Mexico Journal - Time to Come Home

Once back in DF we visited a couple of sites, rode the "MetroBus" for a ground-level experience of the city, walked down the gorgeous Paseo de la Reforma, and missed our connection to Nuevo Laredo. Fortunately the next bus was leaving an hour later and the people at the ticket counter found seats for us. Another 16 hours and we could already see the huge American flag (of course, not bigger than the Mexican) across the border.

From Nuevo Laredo to San Antonio we had a five hour drive, and once at the bus terminal we had to walk to the nearest bus stop of the Via (San Antonio's public transportation system). We had to say goodbye to the cordial and personal way of dealing with people, and return to the technical and cold American system. No more asking the shoeshiner when the next bus gets here, we had to dial a number and use a touch-tone phone to enter the bus stop number and listen to the recording spit out the schedule.

Once on the bus, used to asking the drivers to let me know when my stop came up, I asked the same to the Via driver, who simply mumbled: "There is a recording that announces the stops as we approach them". We then had to do three transfers and spent nearly three hours to get home in a city of not even two million people, when in Mexico, a "third world country" we could get accross the 30 million people capital in one hour without leaving the metro stations.