Friday, January 01, 2010

San Ignacio to Dangriga journey

New year day, we have to travel from inland to coastal Belize. Usually there is an express bus, but not today because it's a holiday. So we took the local bus to Belmopan, then transfer to another to Dangriga. Because of the lack of bus during the holiday, the buses were more crowded than usual.

We met a Canadian couple who also wanted to head south to Hopkins, but they had bad experience the last time as the bus got too full and they didn't make it onto the bus. So the wife was really keen to share a cab with us. But that's going to cost US$40 instead of US$6. We declined the cab idea and decided to brave the bus experience. And yes it was full. The bus was an hour late. I had no choice but to do what the local does. I had to push myself through the crowd to the entrance door. Before the door is open the bus driver told us there are only 15 spots. When the door opens the gatekeeper only let 5 people through. I managed to go through but not peisun. I tried to get her, but they wouldn't let her out. I was told to find her a seat first.

So I figured, 15 spots should be easy. But not, there were no more seats when I get into the bus. People have placed their bags to reserve their spots. So I just took a random spots and placed my bag in another random seat. Then I waved to the gatekeeper to let pei sun come aboard to join me. Later the people came back from break and returned to their seats. Peisun's seat already had 2 people. Fortunaely they are willing to share the seat. And it is a 2 hour bus ride.

After lots of commotion , someone was kicked out of the bus and i don't know why. Something to do with not paying, then peisun got her seat. Awesome! Finally, our bus was cleared and ready to depart. After that I knew we were safe. I am glad the Canadian couple didn't come with us to the bus, I am sure they won't make it.

The bus driver was trying to be accomodating and told the overflow passenger to wait outside the terminal. But the authority was there checking, so he had to drive on without picking up those guys whom he told them to wait in front of gas station across the bus terminal. I am glad we didn't do that. Some smarter passengers walked further so that the authority won't see before hopping onto the bus. It was quite a journey and experience.

1 comment:

riviera said...

What an experience!
So Americans are more rough than Canadians...