Not that I mean to sound conceited about it or anything (because there is a certain category of folks to whom such a claim would sound admirable) but I have done a significant amount of bus travel in my life. I've been on rickety old former school buses in Guatemala re-incarnated into gentle metal mammoths belching diesel fumes into the air as they careen along green mountainsides loaded down with people, tourists, chickens, bags of maiz and sometimes goats and pigs. I've been on luxurious double-decker Pullman buses in South America with reclining plush seats, air conditioning and Jackie Chan movies. And I've been in dingy Greyhound buses with malfunctioning toilets easing in and out of dirty downtowns in cities across the US. No matter where you are, buses in some form or another, are the ultimate in proletariat transportation! They are, arguably, the best way to really see a country and its people (the only near comparisons I can think of being trains and bicycles, but that's another post).
This is not meant to imply that I've thoroughly enjoyed every bus ride I've ever taken! I've never been so car-sick as I was one time on a bus traveling from Manizales back to Bogota, Colombia. I thought I was going to die and so did several of my nearest co-passengers (even the driver felt sorry for me)! And I remember a similar one in Guatemala when I thought my kidneys were going to burst and they would have to bury me alongside the ambulant venders selling bags of water and frozen bananas. Crossing the border from Guatemala into Chiapas once we were stopped by an Army roadblock and everyone had to get off and be searched for contraband.
But I have had way more plesant experiences on buses than unplesant ones. Once I sat next to an older man I swear was Gabriel Garcia Marquez and fell asleep with my head on his shoulder. Once when I was in high school and snuk out for the weekend to go visit my boyfriend in Savannah (telling my parents I had gone to a friends house), a man on the Greyhound serenaded us from DeLand to Daytona with his mellow acoustic guitar tunes and every one seemed caught up in the glow of unexpected intimacy of strangers. (And it was still a good trip, even though when I got back I found out I had been caught because my truck had been towed from behind the bus station while I was gone and my parents duly notified by the company!)
No journey is really complete, I think, if it does not involve a long bus ride upon which to reflect.
In the US we have few inter-city and inter-state bus systems and by far the most popular and well known is Greyhound. I'm planning another bus trip in a few days so that got me thinking about writing a post about the subject. It's definitely a good way to go, but before you pack your bags and hop on the 'hound, take a minute to consider the golden rule of bus travel which I've learned in my years of bus riding:
Above all else, when taking the bus in the US, consider the route between your destinations. If there is no major highway between your point A and your point B you might want to reconsider. Try bus-free alternatives instead such as hitch-hiking, train-hopping or car-sharing if you cannot bike or walk because even if the two cities are physically close, if there's no direct bus route between them you'll end up going to a hub somewhere and waiting on a transfer. For example, my folks live in a little town about an hour and a half from where I live but I would never consider taking the bus there. It would take at least eight hours as I would have to first go north to transfer in Jacksonville then wait for another bus going south through Daytona then to Tampa via Orlando. In that amount of time I could've biked the distance from here to there and stopped to have a dip in one of the fresh-water springs in the national forest along the way.
On the other hand, if you're traveling between two major cities linked by an interstate, it's pretty wasteful NOT to take the bus. Gainesville to Atlanta for example is 7 hours 20 minutes, only an hour or so more than driving a car, PLUS it's safer, PLUS they're almost always on time, PLUS you don't have to worry about where to leave your car when you get there, PLUS there's a MARTA (Atlanta metro) stop right there and PLUS you can get a lot of reading and thinking done along the way.
The same is true going the other way, south from Gainesville to Tampa/St. Pete but last I rode that route the bus didn't use the interstate much but made lots of little meandering jogs to stop off at small towns along the way. It is very scenic but it takes about twice the time as driving it.
Buses in the US are not as colorful nor as convenient as they are in other countries. There's no doorman or small boy riding shotgun and yelling out the name of the destination in a voice that echoes through the misty morning of a third world bus depot where women in huipils cook fresh arepas or tortillas and serve strong lukewarm coffee for hungry travelers in hole-in-the-wall restaurants. But you WILL share your ride with grandmothers and young people, hippies and recovering drug addicts. And maybe if you're very lucky, there will be some long-haired romantic on board who will break out the guitar and sing you some beautiful old love songs along the way.
I don't think I've ever taken a bus from city to city (except for when I was chaperoning kids on a school trip), but I have ridden many trains over the past 20 years. Trains are great. And they do differ from country to country. I was never more uncomfortable than when I took Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Chicago; I slept like a baby on the train from Helsinki to Moscow.
Great post, Barb!
Posted by: Alison | Sunday, June 24, 2007 at 06:29 AM