The air conditioned luxury night bus from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido turned out to be a mini bus, perhaps the leg room was spacious to a Mexican. To a six foot tall European there simply was no leg room. Ryan Air feels like luxury compared to this. Leanne of course has no such issues.
The feeling we might have misjudged this one quickly becomes apparent. The bus's suspension is clearly overly stretched on the bumpy, winding mountain road. We have a 10 hour journey through the night to look forward to and I’m not going to sleep a wink.
.webp)
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Despite this the other passengers are fast asleep and snoring. Leanne is drifting off into a peaceful slumber. How this is possible is beyond me, the driver is pumping out 80s and 90s classic pop. George Michael, Michael Jackson, “Girls just wanna have fun”. It’s the original party bus except I am the only one awake to live through this nightmare.
But things get worse, the bus feels like a roller-coaster. Left then right, left then right again, winding through mountain roads in total darkness. It’s no good pretending, IM SICK, really sick. TRAVEL SICK! And there’s another 8 hours left.
So I move to the window seat for some fresh air. I’m sweating with my top off to the sound track of “gimme gimme your man” blasting out the speakers. The world is twisting, turning, spinning, trying not to be sick. The bus driver stops for a break and I stumble off the bus and vomit all over.
Its 3 in the morning and we are half way there. Reluctantly I get back on the bus, the driver is still playing loud music, now its “Some-where-over-the-rainbow”. It doesn’t feel long until the road straightens, we have arrived, but it’s still dark. Its half four in the morning, we were supposed to arrive at 7am. We can’t check into the hostel until 11am. “The mini-bus only takes six hours” the guy at the bus station kindly informed us.
.webp)
Not surprisingly there’s no answer at the hostel. There’s nothing else to do but sleep rough. Finding our way by starlight, guided by the crashing sounds of the waves we arrive at an empty beach bar, as Leanne reads her book I catch some much needed sleep on a sun lounger. With the world still spinning night turned into morning. The sun slowly rises and lights up the ocean as early morning surfers head into the surf. It’s clearly all been worth it as we appear to have found a little bit of paradise.