How not to stay at a hostel: Winning

She pushes the buzzer hard. The host unlocks the gate. She pushes the buzzer again, holding it longer.

“It’s open!”

She opens the security gate/front door to the hostel with a bit of grumbling. Yes, it is not the best set up, having to pull the gate toward you and step backwards down a couple stairs, but it is what it is. A blond girl attempts to saunter up the stairs with her chauffeur and hundred pound suitcase lumbering after her. Immediately she begins to complain and act righteous.

“I have a reservation here for two weeks.”

“Well, you aren't in our system …”

Now, there is no reason, other than the fact that the host could tell this girl was going to be difficult, that he hesitated. There was plenty of room at the hostel.

Mid-conversation, the girl turns to her chauffeur, “Where’s my scarf? I had a scarf in the car.”

“There’s no scarf in the car. These are all your things.”

“I lost my scarf. I know I had one in the car.”

Somehow, despite all of this and not having Mexican Pesos, the girl successfully checks in. She then makes the chauffeur take her luggage into the dormitory, bangs her bag around a bit, abandons all her possessions in the middle of the room, and leaves with her chauffeur.

The girl disappears until 4 a.m. She fumbles to get the key in the lock. Then, the girl pushes and pulls at the door that will not unlock. Frustrated with the tricky lock, the girl did not try it sober, so drunk, there is no chance. She turns the key continuously in the wrong direction. She locks the door. It cannot be opened from the inside. The girl swears. Finally, she is rescued by the host, who has stumbled out of his room.  She bursts into the dormitory, shushing herself. She has no sheets and has not set up a bed, so she crawls under a mattress protector and passes out. Moments later her phone rings, but she does not answer. Her first night in Puerto Vallarta, she passes out without sheets, too drunk to care.  

In the morning, she has a hard time remembering. What she does remember is partying with her chauffeur.  At the end of the night, she shelled out cash to cover all of his expenses. Outraged, she did not understand. She was under the impression that the chauffeur really wanted to take her out. It turns out, she had hired a date or a tour guide of Vallartan night life without knowing it.

She sounds young, naive. Maybe this is the first time she has traveled alone. But she is 36. She has been travelling around the world, surviving on the goodhearted dime of Christian missions. I do not know how she is alive. 

Beware of buses with plain interiors in Guadalajara

Bus drivers in Guadalajara generally take great pride in suiting up their buses. Fuzzy frames surround the mirrors, black lights, tinted windows, rosaries, and icons of the Virgin Mary or Jesus adorn the bus. While I was surprised at the level of care taken on many buses, I did not think that a bus without such adornments meant anything different until I boarded such a bus.

Image of a typical bus in Guadalajara (borrowed from http://us.fotolog.com/citus11000/mosaic/)

As I stepped on, the bus seemed older and the seats were closer together, but the lack of signage and decor did not faze me. The bus flew down the road. Traffic jams abounded, and the driver alternated between slamming on the brake and stomping on the gas. My mind drifted to Ulsan, South Korea, where daily bus rides felt this way, and I thought I would fly through the front window with each stop. Passengers on this bus in Guadalajara made comments. Those seated braced themselves for the jolts using their legs and hands, trying not to crash into the seat or person in front of them. Despite my attempts to brace myself, with every sudden stop, I slid further down the seat and the lack of legroom became painfully clear as my knees hit the seat in front of me. With each jerk, a new series of cries from passengers would arise. The passenger behind me darkly joked that we would all lose our teeth. Some people rubbed their necks. While the bus was initially crowded, it gradually emptied with passengers finding their stops or bailing to find another, hopefully more careful, driver.

As the bus began to empty, and the jolting and traffic jams worsened, a passenger walked up to the front of the bus and shoved his smart phone in front of the driver’s face. This lead to an intense showdown. The driver stopped the bus, threw off his seat belt, jumped up, and yelled at the passenger. He asked for a fight gesturing for the passenger to take his place. From my perspective, without knowing Spanish, I assumed the passenger was drunk and doing something obscene like trying to show the driver a video from YouTube (perhaps of a better driver). While I thought jumping up and screaming was a bit of an extreme reaction, I understood the stress of driving in backed up traffic, and the driver did not having a barrier to protect him from unpredictable passengers as he attempted to maneuver through traffic.  Because of my experiences in Moscow and elsewhere, I had given the driver the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the passenger was in the wrong. Yet, with the help of a friend to translate the sequence of events, I understood the error of my interpretation.

Buses in Mexico generally have a posted phone number to call and let the bus company know how the driver is doing. The driver’s license number is posted as well, so the company can easily identify the driver. This bus not only lacked adornment. Its walls were completely bare. No signage existed. So, one disgruntled, ballsy passenger walked up to the front of the bus and asked the driver if he could take a picture of his license because he could not find the number anywhere. The driver refused to let the passenger get his license number. So the passenger became more insistent and let the driver know that he wanted to place a complaint. The ride was atrocious. At that point the driver blew up. He went into a rage, jumped up, threw off his seat belt  and yelled at the passenger. With body language, he challenged the passenger a fight. He had had a long day with no lunch break and how would the passenger like to be the driver?! “Take a seat! Drive! See if you can do better!” In resolution, the passenger was kicked off the bus. While I was a bit astounded at the occurrence, I am certain this driver was at the cusp of losing his job before this occurrence. Why else would there be no signage posted in the bus? Why else would he explode so easily?

Now, not all disgruntled bus drivers behave in such a manner. In fact, the next day, I commented on how lighthearted our driver was. He was younger and probably newer at the job. He joked with another driver that was driving a bus alongside ours, and while my friend told me he had been complaining to the other driver about how much he hated driving a bus, he did not do a bad job. Yet in the rallying with the other driver, a strange thing happened. At a stoplight, our driver signaled to the other to open his door, and he made another signal for a lighter. Suddenly our driver was smoking. I turned to my friend and asked if that was normal. She shook her head. As we looked around the bus, sure enough, there was a no smoking sign. I just shook my head and laughed. I am certain bus drivers break small rules everywhere, not just in Mexico.

So, should you be afraid of riding a bus in Guadalajara? No. Just be ready for an adventure. According to my friends neither of these experiences were typical for Guadalajara, but if you are searching for adventure, look for a plain bus, not one decked out with fuzzy mirrors and playboy bunny stickers.