The arse end of town

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This morning I am awake at 6.30am - I think it’s something to do with paranoia about missing buses. I also want to try to catch my parents before we leave! The room is a little chilly and the shower is cold - not a good start!

Now I go next door to the Circle K shop which is supposed to open at 7am to get our coffees - the shutters are still down! Back inside the hotel I notice that they have do-it-yourself instant coffee and herbal teas so I help myself liberally.

Back in the room Ian is doing the last of the packing and I make my Skype call. Mum and Dad are both fine and they have warm sunshine - sounds like they have better weather than us! Dad has tried rolling out the pastry I left in the freezer before we left and it has all broken up (too short). Apparently the birds have enjoyed it! :-)

It is 8am and the shop is open - I purchase cheese slices and yoghurt for our long bus journey as we are never quite sure what we will be given. The man in the shop manages to convey that it is yesterday’s bread in the cabinet so probably not good so I give that a miss. The fresh bread will not arrive for another hour so that’s that.

Our Uber has arrived and we are at the bus station for 0845. There is a large Circle K store where we are dropped so I nip in for fresh bread to go with our cheese and a couple of pastries for our breakfast. I am also tempted by some very expensive KitKats. Oh well, as long as we don’t make a habit of it!

We make our way over to the bus station and present our tickets at the counter. The man writes the bus number and range of bays where our bus might arrive on the ticket and off we go to wait. The bus is due at 0925. There is a nice plush VIP lounge with comfy leather chairs for Futura Select customers which beats the hard metal ones in the main station, not that these bus stations are at all bad.

It is now 0920 and we are beginning to get a bit nervous - many buses have arrived and departed but none with our number. I hope we haven’t misunderstood. I go back to the counter and the man writes 0925-1000 on our tickets. OK we will continue to wait. It’s decidedly chilly this morning with another thick mist over the top of the surrounding hills. I have been cursing the fact that we bought our fleeces, thinking we had overpacked, but this morning I am grateful and glad we decided against dumping them (which was on the cards). Since we are still making our way northwards, they may not have been unnecessary items after all.

It’s 1015 and our bus has finally put in an appearance. We take our luggage to the under bus storage. There seems to be some problem with a passenger that is disembarking. They do not want to give him his black plastic bin liner full of stuff. The luggage guy disappears and then reappears with a manager - the package is handed over and we are free to book our bags in. This involves a bit of a luggage reshuffle to fit our somewhat large holdalls in the tight space available.

Now I approach the food trolley which is filled with the usual goodies. The lady appears to be telling me no, just get on the bus. So no nose bags today it would seem. Good job we bought our own :-). On examining our tickets I note that we are on the Primera service - ie first class rather than executive. So we were probably not entitled to the VIP lounge either but who cares...they were very late after all. :-)

The bus is not much different from our last one. It has leather seats with a leg rest - slightly shorter than before but still comfortable with plenty of leg room. We do not have individual screens but rather a large TV screen directly in front of us since we are on the front seats. First, we are treated to an episode of Downton Abbey which seems strange in dubbed Spanish. This is followed by an interesting underwater programme entitled ‘wolves of the sea’ about killer whales. The climax shows, in graphic detail, the whale devouring its morning snack-ette. Three unsuspecting seals who are frolicking at the waters edge are picked off one by one - first being tossed around in the water from the whales’s teeth to its tail, which then flings it back to the mouth several times...presumably to stun it into submission? And then down it goes...it looks like it has been swallowed whole. You would think the other two would have had the sense to waddle back onto dry land, but instead they wait around to join their playmate in the whale’s belly!

The bus rattles on through a national park of mountains and cacti - we are entering cowboy land. Meanwhile two obscure films follow on the TV, which we largely ignore as we don’t speak Spanish. Fortunately there is no sound unless you plug into the ear phone socket.

The bus WiFi is very useful for charting our progress on google maps. We start to gather up our belongings when we are 10 minutes drive out of town. We disembark and collect our bags only to find that there are no Uber’s in Durango. We are at the mercy of the taxi system then. I show the driver our hotel address. Cuenca cuesta (how much?), I ask. I am beginning to master the important phrases in Spanish. Twenty pesos, he tells us. That’s pretty good and he even helps us to load up our heavy luggage - it’s a bit of a squeeze as they seem to have very small taxis here.

Our hotel is not far away but I give an extra 5 peso anyway. To be honest, it’s very little but our driver is clearly very pleased. We check in. They do not want to take a credit card payment, cash only. Funny, that’s not what their sign says and ditto for booking.com. We don’t mind paying cash but we do want a receipt! This proves more difficult than anticipated. I type ‘please can I have a receipt for my cash payment’ in the translator...the lady types back ‘I do not speak English’! Perhaps she cannot read? Eventually, after a phone call to the boss, she photocopies our booking in form which states the price but not that we have paid! We give up and hope for the best.

So now we take a look at our room. To be fair it is clean and we do have air con but I think that its rating as a three star is stretching it. And we are definitely located in the arse end of town. We have a lovely view of concrete and rubble from our tiny window and, to add insult to injury, a much nicer looking hotel can be seen not too far away. The bathroom ceiling looks like it might give way at any minute although admittedly the water in the shower is hot. I don’t like the look of the neighbourhood at all. I can only think we must have chosen this place for its proximity to the bus station as we are only here for one night.

We dump our stuff and head off into town as time is limited and being an hour late on the bus hasn’t helped. There is no sign of a taxi anywhere as we are in a grotty side street in the middle of nowhere. We have little choice but to walk...or should I say run? It is definitely a very fast walk as neither of us is that comfortable with the area. To add to our discomfort, it is now baking hot. Fortunately it’s easy to navigate...left, right then straight down the Avenue 20 November until we hit the pedestrian area.

The pedestrian area is the first let down. It’s supposed to be filled with interesting architecture and street cafes. It turns out to be a very small plaza with, what looks like, the only three interesting things in town...a baroque cathedral, a bandstand and a water fountain. There is a distinct absence of pretty cafes.

OK, well it looks like that’s Durango done then! Can’t say we’d recommend it but it’s OK for a quick overnighter! We weren’t going to bother with the cable car but as we haven’t anything better to do, we decide to make the half km walk and ride to the top. Another Swiss design, it’s shorter and less scary than the one in Zacatecas. We do get some pretty good panoramas of the city and the guy operating it is keen to speak English. He points out some brightly coloured houses in the distance, telling us we should take care as it is the area of robbers from Brazil. Is he referring to the drugs trade? He also tells us we should sample the local delicacy...scorpion tacos! Hmmm, I don’t think so!

We make our return trip on the teleferico. It’s too early for dinner but we are not keen on the idea of hanging around late here either. We compromise by visiting the big hyper market we passed earlier and purchasing a cooked chicken and wraps to take back to the hotel. Outside, we hail a taxi with relative ease and return to our hotel. For once the taxi has a meter so no nasty surprises at the end.

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