The 31 Topes, 29 Stops, Dust Cloud, Testicle Slap, Bus Ride

I stand in the dusty lot near the outskirts of town among four or five grimy buses queuing up for their turn to ramble out onto their various routes winding through Mazatlán going wherever the painted white windshield words say they are going.

Veteran, if not venerated divers, many appearing as if they had just spent the night in a cantina, clump together near the edge of the dirt parking lot under a worn out establishment, assembled from rusty tin, rustic wood, dusty tarpaper and thread-bare tarpaulins protecting a shabby make-shift food and refresco stand. They wait for intervals between departures, determined, I imagine, by soft drinks chugged, tacos munched, and quality of conversation. School kids, old men and round wives on errands mill about kicking up eddies of fine brown dust with every step while waiting for the next lumbering monster that will take them to their desired destination. A slight breeze wafts across the lot and while refreshing at head height, drops a fine mist of coffee colored grit onto my white canvas boat shoes.

Did I mention it is dusty?

I know that the F. Magon bus goes to Centro, which is where I want to go. Unfortunately, it is about two busses back in the queue and I really want to get rolling, so to speak. The bus with the fat white words painted on the front window that will be departing next says “FED #5.” I have no clue what that means. An ancient, wizened man catches my attention – I’m obviously a gringo and obviously I want to go to Centro (where the heck else would I want to go from way out here) he perceptibly surmises – and waves me toward the bus and says, “Centro.”

What the hell I figure, if it’s going to Centro, I’m getting on board. I trust that he is not playing a hilarious trick on the gringo and sending me to the end of the circuit in some distant barrio that might be worse than the one from which I am departing. And if he is, and if that happens, I can simply wait in another dusty lot and pay another six pesos and take the same bus back here to where I am standing. Not my preference – but not the end of the world.

So I and a twelve year-old boy in his school uniform follow the questionable bus driver aboard the ludicrous bus and the bulky man settles into his ripped black vinyl drivers chair, takes our money, fires up the big diesel engine and we begin the journey to Centro.

Where to sit on the bus is a careful exercise in strategic planning. My friend Roberto says never sit over the axles or in the middle – that’s where all the road motion is expressed. Sit in the very front or the very back. I pick the front seat on the right. This way I can look out the right front window through the fat white words painted on the glass reminding me about areas in which I’m traveling. Again, not that I have a clue. Still, I want to see as clearly as possible all of the buildings, cars, trucks, taco stands, children and dogs we will be skirting around and evading by two inches. All the seats are in rows of two on each side with an isle down the middle. They are formed of solid stiff plastic and bolted to the floor to withstand everyday Mexico abuse. None have any padding of any kind. Where the bus goes the seats go.

Observing the empty cavern it appears as though this vehicle had been transporting Bedouins to distant camps across miles of parched plains in North Africa. A fine layer of talcum powder dust is sifting onto and shifting on the bare floor – moving around with the wind sweeping through the windows and the erratic motion of the meal box, like in a desert sandstorm. Dome lights are broken, finishing trim has long disappeared and some riders have left cryptic messages on various surfaces using felt-tip black markers.

Did I mention it is dusty?

I get out my yellow pad so I can record certain aspects of this trip. I’m writing down the number of topes (speed bumps) and number of stops, like a prisoner marking days on rock walls, so I can put this journey in perspective. I sit, a tall blond gringo, in the front right seat of the FED#5 bus (again, no clue) with my pen and yellow pad like mis-guided, misplaced census taker who took a major wrong turn in Denver. Folks boarding the bus have absolutely no idea what to make of me. Some do a wide-eyed double-take. After seeing me some of them may think they took a wrong turn.

Having taken a few rural bus rides I have discovered that comfortable loose, summer clothing, however essential for this climate, is not conducive to safety for me on these trips and I am curious as to just how dangerous it may be to my health and sex life. So, I’m taking notes.

I wear loose-fitting khaki shorts and my underwear of choice has always been boxers. Don’t know why – maybe because I’ve never been fond of any kind of restraint; physical, spiritual, or intellectual. I have also discovered that, in terms of where I sit, there is not much difference in the radical vertical motion of which the bus is capable. The first topes out of the chute we approach with care and caution – a mild bump-it-y-bump. Not bad at all. Note to yellow pad.

Topes – 1.

Topes, speed bumps in Mazatlán, are mostly large long slabs of asphalt strips installed at right angles to the roads with a steep curve to the concave top about five inches from the surface of the street. That or rows of cut in half ten-inch steel balls set into the pavement, about two inches apart, so the top half of the imposing globes protrude upward into the thoroughfare. Either system produces a brain rattling, vehicle shattering event if traversed in excess of three point six miles per hour.

