Too much… Magic Bus!

So , it’s been a wonderful couple of weeks (has it been that long?) since we left La Ceiba.  We’ve had pretty uneventful travels, meaning our busses haven’t hit any cows and have for the most part taken us where we had hoped!

Just a word on Central American bus travel, to all who are not familiar.  It’s interesting, to say the least.  Of course, there are expensive, nice, air-conditioned direct busses, where all passengers get a seat and no livestock are permitted, but who wants to travel like that?

We haven’t taken chicken busses exclusively; we have taken a ‘mid range’ bus a time or two, which is a bus that used to be nice.  You most likely will still have a seat, but it was once a reclining seat, and now it will be in varying states of recline, but never functional, and perhaps with neat little pieces of metal sticking out of it.

Normally, however, we ride the chicken bus, or a collectivo, which is just a smaller chicken bus.  Chicken busses, by the way, are old yellow school busses which have made their way from the US.  The bus drivers get to make them their own, with their personality coming out in the decals and posters hanging around the interior of the bus.  In Honduras, this personality may be expressed in one of two ways: Jesus or Spiderman.  Yep, old Spidey.  The only figure that comes close to Jesus in popularity, Spiderman is a very close second, and gaining popularity.  This isn’t easy, when considering Jesus’ status: more rock star than deity.  He’s on tee shirts, baseball caps, posters in girls’ bedrooms, etc.  Most commonly for autos, a giant sticker across the windshield “Jesus es mi Guia” –Jesus is my Guide.  (I can’t help think how much easier His job would be if there wasn’t a giant decal covering 90% of the windshield.)  Anyway, He’s huge in Central America. But Spiderman has super powers and spidey-sense, so there is some competition.

I digress.

So, this is how we travel, or, as I said, collectivos, which are micro-busses, operating under the same concept and principles as the full size busses, but perhaps leaning a bit towards Spiderman.  Anyway, whatever the size, all busses have two operators: the Driver and the Hustler.  The driver drives.  The Hustler is responsible for filling the bus.  This is very much a sales position (Dad, you’d be great at it).  See, if you think people merely take a bus when they need to go somewhere, you are gravely mistaken.  Around here, people can be convinced to take a bus!  This is done by shouting the name of the destination over and over, sometimes with a little remixing.  For example, a bus headed to Lanquin would be hustled by shouting, “Lanki-Lanki-Lanki-Lanquiiiiiin!?” This mantra is accompanied by specific hand signal.  It’s an open-palm faced upwards with a questioning tilt.  If done in the proper way, with the proper word combination, it can move mountains.  Or at least Hondurans.  Amazingly, people walking the street, appearing to have no destination or travel plans whatsoever, can be talked into getting onto this bus, which may take them hours away!  At times the bus will stop in the middle of nowhere and let off a group of theses unsuspecting travelers, where they presumable will be hustled into a new destination.  Very impressive.

So, we are sitting now happily in Guatemala, having fought off the urges to jump on countless busses headed in other directions.  Apparently the bus hustler’s mojo does not work as well on gringos, much to their dismay.