by Charles Miller

When I compare travel tips with other expatriates who also enjoy traveling around Mexico, it surprises me how often I hear some of them say they have never ridden on a Mexican bus. Sure, a lot of those people have been on chartered tour buses, but I was referring to the urban and intercity buses that are the backbone of the transportation system used by many Mexicans. Some of the expatriates who have never experienced the real Mexico have asked me if the rural buses are really used by people from the campo who also bring along chickens, goats, or other farm animals.

Passengers carrying livestock on rural buses in Mexico is mostly an urban myth, at least in this century. Decades ago I saw a farmer exit a bus with two piglets, but that was in Guatemala and I was not riding that bus. There was however one local bus experience I remember. Upon hearing someone screaming "Close the windows!" I looked up from my cell phone whereupon I was startled to see the air around me full of yellow, blue, and green parakeets. After a few minutes of laughing, squealing, and screaming all of the escapees had been corralled and the bus continued to the next stop down the Ancha.

Making use of local transportation can be made easy when you just ask for directions. Most bus drivers will gladly answer questions about the route, and other riders waiting at the bus stop are almost always friendly and willing to share their knowledge. Of course all that is predicated on the assumption that you know enough in Spanish to communicate. Even if not fluent, you can learn the two essential words that will allow you to navigate a new city. "Centro" means the city center, and "Central" means bus station. Armed with those two words you can almost always visit a new city, find the bus to the city center, then another one back to the bus station later just by reading the destinations posted on the bus windshields. I wrote "almost always" because it is not uncommon to find that some cities have more than one bus terminal. San Miguel has half a dozen, but only one called the "Central." When you discover the others, you will have discovered the real Mexico. Hint: All over Mexico those smaller "stations" are often hidden inside or near the local markets where people living in the campo come into town to shop.

Getting lost by taking the wrong bus is not something to be feared; sometimes it leads to unexpected discoveries. Once in Queretaro I boarded a bus going the wrong direction and decided to ride it out. Imagine my surprise to look down one street at the end of which was a two thousand year old pyramid. I had never known of that archaeological site, so I jumped off the bus to go investigate. When I asked someone on the street about what I was seeing, his response was "Oh yeah, that's our pyramid. Doesn't your neighborhood have one?"

You are far from the only one who can get lost. I have actually had the experience more than once when a bus driver on a new route makes a wrong turn. And other times the driver is not lost at all. It is not unheard of for drivers to avoid traffic jams by leaving the main highway and taking off on country roads or dirt roads just barely wide enough for the bus, and they always eventually get to the right destination.
Mexico is loud! Whether it be loud color palates or elevated sound levels, Mexico is loud. Some intercity buses are equipped with several video screens that play a movie everyone can watch. Sometimes, rarely, the driver does not want to hear it and will turn up his music to drown out the movie soundtrack. Earplugs are nice to have.

In Guadalajara I had the strangest sense of déjà vu when riding the vintage electric trolley. Months later I stumbled across a web site chronicling the history of electric trolleys, and its database listed the many cities in the U.S. that had had shut down their trolley systems; and listed the Mexican, Central and South American cities that had bought the used rolling stock. Is it possible my déjà vu was my subconsciously recognizing the trolley I rode in Guadalajara was the same coach I rode sixty years earlier when it was running up Clark Street to Wrigley Field in Chicago? Sadly, the classic 1930s electric trolleys retired from Detroit and Minneapolis and used in Mexico City until the 2010s have now been replaced with modern Chinese-built electric trolleys.

Naolinco, Veracruz - Pueblo Mágico
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Using the extensive network of intercity buses in Mexico is probably the best way to discover the many Pueblos Mágicos. As of 2024, there are 177 Pueblos Mágicos, located in each of the 31 Mexican states. For me it can be a world of fun and discovery to visit one of them, then when leaving enter the bus station and flip a coin or just get on the next bus that arrives without regard to which direction it is going. Be prepared for the chance this might be thrust upon you by scheduling considerations. In Mexico just because one bus connects point A to point B it does not necessarily follow that there going to be another bus connecting point B back to point A. Sometimes you have to go to point C before you can get back to point A; it can be a classic case of "you can't get there from here." For example, there are several bus departures from San Miguel that can whisk you straight through to San Luis Potosi, but most of the return trips involve connecting through Queretaro.

When buying a ticket at the bus station you should be aware that most routes between larger cities have two classes of service. One is the "servicio ordiario" that makes frequent stops while the same route and same bus line can have a "directo" that is more or less nonstop between the cities. A "directo" might also be called "autobus de paso" apparently meaning that it passes up most of the local stops the "servicio ordiario" makes. If the person behind the ticket counter gives you a blank stare when you ask for a "directo" it could mean there is no directo service, but keep in mind that sometimes you will encounter bus stations that have segregated ticket counters, one for local tickets and a different ticket counter for directo tickets. If that is not confusing enough, there are often two different bus lines serving the same route, so it can be worth your while to ask if there is another line departing sooner… not that the employee at the ticket counter can be depended on to give an honest answer about their competition.

That dynamic changes completely after you have bought a ticket because after you have your ticket in hand and are frantically searching for where to find your bus before it leaves without you, Mexicans will be universally helpful. There is yet another challenge navigating in Mexico. I recently visited a destination that required changing buses in Xalapa. On the map that city is spelled Xalapa, on my ticket the name was printed Xalapa, but when I went looking for the boarding gate Xalapa was nowhere to be found. All the destinations were clearly marked on the gates, so I finally had to ask and was told that for some unfathomable reason the boarding gate for Xalapa was marked (phonically?) as Jalapa, with a "J" which is how it sounds. When I asked the employee why the odd spelling, he shrugged her shoulders and smiled broadly as if implying "Welcome to Mexico. Now you know one of our secrets."