By the time we get through four intersections and have slugged over four topes the driver is getting warmed up and we are sailing along in sheer abandon. Busily making a note of the last stop and last topes, while feverishly trying to figure out where the hell I am, the next topes slams into the wheels and brings with that impact the full measure of throwing me four inches up in my seat and back down onto it within about a tenth of second. My tender male parts are literally whipped back down onto the hard plastic in a jarring painful slap against the hard surface. I don’t know whether I simply dropped back down into the rock-hard plastic or the seat immediately recoiled and shot back up to whack me in mid-air. It all happens so fast. I look around the now half full bus but none of the men appear to be concerned about their sperm count, or its viability. I wonder if bus-riding Mexican men all wear briefs. Then, three seconds later, while attempting to gather my wits and composure, the punishment is again jarringly delivered by the rear axle. Huevos revueltos – scrambled eggs.

By now we have made so many twists and turns and gone what I think is the wrong direction so many times I have given up ever getting to my destination. In one neighborhood, I recognize a burrito stand Roberto had taken me to a while back and I know for sure it is not in the direction of Centro. But of course every man woman and child who, at regular intervals, climbs on and off the bus, while dubiously appraising me sitting there in the front seat, knows exactly where they were and where they were going.

Twenty-one topes and twenty-three stops later I’m still keeping my log and mostly remembering to brace for those jolting mounds of asphalt or rows of giant steel balls pounded into the streets that attack the medieval ox-cart suspension of this rolling torture chamber. There can be little doubt that every piece of equipment installed to prevent me from ricocheting around this monstrosity has long ago been pounded into extinction. I’ve learned the only true protection for me is to grab my huevos with both hands just before each jarring mini-crash – and I’m pretty sure that might look a smidgeon eccentric to most of these local folks who, I’m reasonably certain, have never strolled down Polk Street in San Francisco. Or, someone might consider a gesture like that as some kind of gringo insult for my distain for the pungent odor of yesterday’s fish tacos and stale beer they brought on board. Either way, I’m headed for trouble.

The difficulty with the clutch my hands between my legs protection system is five- fold. One: If I’m not in the very front or the very back of the bus it becomes a bit obvious and it looks like I may be playing with myself, or have spent too many nights at the Red Dragon and my doctor hasn’t yet fixed my problem. Although I don’t personally know any of these people on the bus that could prove to be embarrassing.

Two: I have to let go of my yellow pad or book, or whatever else I might have in my hands, and I don’t want any of my stuff sliding around down there in all that Bedouin residue.

Did I mention it is dusty?

Three: They are observing me anyway as I’m likely the only gringo they have ever seen on this timetable. Subtle, even secret moves are very difficult.

Four: Without warning the driver occasionally catapults us onto a stretch of tenuous dirt road with no regard for rocks, chuckholes, mounds, sticks, ravines, gulley’s or anything in our way. Feels like he’s using the worst road he can find to test his zero to thirty in ten seconds fantasy – a situation transforming that stretch of momentum into an experience akin to a ride in a paint mixing machine, demanding constant athletic support vigilance. Of course he then comes to a screeching stop and we are enveloped in a swirling brown cloud of – yep, dust.

Five: I’m not that familiar with laws in Mexico but I have to consider it may be a bad idea to be sitting next to a young schoolgirl in uniform while holding on to my huevos – especially if her father happened to be sitting behind us. I’m certain I could never coax my rudimentary Spanish into any kind of palpable explanation before I was punched, beat up, knifed and thrown off the bus by a gang of good, God-fearing Catholics. Yeah, throw that gringo pervert who has been keeping track of us with that pinche yellow pad off the bus I can hear them chanting from the back of my gray matter as the bus disappears around the next taco stand while I’m hoping my gray matter stays in my skull. And then, besides all that, where the hell would I be?

The good news is I finally found a solution to this perplexing health, safety and social conundrum. Either hold my yellow pad with one hand and my huevos with the other, hidden under the pad; or use the same method with my canvas bag on my lap for camouflage.

31 topes, 29 stops, uncountable twists and turns, multiple neighborhoods, 45 minutes and layers of dust later, we fearless commuters actually arrive at the Mercado in Centro. Launched out the front door by a refrigerator-shaped women, I land unevenly on the sidewalk, regain my balance and stroll off under the tattered green awnings toward wherever I was going, with only the slightest suggestion of a limp.

Although I do feel like I’ve been riding a horse bareback for a few hours.

David Kindopp January 26, 2015