Chihuahua, Mexico

It´s been over 24 hours since we left Fullerton. The Anaheim bus station was interesting, with people crying for apparently no reason and one guy drinking a beer in his car. The Crucero bus came right on schedule and took us to Los Angeles uneventfully. The station in Los Angeles itself is actually very nice, but outside it´s a different story. Some creepy guy stood next to us, then after an awkward second offered to sell me an MP3 player, or at least the box of one. Getting on the Autobuses Americanos bus to El Paso was kind of hectic because it was packed. Danielle and I were separated. I never caught the names of my neighbors on the bus, but I will refer to them by their descriptions. To the right of me was ¨text-messaging asshole,” because he was furiously text-messaging somebody the entire time and kept saying ¨fuck,¨being visibly agitated over the whole thing. To the left of me was “pregnant redhead chick,” because she was a pregnant redhead chick. The douchebag in front of me reclined more than I´ve ever seen anybody, and this bus also had the least legroom I had ever seen (and I´ve been on a LOT of buses). The ticket said we would stop in Blythe, but, well, we didn´t. This frustrated some passengers because they were expecting to be able to get off the bus to eat. Text-messaging asshole went up to the driver and said “you were supposed to stop in Blythe.” This angered the driver and he responded: “who said we were supposed to stop in Blythe?” “My ticket. And everybody else´s ticket.” “No, we don´t stop in Blythe. We stop in Tonopah.” Pregnant redhead chick decided it was appropriate to add “I´m hungry! And so is the baby inside of me!” When we did stop in Tonopah, everybody was relieved. Outside of the SA travel stop there was an official sign reading “What you should do in the event of a disaster at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.” Pregnant redhead chick was pissed because everything was closed at the stop, and said that she was going to cuss out the driver. She never did. I bought some Bridgford Party Bites, which I didn´t finish and accidentally left in El Paso. From shortly after we left Los Angeles to well after Phoenix, there was a screaming child aboard. And I mean REALLY screaming. Apparently he had a fever. The other helpful travelers all had useful advice to the mother about how she should deal with his illness. Finally we made it to El Paso right on time at 7 AM. At risk of sounding like grandma, my knees hurt really bad after having them crushed for 15 hours by the guy in front of me. We walked out of the bus station in El Paso and HOLY SHIT was it cold. I did not expect this. We changed money at a casa de cambio and discovered that Mexico is now using brand new series of bills, which I received intermixed with the old ones. The new ones are totally bitchen. We walked the few blocks to the bridge and it was empty. Only one other pedestrian and not a single car crossing the border. I´ve never seen this before. On the other side of the Rio Grande (more like the Puddle Grande) there was a beautiful, brand new immigration building, but the official on duty was obviously a little bored as she suspiciously examined every single page of my passport. This is odd seeing last time I went to Mexico my passport was not even opened. So whatever, we got the FMTs and were told to go pay them at a bank some time, in contrast to at Tijuana where they make you go to the bank at the border before they will even issue it. I was happy that we got our passports stamped, since Mexico only stamps passports about half of the time, and I love passport stamps. On the other side of the bridge there was nobody around except three totally scary looking soldiers with automatic weapons. Since it was so cold they had pulled their uniforms up over their faces, so they looked like Zapatistas or something. Scared the shit out of me. I was a little worried seeing as there was not one taxi in sight (again, nothing like in Tijuana, even early in the morning). Across the street, however, we did find a nice taxi driver who took us to the bus station. We got a ticket right away for a bus leaving for Chihuahua in 20 minutes. Surprisingly, after going through immigration at the bridge we then went through customs at the bus station. They had the red light/green lights but they just waved everybody through. On the platform there were more of those freaky looking soldiers. I´ve never seen such military presence in Mexico, and the only other place I´ve seen so much is in Colombia, but there the soldiers look like dorks. Anyways, the bus to Chihuahua was much nicer and enjoyable. Once in Chihuahua we took a taxi to what LP Mexico 2002 said was the cheapest place in Chihuahua, and seemed to describe favorably. Well, it´s beyond a shithole. Wait till you see these pictures. The toilet doesn´t have a lid over the tank, so when you flush it water squirts everywhere. We´ve just been walking around Chihuahua, which is actually very nice.