North America! We had finally made it to our last destination, the much anticipated Mexico, home of the best food in the world (Thailand excluded), Pacific Coast Beaches, and Spring Break Utopias. We were psyched, we were ready. But our first few days in Mexico were a bit… chaotic.

We had woken in the morning in Caye Caulker, taken a boat to Belize City, and hopped on a bus to Chetumal, a border town in Mexico. As soon as we crossed the border, we were welcomed by the sight of tanks, hummers, and military personnel wielding large automatic weapons. A sign of things to come.

While we were in line for Mexican immigration, we ran into Sam, our friend from Panama who had been our savior during our hike from hell (see Our First Day in “Paradise”). We chatted for a while, recounting our journeys, and thinking “what a small world.”

Once in the Chetumal station, we stood in line to buy an overnight bus ticket to San Christobal. Our final destination was to be Oaxaca, a quaint little colonial town that had great chocolate that had been suggested to us by my aunt and uncle and the crew at Playa Negra (see A Vacation From Our Travels). We figured we would spend the night in San Cristobal, another cultural epicenter, and then head to Oaxaca from there.

At the front of the line we learned that all the buses to San Cristobal were booked for the night and there wasn’t another one until the following evening. There wasn’t anything to do in this town, and only one expensive hotel was listed in the Lonely Planet. We wanted out.

I told the woman that our final destination was Oaxaca, and said that we didn’t care which town we needed to go to first to get there. Any bus leaving that night to any city due west would work for us. But she insisted there was nothing.

A woman next to us who spoke Spanish and English intervened and said that she was going to Oaxaca as well, but she was stopping over in a big city called Villa Hermosa. I asked the woman at the counter for a ticket there. Magically, tickets out of the city appeared for that night. I guess there was a special password: Villa Hermosa.

We went ahead and booked a night bus for the following night to Oaxaca. It was going to be a long two days and two nights of buses. We went to a restaurant across the street and had our first real Mexican meal - quesadillas.

When we were finished, we still had 4 hours until our bus left and it was oppressively hot in the station. We managed to work our way into an air conditioned waiting room where people were watching Shrek dubbed over in Spanish. We sat down and waited.

After Shrek came the headline news, of which we understood little. However, we did catch the last few moments of a story about some city that had fallen into mass pandemonium, and the images shown were those of police beating people, tear gas filling the streets, and blazing fires. I thought I saw the word “Oaxaca” underneath the craziness.

“Beth, did you see that?” I asked, shooting upright. “Was that Oaxaca?”

She didn’t catch where it was either, so I went over to the guys sitting right in front of the TV to ask if that story was about Oaxaca. I actually asked if there was a problem in Oaxaca…

“No, no, no,” they assured me. “No hay una problema.”

“But that story was about Oaxaca?” I pushed.

They then lapsed into rapid prose, and I could catch a little of what was being said. At one point, I thought I heard something about “that was today” and “tomorrow no problema.”

“So that was Oaxaca?” I said.

I could see in their faces that they were sensing my alarm, since I had already said we were headed there. They looked at each other and then turned to me and said, “no, no, no.”

I went back to report my “findings” to Beth, and we decided we’d just have to get to Villa Hermosa, get a paper and ask around there.

Another TV started playing some movie in Spanish, a charming film about a group of poverty stricken street kids forming a gang that went around raping women and intimidating middle class city folk. Children lounged around the waiting room, and some stared glassy-eyed at the TV. Beth and I were horrified that such a movie was being shown in a family environment. As they called our bus, the gang was breaking into a ballet class and jumping on 10 year old girls.

While standing in line, we saw the other TV flash scenes of the violence, but again we missed the location of the chaos.

We arrived in Villa Hermosa early in the morning and took a cab into the city for some breakfast. We went to a Howard Johnson and feasted on huevos rancheros in air conditioning. We sat and drank coffee while trying to figure out what we should do about our Oaxaca dilemma. Could we change our ticket? Should we risk it? Could we get to the coast and skip Oaxaca? We thought perhaps that whatever had happened had maybe taken place somewhere in the State of Oaxaca, not the main city itself. A TV was on, but there was nothing about the riots.

I looked out the window and caught sight of a newspaper stand. I went out to take a look, and there it was, right on the cover. Tear gas, uniformed police with big sticks, and folks running all over the streets. I bought a paper and brought it inside.

I opened it up and saw even more gruesome scenes of bloody people being taken into custody and buses surrounded by flames and plumes of black smoke. I began paging my way through, slowly trying to translate things. Six city buses set aflame, 60 people injured, many arrested, something about a political party…

It did say Oaxaca, but mentioned a lot of other names as well. We still couldn’t tell if it was the city of Oaxaca. We brought out the Lonely Planet, and I started reading out street names for Beth. I mentioned a park, a hotel that was burned, a government building.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Here it is, it’s right next to the bus station!”

Our bus was leaving in 8 hours, and we were headed straight into the bedlam.

I decided to go ask the hotel staff. I brought them the paper and said that I could only translate a few words. I also explained that we were headed there and I was worried that it was dangerous.

“Oh, no,” they said casually. It was all news to them, they hadn’t even looked at the papers.

“This is political,” they continued, thumbing through. “They won’t bother the tourists.”

“But they set a hotel on fire,” I said. “And buses, too. Isn’t this close to the tourist area?”

“Well, are you going to the hotel, do you have reservations?” they asked.

“No,” I said, “But if they set this hotel on fire…”

After a while, they stopped trying to assure me it was ok, and said… “Maybe you should change your ticket.”

Beth and I left to find a computer lab and a phone. We looked up the number for our bus company and searched for news in English. We learned that Oaxaca had been completely shut down for 4-5 months the year before because of these types of protests. We learned a little about the history and sensed the the government was being a bit heavy handed.

I called the bus company, but they said we had to come in. We headed back and stood in line with a screaming child for 20 minutes. Paper in hand, I went up and simply asked if we could change our ticket.

“No problema,” she said.

Rock on. We decided to head straight for the coast. Enough of these cultural endeavors, we wanted some peace on the beach. We booked a ticket to Puerto Escondido for that night, making sure that the route wouldn’t take us through Oaxaca where buses were being set on fire. We even got some money back, since the ticket was cheaper.

We took a cab back into the city and were shocked to see an Office Depot and a Wal-Mart. There were highway overpasses, landscaping in the medians, shopping centers, and spiffy car dealerships - it could have been Los Angeles. We settled on a Pizza Hut (yes, I know we are being American consumerists, but at almost 11 months we’re homesick!), and went in to sit in the air conditioning.

We got a medium veggie with stuffed crust, which we dipped in blue cheese dressing. I’m pretty sure I gained a few pounds from the meal and spent the next few days eating well to recover from it. We sat and blogged and stared out the window for a few hours and then headed back to the bus station.

We arrived, picked up our bags from baggage claim and tried to get into the air conditioned waiting room. This time the guy at the door said no dice. We’d have to wait till our departure time. Three hours away.

We sat down, sweated on our bags, and sat against the glass window to the air conditioned room. I was tired and unhappy. Beth went around to look at the stores while I waited. When she came back the guy took pity on us and sneaked us into the air con.

We sat and waited for a few hours. It was a bit hectic trying to figure out which bus was ours since there were no signs. Just a horrible loud speaker that was about as audible as the NYC subway sound systems. At nine on the dot, right as our bus was set to leave, we were finally allowed through the doors and we found our bus.

Beth passed out immediately and slept the whole way. I tossed and turned, and managed some fitful sleep. It was thirteen hours and our second night sleeping upright on a bus. But we had escaped the madness and were en route to the beach.