The Day I Didn´t Go Hiking, cont.

Alright, off I went to the bus station at 9:30. I bought a ticket out to Ixtlán for 10:30 and settled in to wait. 1 hour of waiting and 2 hours of driving (through beautiful but windy & bumpy mountain roads) and I arrived at Ixtlán. Or rather, the side of the highway at the base of the very steep hill that leads up to Ixtlán. Up I went and I wandered through the market for a few minutes, spending a grand total of 8 pesos (less than 80 cents) on the orange, bananas, tortillas, and poundcake that would be my lunch in the great outdoors. I found the tourist info place and, lo and behold, you can only actually go hiking if you sign up for a 5-hour tour. It being 1:45 at this point, a 5-hour tour was not exactly what I had in mind. Culálpan had also been suggested as another place to go hiking and the woman at the tourist office said I could probably do some hiking over there.

Off I went again! To get between the two towns you catch a colectivo, a shared taxi. Not really knowing the code of the colectivos, I had no idea where to find the colectivo stand. 20 minutes later, after having stopped to ask directions at least 7 times, I ended up 2 blocks away from the tourist office on a small, one-way street, standing in front of a blank wall. If there was any sort of signage indicating that this was where the colectivos stopped, its subtelty was lost on me. A colectivo soon showed up and whisked us all off to Culálpan, 20 minutes away. To its credit, Culálpan has a nice, sunny little plaza and some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. Culálpan does not, however, have any hiking trails on which you can set off on your own. And at this point, around 2:40, I didn`t have time to take any of their guided hikes/spelunking expeditions/etc. if I wanted to make the 5:30 bus back from Ixtlán. It was becoming more and more apparent that I would not be going hiking. But wait! If I hurried I just might make it back to Ixtlán in time to catch the 3:00 bus back to Oaxaca! Since Culálpan and Ixtlán had little draw for me beyond their inaccessible hiking opportunities I quickly decided to give it a shot.

Off I went again, again! I got to Ixtlán at 2:58 and dashed down the steep hill. I raced into the restaurant that sold the bus tickets and asked if I had missed the 3:00 bus or if it was not there yet. "Barely" was the answer I got (well, "apenas" if we want to be picky about using quotation marks). But wait, barely I had missed it or barely I had made it? Barely I had missed it, I would have to come back later for the 5:30 bus. I sighed and set off for the top of the hill where I could cool my heels in the park for a while. And then what did I see but the Cuenca bus pulling up on the side of the road. Back down the hill I went, running with wild abandon, hoping against hope I would catch that bus. But the bus was full -- nobody from Ixtlán was allowed on. The driver told me that a little Cuenca van should probably pass by some time around 4, so I settled down on a rock to wait. By 4:20 no little Cuenca van had come by. Back to the restaurant I went to buy a ticket for the 5:30 bus. "Oh no, you buy the ticket when the bus gets here." Scenarios of the 5:30 bus showing up full and me begging to be allowed to stand in the aisle played in my head. "What if the bus is full like the last one?" "Well then you wait. 8:30 is the last bus." Oh dear.

And then what should happen but a little city bus roll by right outside! I took off running, joining the other Ixtlán wait-ers in our pursuit of that bus. It finally stopped and the doors opened halfway. I climbed up to the first stair. "to Oaxaca?" "Please step down." Oh no, I know this trick. First you don´t stop for us and then you only open the doors partway? You´re going to drive off without us! "to Oaxaca?" I say again, not moving from my safe perch inside the bus. "Yes, but please step down so people can get off." Oh, right. The bus disgorged 6 or 7 people and I climbed up along with 3 or 4 viejos. And thus began the 2-hour ride down windy, bumpy mountain roads with me in the aisle of this little bus, bracing myself against a seat that reclined and unreclined every time we turned.

So what did I do the day I didn´t go hiking, some of you asked? Well, of the 9 hours I was away from my hostel, I spent 8 of them either walking to, waiting for, or riding in various modes of transportation. But at least there was nice scenery.