A hard days night

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It’s another earlyish start as we are catching the 9am bus. We are up at 6.30am for showers and final pack up before breakfast in the restaurant downstairs. This turns out to be quite slow service - I claim it’s Ian’s fault...he ordered omelette and we’ve just seen the eggs arriving! It’s a huge omelette accompanied by mashed beans. Ditto for my pancakes...far too large to contemplate finishing!

Breakfast done, we check out in the nick of time and order our Uber to the bus station. Today we are with Futura bus company. The driver and his assistant arrive looking like airline pilots with gold stripes on their jackets and braided hats - very smart, apart from the cigarette dangling from the driver’s fingers. He checks the large luggage compartment before his second-in-command begins loading and decides it needs a clean up. He summons a man with dustpan and brush, then duly assists him by issuing orders and holding the dustpan.

Now we are off to Culiacan. It’s a large town of no particular interest to a tourist but it’s a fairly big bus hub it would seem. It’s a three and a half hour drive taking a different route to that of the bus which brought us to Los Mochis a few days ago. It takes the free roads rather than the toll - hence the additional travel time. But our next bus doesn’t leave till 3.15pm so we are happy to take a bit longer and enjoy some different scenery. We are driving much closer to the Sinaloa mountains today and also passing some little towns on the way.

Ian’s take is that it is a rather boring journey having already passed this way before and claims the scenery to be rather bland on either route. His only ‘highlight’ is spotting a Woolworth’s store branded in, what looks like, the original font...and which is still in business.

Now we are in Culiacan and waiting in an area that claims to be air con but, in reality, hot and stuffy. There are rows of uncomfortable metal chairs and the usual unhealthy picnic type food and drinks to purchase for the journey. The second wheel on my bag has just disintegrated but it’s functioning after a fashion - at least I’m no longer lop-sided! :-)

Maria, from the train company, has emailed to say she is refunding the cancelled train tickets to our credit card. That’s a positive as we had almost decided to write them off. Plus there is no sign of a £300 plus charge to our credit card for the room I had to cancel in the canyon because we couldn’t get there! They said they would waive the charge when I called as they knew the train wasn’t running, but it’s always hard to know if they mean it or if they are just being polite!

It’s 3pm and our bus has arrived. We are a bit peeved to discover that it’s right outside a nice air con executive lounge with plush seats - the one we were entitled to use for this bus journey! Ho hum. Baggage packed and snack bags issued in the usual fashion...we know the drill now! It’s interesting to note that all the young ladies issuing our food bags are always scantily clad in tight, short, black skirts and wearing extremely high heeled shoes! Perhaps it’s just the fashion - we have noticed an abundance of huge shoe shops here as well as many fashion stores.

We settle into our luxury seats for the next fifteen plus hour journey ahead of us. It might be the long way round but I think Ian might have been right about using the executive bus route for such a long journey. The driver enters and gives us a long speil in Spanish. We hope we haven’t missed anything important. We suspect he is telling us to fasten our seat belts and enjoy the trip! We have picked up that the bus will be stopping at: Mazatlan, Durango and Chihuahua (our stop) before reaching its final destination, somewhere else!

We arrive in Mazatlan. There is the usual swap over as some passengers get off and others replace them. The driver gives the same spiel. Whatever he is saying it seems to be causing some amusement. It’s just starting to get dark so I settle down to some TV download viewing...the next thing I know, I am rudely awoken by all the lights being switched on. It seems like I fell asleep on the journey and, according to Ian, have been snoring loudly for some time! Anyway, it’s almost midnight and we have reached Durango for more passenger switching. The driver has repeated his speech and now we are headed to Chihuahua. It isn’t long before I am asleep again!

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