap up post for Central America was justified. It isn't a continent or even an island. Just a skinny bit of land between two massive lumps. Then again we have visited 9 countries in a very interesting part of the world. So we decided it might be worth drawing a few threads together.

We made it to Guatemala, Cuba, Belize, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico. Mexico, of course, is not really part of Central America but for the purposes of this post we will treat it as such. For the record, it is really the 'other' North American United States. We include it because it shares a Spanish and Indigenous history with many of the other countries we have travelled through since mid December 2010 – and because we have just travelled through it.

To be very obvious for a moment, to travel you must move and to move you must use some form of transport. In Central America the most popular form of transport is a bus of some nature. We travelled in excess of 8,000 km in a variety of 'buses'. There were another couple of thousand in planes but none in boats, unfortunately. The distance, though, is really only a small part of the story for travel in Central America. Of much greater importance is time. We found that a bus trip might be noted as taking 3 hours where it may indeed take 3, perhaps 5, or even 6. In Guatemala a trip from Rio Dulce, through Guatemala City and on to Antigua, a distance of around 200 km, took most of the day and we caught the first bus before 9.00 am. On the other hand the bloke who sold us the tickets for an overnight bus told us it would get us into Panama City from San Jose in Costa Rica at 5.00 am. This would provide us with time for a leisurely breakfast at an early opening place and a gentle meander to the hostel where we could leave our bags or even, possibly, check in. We had a nice trip in a flash Tica Bus, pretty straightforward border and arrived at 3.00 am. Luckily, Panama City has a nice new bus terminal where we were able to catch up with a little sleep before our planned breakfast. But the welded metal chairs were hard.

Interesting trips can be had, and will be, if you want to get to some of the smaller, more out of the way places. Utes are a functional transport system and often useful for relatively short trips. Normally they have a well body, a frame and canvas sides. If we had packs they were thrown on to a welded tray over the cab. An offsider collects money – most of our trips cost about $A0.50 if that. The offsider or driver can tell you where they are going. You listen for a shout from a passing ute or go to a place where a local tells you to stand, and signal.

Utes can carry a lot more people than you might ordinarily imagine. Seats along each side and with a bar along the back plus, provided the rack is strong enough, a few on top. One memorable trip in El Salvador up a mountain road had the womenfolk inside but Adam and I hanging off the back. I had 2 hand holds and one foot on the back bar. Adam had to make do with one foot and one hand. I stopped counting at 30 people but there were none on the top for that trip. Still, you don't go much over 50 km/h most of the time and if you hit the ground at that speed how hard can it be?

When we first started travelling many, many years ago we shared buses in the Philippines and other parts of SE Asia with chickens, pigs, lots of vegetables and, on one occasion, a coffin. These days local buses in Central and South Americare known as 'chicken buses'. I am not completely convinced that they are as interesting now as they were 40 years ago but chicken buses can be special. They are a little different here in Central America from those in other countries. Here they will usually be old USA school buses. Many are beautifully presented. Some are pretty rough. But all have lousy mufflers, blow a lot of smoke and are driven to achieve maximum speed in all conditions.

Local advice is usually invaluable about which bus to catch and where. Schedules aren't really all that fixed but most locals know roughly when one will come and where it will go. If you are in any doubt the conductor yelling the principal destinations as the bus pulls up will sort you out. You pay on board. Sometimes there is a price list pinned up but mostly not. You say where you are going and pay the price – or get off I guess. The price seems to roughly pan out to about $1 per hour per person and you aren't likely to get there any more cheaply without hitching..

And I should note that the conductors are, in our experience, uniformly honest. There were a few times when we didn't have the right change and had to hand over a large note. The note is taken without comment and no change forthcoming. You might think, as I did, well this is going to be expensive but, before the trip ends he will arrive back at your seat with the correct change. And they do this for everyone.

And just another word to the wise. Perhaps you should also put into your back pocket all of that advice, normally good, about ignoring touts and making your own decisions. The bus system here works very effectively. In a lot of bus stations, and at formal and even informal bus stops, you will walk up and be immediately assailed by, normally, young men touting for their buses. It is seldom necessary to say much more than the name of your destination before you are whisked off to a bus. It may be almost full, or empty. If empty you are in for a wait until it is about full. If this arrangement is not to your liking then you can always get off and see what else is available. No one seems to mind too much. But going with the flow has worked well for us in most cases.

Our best trip – or, more precisely, the most exciting – on a chicken bus was between Perquin in El Salvador and Marcala in Honduras. Five or six hours on a gravel and rock mountain road, continuously chock full of passengers and with a driver who simply couldn't bear the possibility that a vehicle might be in front of him – somewhere – and that it might get his possible fare. This presents a difficulty when you need to keep stopping to pick up and drop off passengers but it didn't deter our driver. He could definitely drive. Anyone who can send a long, heavy and fully laden bus into a four wheel drift around a corrugated corner with a sheer drop on one side and not miss a beat in his conversation with his offsider can drive, if he and his passengers survive the ride – and we did.

