The Magic School Bus

Bus travel was not something I experienced in the states. Ya, I took some of the city transits in Bellingham and Seattle when I lived in Washington, but that was it. Moving to Honduras has opened my eyes to a whole new world of transportation. I have never really liked riding on buses - they are diesel and they small like it, they vibrate and people smell weird, but to get around in Honduras, you just have to deal with it.

A few different bus options are available here in Honduras. You have your fancy buses with bathrooms, tv’s, air conditioning, and reclining chairs; there are the rapiditos that also have the nice seats and air conditioning, but they don’t usually stop quite as often as the larger buses (rapid=fast); then there are the micro-bus rapiditos that are basically small buses, or vans that are used to cram as many people as possible into for one trip, to make the most money; finally we have the yellow school buses - which of course are known as the chicken buses. The chicken buses are probably the most commonly seen and talked about. I have yet to actually see a chicken on one of these buses, but I’m have no doubt that during my two-year stint I will see one.

The chicken buses are the cheapest of all the buses, but I have come to realize that sometimes paying the extra five or ten lempira for the nicer, rapidito is not the worst thing in the world. On the chicken buses, when all the seats are full, they add one more person to each one, and then they fill the isle with so many people that if you have a seat, someone is basically sitting on your lap, and there is no way to move freely through the isle. Peoples privates also tend to rub all up on other people - I unfortunately once had a man’s crotch pretty much resting on my arm. To make this all even more uncomfortable, people in Honduras do not smell that great, especially the people who choose to ride the chicken buses. I have heard it referred to as the “campesino small,” which basically means the poor-farmer smell. People don’t bathe everyday, and even if they do, they often times forget about the soap! Also, I am living in Honduras, which means it is HOT, so when we are all crammed in like sardines into a school bus, you have to keep in mind that it is probably more than 80 degrees outside, so you can only imagine the sweat and lovely smells coming off of everyone. Sometimes I prefer to stand. Even though the rides get a little crazy - I’ll explain that momentarily - I think it is better than sitting on the plastic seats only to stand up and have your whole back and most of your ass drenched in sweat - Great image, I know!

The way people drive in this country is a whole other story. In the states, we have double yellow lines, and when one side has dashed lines, that means that you are allowed to pass - the passing zone if you will. Here in Honduras, I have seen those passing lines, but I’m not sure that whoever made them knew what they meant. They usually only last about 20 yards and they don’t take into consideration turns or anything of the sort. Whether the dashed lines mean passing here in Honduras or not, people don’t pay attention to them. I don’t think I would ever really want to drive here in Honduras - I feel like I would end up killed by some crazy driver that decided to pass someone on a turn, which is what everyone does - even the buses. One day, I was actually a little bit frightened for my life. Now, usually the buses do drive relatively fast for how curvy and bumpy most of the roads are, but on this particular day, the driver was driving even faster because there was another bus in front of us, so it was always a race to see who could get to the bus stop faster to get the fares! These buses were basically playing cat and mouse. One would stop to pick up passengers and then would drive like a maniac to catch up with the other bus and pass it no matter what the road conditions were at that moment: a turn, cars coming, crazy pot holes, or all of the above. Passing another bus at high speeds on a turn - SCARY - it feels like the bus is just going to tip right over.

Thankfully most of my experiences with buses thus far have not been too excruciating. Yes, it is hot, yes the smells can get to you, but that is what the windows are for! That is, unless there are no openable windows. A few weeks ago, I was on one of the nice buses from my site to Santa Rosa. On this particular bus, the windows did not open, but it was ok because amazingly enough, it had air conditioning. This was all great, until a lady on the bus got sick. She vomited right into the isle and we could not open any windows for ventilation. We were all trapped on the bus being forced to breath in the toxic smells coming from what was that women’s breakfast!

Another thing about public transportation in Honduras - when someone is car sick, they don’t clean it up - if you are lucky they will just throw some newspaper over it!