Late Friday morning, I boarded an ADO GL bus bound for Mexico City to rendezvous with L (a BFF since age 12), who was arriving from Colorado. For anyone laboring under the myth of the “chicken bus,” I will dispel the stereotype right now.
ADO’s GL and Platino buses are like flying first class (minus the attendant) — the height of luxury and a considerable contrast for anyone who has had the misfortune of taking a cross-country bus ride in the USA. They are comfortable and well maintained; have men’s and women’s WCs and hot water for the tea bag or instant coffee packet passengers are given when they board. (We also received a bottle of water or soft drink of our choice and ear buds for the movies that are shown on drop down screens.) The drivers are professional and miraculously manage to make the drive over one of the formidable mountain ranges that surrounds Oaxaca, a smooth one.
Of course, this is Mexico and at the two-hour mark, break-time for the driver meant pulling over on a mountain road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where vendors awaited.
The views along the Carretera Internacional 135D and 150D were spectacular, as the bus wound its way through Oaxaca’s rugged Mixteca region and down into rolling countryside of the state of Puebla.
From the air and from the road, the sight of Pico de Orizaba always takes my breath away. At 18,491 feet (5,636 meters) above sea level, Citlaltépetl (its Nahuatl name) is the third highest peak in North America, trailing only Denali in Alaska (20,237 feet) and Mount Logan in the Yukon (19,551 feet).
The highway flattened out and rich farmland emerged.
Eventually, signs of the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere came into view.
A little less than six and a half hours after I left Oaxaca, the bus deposited me and my fellow passengers off at Mexico City’s TAPO bus terminal. I purchased my ticket for a “secure” taxi, an attendant hailed the next cab, my luggage was loaded into the trunk, and off I went to the hotel and my waiting BFF.
Mexican Peso Converter
View From Casita Colibrí 