The value of the chicken buses is that they are cheap. The downside is that you often have to change buses during a trip and that can be a little tiresome. Your larger bags may go up on top, they may go behind the back seat but, more often, they go where they can and that may be on your lap. This can be a nuisance but you then you can travel most of the day for about $A10 for two in the cheaper countries and a little pain is acceptable if you are creating more of a bank for the luxuries of life.

Other buses are a mixed bag and may be dependent on the country, which company you select out of the number available and the time of day. In Mexico, the flashest buses – normally called Executive class – can be expensive but Primera Class are a pretty reasonable price and seems to be nearly as good, with toilets, good seats and air conditioning that works well. Even the economy class is pretty good. One major difference between the classes is the number of times the buses stop. Economy buses tend to stop every 2 hours or so for pit stops but they may also stop frequently to pick up and off load passengers. This can add a significant amount of time to the trip but you have the advantage of being able to people watch as well, on some occasions, as having someone new to talk to.

But the real economy buses, the collectivos, don't stop for anything other than a potential fare paying passenger. If you hop on one of these you should have a plan in mind. Food, drink and toilet stops become issues on some of these buses. Bladder management can become a vital issue as the hours drag on.
From Guatemala on down the Tica Bus is a good option if you are happy to stay on the IntraAmerica or Pan America Highway. They will stop at major towns but normally travel from capital to capital non-stop. Using a mixture of chicken buses, collectivos, long distance buses and the Tica the 2 of us spent less than $A1400 to travel well over 8,000 kilometres from Juarez through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The buses are good but I do miss not having a vehicle and camping gear that gave us so much freedom in other countries.

You hear a lot about crime in Central America and there are clearly places that may be dangerous. On the razor wire index – based on the proportion of properties protected, type of properties protected (businesses, residences etc), number of rolls on top of walls, amount of rust – San Salvador, Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa would have to be on the top of the concern about crime list. That said, we haven't had any direct problems. We have been nervous. One memorable 3 km walk through the too quiet streets of Mexico City in the early hours of the morning had us moving smartly. Pretty silly that. Very loud explosions close by in Tegucigalpa had us paying attention – until we realised it was a car backfiring – and a dispute with a taxi driver who was in the process of ripping us off dribbled away on our part when he reached for his glove box. But overall the crime, and there is undoubtedly a high level in some places, tends not to target our type of tourist in our direct experience.

Perhaps the bit of Central America that I will miss most is the sense of flair. People here love to splash things around. If you are driving you move quickly, skip around corners, don't worry at all about pedestrians and sound your horn as often as possible. It is better if you have a horn that is in fact a siren, whistle, klaxon and if it is accompanied by flashing lights of any and every colour then you are cooking. Out and about you dress flash. Nothing sloppy and certainly never dirty. (How do people who live in sometimes very basic houses stay so clean?) If you are a woman, of almost any age, then you buy clothes that are as tight as you can possibly get them. Not too much of a problem to have a bit of excess flesh about either but, at all times, keep it tight.

People here tend to be a little reserved with foreigners. They are not all over you like a rash. Even in markets you are able to walk through without too much harassment – with any luck they won't get lessons from the Egyptians. This reservation doesn't mean that people are unfriendly or unhelpful. Ask a question, even in strange pidgin Spanish, and people will immediately try to help. Find a way of talking to people and they are happy to talk and are almost always friendly. The social niceties are important. Asking your question without first using a greeting is not good. Of course, as everyone will tell you, be able to speak some Spanish and you will find that you will find plenty of people to talk to

There are infrastructure problems. Drains that work as they should are rare, roads can be pretty rough and not well maintained, buildings can be pretty scruffy on the outside, power supply processes are interesting and would require electricians with considerable skill and courage, and we haven't been drinking untreated tap water. But the place works and does so better than most of Africa, India, most parts of China, Central Asia and a lot of South East Asia. Governments in some countries seem to have priorities that ignore the need for basic public infrastructure, but the people know what they are missing and this should give the power brokers pause. This area is changing and, if the change is too slow, or in the wrong direction, I would be pretty confident that the people here would sort it. Just so long as the big powers leave them to it.

There is, of course, no part of the world that doesn't feel the impact of the policies or practices of others but, in Central America, the impact has been so dramatic and sustained over such an extended period that the scars seem to go to the soul of the place. Scars of war, rape and pillage normally heal over time and I suppose that has happened here, but maybe not completely. The difference, I suspect, is that, for a lot of people here, things that are in their lives now keep the scars nice and fresh.

