A good ride

Riding home on the Campur bus after dark.  I could count on one hand how many times this has happened over the past twenty months, mostly because I tend to travel early in the day.  But every once in a very long while, it works out that I end up on the bus that doesn't leave the city until right before dusk.  It's perhaps equally as rare that I end up in the passenger seat of the microbus. 

Some observations on the microbus passenger seat: it's seemingly the most prized seat, the best/most comfortable seat on the bus and is therefore one of the first to be claimed.  However, the bus driver/ayudante will often informally reserve this seat for someone special (usually a woman).  A woman they know, either from their family, or professionally, or a woman whom they know is respected.  I've seen drivers kick others out of the passenger seat to give it to more passenger-seat deserving women such as the head nurse from the village health center, the female director of one of my schools, or, of course, me (in these cases I've always denied their offer and taken a seat in the back--I'm not about to boot anybody out just because I'm the village Gringa--can't say I haven't been tempted, though).  So that's another thing about the passenger seat--even if you get there first while it's still unoccupied, you can't just sit there.  This is what you do instead: As the microbus sits in the lot waiting to fill up and leave, there's a certain dance that one must go through to get on the bus.  There is typically only one bus leaving for each village at a time.  Each of these microbuses are clearly marked with the name of their origin and the name of their destination in block adhesive lettering on the windshield (so even if I didn't recognize the driver as one of the Campur bus drivers, which by now I always do, I could just get on the bus with the giant "CAMPUR" stamped on its windshield).  Despite this fact, upon approaching your chosen bus, the ayudante (literally "helper," he is the bus driver's assistant who handles the fares, the passengers' cargo, etc.) will surely ask "B'ar yookat?" ("Where are you going?") to which I reply, "Q'anpur" ("to Campur").  This interaction happens even with ayudantes who have known me for a while, who know where I'm going before they even ask me.  The ayudante, satisfied with my response, tells me "hay lugares atrás" ("there are spaces in the back") and takes any large bags I might have and ties them to the cargo rack on the micro's roof.  This gives me free reign on any of the unoccupied seats on the bus.  Except, of course, the passenger seat.  To get the passenger seat, the ayudante (oftentimes via the driver) will instead state "pase adelante Seño" ("go up front Miss") and unlock and open the front passenger side door before loading my cargo on the roof.  Or, if I'm feeling bold and see that the passenger seat is vacant, I can ask if I can "pasar adelante," and they'll either tell me it's reserved or let me have it. 

Why do I like the passenger seat?  One: window control.  I can roll up and down my window as I please to control the air flow.  Two: a seat belt.  It's the only seat on the bus with one, and my Gringa self likes the (false?) security.  Three: the view.  The view through the front windshield is undoubtably the best one, and makes it the easiest to avoid carsickness on those endlessly windy mountain roads.  And four: roominess.  I have watched in wonder/horror as ayudantes pack four more people and a baby into a microbus that was already overcapactiy to begin with.  In the back of the micro, chaos reigns.  More passengers mean more bus fares, so the ayudante will literally cram it full until people are three to a seat, with another standing over them, using the ceiling for support and balance.  In the front, however, there are limits.  Microbus drivers take their job seriously (as they should), and won't risk compromising their driving ability by having some passenger sitting in their lap.  So the most I've ever seen sit in the front is four: the driver and three passengers (which due to the little booster seat in the front center four really isn't as crowded as it seems). 

So tonight I won the microbus lottery.  Not only did my bus leave after 5:30pm, but I was elected to sit in the passenger throne (this particular bus driver knows me well and always gives me passenger seat dibs).  Cruising at dusk with the road stretched out in front of me, Fleet Foxes playing through my earbuds; it was the most pleasant ride I've taken in a long, long while.  There's just something about riding along at night that's so peaceful, so cozy.  As the daughter of two musicians I used to love nothing more than the long car rides back from my parents' evening gigs in the city.  The interstate was so smooth and hypnotizing the way the streetlamps would go by at even intervals, the car not slowing down or speeding up but gliding along at a constant, unfaltering speed.  I don't know why, but those car rides made me feel so safe.  Like we could glide along like that forever.  I used to always wake up at the off-ramp to our neighborhood and be sad that we were almost home.

There's something similarly calming and comforting about traveling the Campur road at night.  The warm humid breeze hitting my face, the street unfolding only as far as the headlights illuminate it, the eclectic mix of pine and palm trees passing on the roadside.  Watching the roadside tiendas pass, each with only a small candle lighting it's interior, or for the few that have electricity, a single bare bulb.  Smelling the smokey smell of the comales heating up over the wood fires, watching small groups of people hurry home on the roadside.  And once off the main road, becoming completely enveloped by the darkness, amazed how this automobile can maneuver the dirt road, working it's way through the jungle like a familiar stranger until finally, I'm home.