Is This the Isthmus? Tour – Mexico Part 11
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Palenque to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico
A wedding at the Catedral de San Marcos in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico.
At 8:30 am, I boarded a long haul bus from Palenque southwest to Tuxtla Gutierrez. Since I had only slept for five or six hours the night before, I napped on the bus for the first two or three hours. When I woke up, I discovered to my dismay that we were in Villahermosa, which is northwest of Palenque. That meant we were travelling in a huge loop instead of taking the shortest route. I wondered why, but then remembered that I had read warnings that the short route was dangerous at night due to bandits blocking off the road and robbing buses and mini-vans once every blue moon. So, I guess the bus companies don’t even want to take a chance during daylight hours now.
A font frenzy on a sign in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico.
If I would have known that, I would have booked a ticket to some town in Veracruz rather than traverse this huge out-of-the-way loop. Oh well! (My ultimate destination was Oaxaca City, 15 hours from Palenque, which I did not want to tackle all in one bus ride.) On the way, another bird impacted the bus windshield, but this one glanced off the upper left corner. I’m sure it died as a result of its injuries anyway. At one point, we stopped at a bus terminal in a small town and everyone got off. When I walked back outside from the snack shop, I saw that our bus–containing my backpack–had left. After totally freaking out inside, I semi-calmly asked a fellow passenger about it. She laughed a little bit at me and said the bus had just gone to get gas and that it would soon return. Whew! That was a close one!
A tight bed at the Hostel Tres Central in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico.
We finally pulled into the ADO bus terminal in Tuxtla Gutierrez around 4:00 pm, where I caught a taxi cab a few miles over to Hostel Tres Central, which, true to its name, is right in the center of town. Boasting a spotless and minimal interior design with Ikea-esque furniture, the Hostel Tres Central is among the very nicest I’ve ever stayed in. Since the dorm room was all full, I checked into a private room with air con for the totally reasonable price of $18. I spent the rest of the day trying to catch up on Photoshopping some of my photos and updating my travel journal, only venturing outside a couple of times for food.
Words and photos ©2017 Arcane Candy.
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