The old Spanish had this way of putting their mark on a place. A proper town has an attractive plaza in the centre where people can meet (or armies parade), cobbled streets on a grid pattern, houses that butt the footpath with high walls, cool and attractive courtyard spaces within and large churches – plenty of them. From Mexico down the Spanish built towns on this model and their descendants, who mixed effectively with the locals in most places, kept the model intact. The plazas are pleasant, provided there is some shade about, and it is easier to navigate grid patterns than streets that swirl about in crazy patterns but, after a few, the places do begin to feel just a little on the samey side of comfortable.

The Spanish didn't just build towns that all look pretty much the same though. They also had a tendency to deal harshly with the locals, loading their valuables onto ships for Europe and wiping out a lot of the locals in a range of ways. In the more southern part of Mexico there is quite a strong Indigenous presence left, just as there is in Guatemala and parts of El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, but in northen Mexico, Cuba, Belize, Costa Rica and Panama, Indigenous influence is not so apparent. Where there are a few Indigenous people around they tend to be the sellers of souvenirs and crafts or poor farmers rather than the people in charge, even of the ruins of the their ancestors' constructions. Those ruins are spectacular and impressive. Palenque, Monte Alban and Lamanai rival those in Egypt and Sudan but, of course, all of the finery with which they were once adorned and that they contained is now spread around the capitals of Europe or melted down.

There is – with the possible exception of Cuba – a pretty obvious pecking order among the classes. In most countries there seems to be a very small group at the top of the pile. In Guatemala we were told by many people that 3% of the population controls over 95% of the country's wealth. The large rural estates and flash houses are very obvious in some countries. There is no shortage of modern vehicles on the roads right through Central America. No shortage of clapped out rust buckets either and plenty of people on buses, but having a good vehicle seems to show that you are a step above the herd.

The frustrations generated by the inequalities and high expectations that exist in some parts have led to a number of revolutions in this part of the world. A pretty good proportion of these have been beaten down by those in charge or by those foreign countries or companies with an interest. El Salvador has had a revolution relatively recently but change is slow. Nicaragua's revolution looks like it may have some chance of delivering over a little longer term. Their revolutionaries seem to have a stronger regard for fundamental democratic processes than is common. In Guatemala a pretty strong view was expressed by a number of people we met that they could do with a revolution any time soon.

These days the power that affects Central America is the USA.You really can't ignore either the historical or current effects of US policy in this part of the world. The US appetite for drugs, for instance, has a disproportionate effect in Central America. So too does the attraction of the US prosperity and lifestyle for a lot of people here. And US businesses, while they may no longer act as they did in the past, are still here in large numbers. You hope that they are delivering as much value to the locals as they are taking.

One current impact of the influence of the US is the plethora of fast food chains. We tend not to eat in these places in most countries, although free wi-fi has helped make Maccas coffee drinkable, but we have broken through that prejudice a little here. That, though, is more a comment on the beans and rice fare, perhaps with a bit of chicken, pork of beef, that is on offer in most of the types of restaurants we frequent. Apart from Mexico – which as I have explained, is not really part of Central America – you wouldn't travel here for the food. If US fast food can compete effectively then I need say no more.

I suspect we will be back to this part of the world. There is more to see and do. The Carribean remains largely unexplored and it would be nice to poke about there a little. It would also be interesting to have a look at the eastern part of Nicaragua, more of Mexico and maybe even a beach or two could be good. But the real dream is to follow a Test Series where Australia is playing the West Indies. Now that is a reason to come back.

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Photos

Hanging On
If you look carefully you can see the bar on the back of the ute these fellows are piled onto (taken from our vehicle, thus the mirror in the way)

These are not strange fish
IIn the mountains of El Salvador and Honduras, you need one of these to carry your machete around. Much flasher than the Costa Rican scabbards

Ideals?
The toilet sign at the Botanic Gardens near Cienfuegos

Back of the Bus
Last minute booking meant Adam & Klaire got the last seat - the least sought after - for a 15 hour trip

Chicken bus, Antigua
Near the bus station, and it was empty, so nothing on top

Local buses, San Salvador
The yellow one still shows where it came from

Drive in hope
Presumably the name works

Mutlinational bus
Tica buses are the flashest, & the most expensive, but worth it for 10+ hour trips

Transport Options
Near one of the bus stations in Managua

Why have a plain frame
A colourful load (cotton yarn) needs a fancy frame

Filling up
At one of the locks of the Panama Canal

Guides
These engines keep the ships in the middle of the canal and tow them through the lock

Waiting in the shade
The lock takes a while for the water to rise or fall

Leaving the lock
Ships heading along the canal from Milaflores Lock

Walking the streets of Panama
It was hot too

Making way for the new
Lots of building going on in Panama City, as well as cities in Costa Rica

Panama City skyline
The walking bridge is very useful - this was taken during a break in the traffic

Still Central America
Old US school bus in Panama City

Traffic
In an older part of Panama City (outside our hotel)