Another secret is standing-room-only. This is ubiquitous on city busses worldwide, and Mexico is no exception. At times SRO can also apply to the intercity "servicios ordiario" buses. It is incredible how well the ticket sellers and drivers can keep track of how many passengers on a bus will be soon getting off at one of the stops nearby the city, versus how many passengers will keep their seat for the entire trip. They will sell SRO tickets knowing that some seats are going to open up soon, so if one of these employees tells you "no hay sillas" that does not mean you cannot buy a ticket, but it does mean you may be standing for the whole trip.

Long-haul buses today always have planned stops at restaurants where passengers can have a meal and make use of a non-moving bano. Decades ago the trip north to the Texas border took much longer on a two-lane road, and there were few places to stop along the way. The bus would stop in the middle of nowhere so that an entrenepur would hop aboard to sell tamales, tortas, drinks, and such. Then a half hour later the bus would stop again, literally in the middle of nowhere, to let him off.
Today there are frequent roadside eateries, and traffic moves at a much faster pace on four-lane highways. Still, sometimes there are occasions when the entrenepurs reappear. Road construction or other circumstances can cause traffic jams that back up for many miles. The last time this happened to me was returning from Mexico City. After the bus had moved perhaps only a kilometer in the last hour my stomach started to grumble, then right on cue the door to the bus swung open and a lady came on board carrying a basket with dozens of fresh-baked cookies and a cooler of drinks for sale. She told me she lived in the pueblo where we were stranded. She baked an oven-full of cookies, sold them on the next passing bus, bake and repeat. She probably hoped the traffic would stay backed up forever.

Another tip I learned from Mexican friends I made while traveling is that savvy travelers avoid the taxis waiting at bus stations. In several cities I have seen Mexican travelers exit the bus station and lug their suitcases a block or so away from the station before hailing a taxi on the street. Some cities in Mexico have addressed the problem of unscrupulous cab drivers by installing kiosks in the bus station where travelers can pre-pay the correct taxi fare to avoid being ripped off by drivers who would otherwise overcharge visitors unfamiliar with the city.

Modernization has taken away some of the spontaneity of using urban buses. Queretaro for example recently converted to a cashless system about which I was unaware when I went to board a bus with my eleven pesos in hand. The quarrelsome driver shouted "No cash!" and ordered me off the bus to go buy a metro card at the Oxxo store a block down the street. I was not keen on waiting another half hour for the next bus so I offered my pesos to the lady in line behind me who smiled and swiped her card for me. At that the driver erupted, shouting that I had to get off his bus. When I tried to do that the lady ordered me to take a seat, and by that time there were several other passengers yelling at the bus driver telling him to back off. He finally recognized he was outnumbered and gave in. I told you Mexicans are so often there to help out visitors.

For the return trip I tried to buy one of those new metro cards at an Oxxo store. That process required filling out a lengthy form providing name, address, phones, date of birth, place of employment, email, photo ID, fingerprints, DNA sample… or at least it seemed so. Soon there were several people queued up behind me at the checkout, so I said the heck with it and turned to leave. At the door I heard "psssst psssst" and standing nearby was that character you have seen in several movies, wearing a long coat that when opened reveals a dozen fake Rolex watches for sale. He asked me if I wanted to buy a metro card and produced one from a stack of them.

All over Mexico most of the taxi and bus drivers I have met have been helpful and welcoming. There have been only a very few exceptions. Once when departing a big city through its "Central" I spied a large billboard featuring a larger-than-life mug of the smiling mayor along with a welcome message below which was an email address and phone number. While on the bus I typed a scathing email complaining about the rude treatment I had received from a city bus driver. Lo and behold, my cell phone soon rang and it was hizzoner himself calling. We spoke for 15 minutes with him telling me how important he considered tourism to be. Later, true to the mayor's word, I received a call from the city transportation chief saying he was reviewing the TV camera tapes from the bus, and wanting to confirm if I was the gringo wearing a red shirt and cowboy hat.

For international travelers it is unfortunate that some cities seem to be intentionally taking steps to discourage visitors from using local public transportation. Some locales require you to have a cell phone app, but you cannot get it because the Mexican cell phone app is blocked from installing on a U.S. phone or one set to English. In Cuba the authoritarian government had one kind of money for tourists to use, and different money for citizens; forcing me to bargain with a local to get a few of the local-money coins that the bus would accept.

Back in Mexico, capitalism is the rule at the bus stations. No matter in what direction you travel by bus from San Miguel you will find there are competing bus lines servicing the same routes. As I mentioned earlier, this is common throughout Mexico, also; at some bus station you can purchase an intercity ticket at the counter or there may also be ticket sellers standing with the bus at the curb. I usually wait to see which bus line arrives first before buying my ticket at the curb. When one line's bus arrived a ticket seller started yelling out "San Miguel, Dolores, San Miguel, Dolores!" so I bought my ticket from him. When I tried to board the driver informed me I had bought a ticket for the "other" bus line and would have to wait for that other bus to San Miguel to arrive. My ticket seller had disappeared and for almost an hour I paced back and forth waiting for him to reappear so I could give him a piece of my mind. Only after I boarded the correct bus did he reappear through the windshield, waving and grinning like the whimsical Cheshire cat.

I waved back to him, but I neglected to use all my fingers.

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Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

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