No connecting flight from Puerto Vallarta to Manzanillo, halfway down the Pacific coast to Acapulco, so we made a dash for the bus, rumbling through the rutted streets of the town in a crowded old van. We had been told that a first-class bus left at 3:30 p.m. We reached the station at 3:28 and learned that they had no bus that day—or any other day. We then rushed round the corner, found a third-class bus that left at four, and took six jolting hours to travel 150 miles south.
The bus had seats, in the technical sense. There was a metal frame with a thin coating of plastic, but no actual support. So my bottom sagged downward as we pushed through the lush vegetation of the subtropical jungle. While the light lasted, we saw banana plantations and wild pigs, egrets and flamingos eating shrimp in the swamps. After sunset, when the bus became dark and quiet—except for the hacking and spitting on the floor—we heard the high nervous giggle of an old lady, which turned out to be the clucking of a hen, hidden beneath a passenger’s coat.
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