On Tuesday, our friend Chago drove us to the bus station in town for our 3:00pm bus to Mexico City. In exchange, we took him for lunch and we all had a nice meal together.
We each had our carry on suitcases, but they were full and heavy. And one small backpack each, and I also had a small duffle bag. Our bus left on time, and two hours later we were at the Poniente bus terminal in Mexico City. We took the metro (subway) from there to downtown, and walked to the Oaxaca Rosa bus office.
There are several options to take the bus from Mexico City to Oaxaca City. The top of the line bus is about 1,000 pesos ($75 CAD, $54 USD), and then there are other choices down to about 700 pesos. But we had seen this “Oaxaca Rose” bus when we were here last time, and the guy at the booth had told us it was 500 pesos ($38 CAD, $27 USD) which is a great price for a six hour bus ride. Consider that we pay 325 pesos for the two hour ride from Valle to Mexico City.
You can also fly, but that option would have involved an overnight hotel in either city.
Anyhow, we got to the booth and asked for two adult tickets. He asked if we wanted the 10pm bus or the 11pm bus. I said the 10pm one, since as it was we still had four hours to waste.
He gave me the tickets and asked for 800 pesos… for the two of us! So it was only 400 pesos ($30 CAD, $21.50 USD) each. Bonus!
Fortunately, we were able to leave our bags at the booth and so we went for dinner and wandered around for a while. Then back to the booth around 9pm where we waited on the sidewalk for the 10pm departure.
10pm came around, and we were called for the bus. But we couldn’t see any bus! We were lead to an oversized minivan that seats about 16 people. We originally thought “whatever”, but it was actually pretty cramped. On the bright side, it was fairly new.
No bathroom on board, but we stopped twice for pee breaks and to stretch our legs. Ruth managed a couple of hours of sleep on and off, and I might have dozed for a few minutes here and there, but the tight legroom made it pretty uncomfortable for me.
And we arrived at 5:00am. But of course what do you do in the city of Oaxaca at 5:00am?? We walked from where the minivan dropped us off, about 2 kms to downtown. Found a park bench just around the time the joggers and dog walkers were starting.
Eventually we made our way to the main bus terminal where we knew we could wait until 7am for most of the restaurants to open. We decided on a hotel close by that had an attached restaurant. It was pricey, but at least it was comfortable and had nice bathrooms! We lingered for a while, because we couldn’t pick up Igor until after 9am. Eventually, we went out to find a collectivo (shared) taxi to take us the 15 kms or so to where Igor has been waiting for us the last six months.
A little dusty, but the interior was okay. I had disconnected the house batteries, so I went to hook them up. Then I opened the hood to connect the engine battery, but discovered it had never been disconnected. I had asked the guy to do that, so I was a little disappointed. Still, a good battery should have been fine, even sitting that long. I knew the engine battery was just a bottom of the line cheap Canadian Tire one that had been installed new just before we bought Igor in June 2024. I put the voltage meter on it, and sure enough it was totally dead. But I have an emergency booster, and it fired him up right away. The alternator was definitely working and I left him running for twenty minutes or so, but the battery wouldn’t take a charge.
So, we had to get a battery, and we also had to get the rear brakes looked at. If you remember, we had a leaking brake line when we were in the mountains of Veracruz last May, and I had closed off the line to the right rear wheel. The guy at the storage place highly recommended a local mechanic, and the mechanic apparently spoke perfect English as well, so although we would have managed in Spanish, this was easier. The guy made a phone call and the mechanic said he could see us right away. A half an hour later, Igor was in the bay ready to be looked at.
The mechanic shop was located on the outskirts of the town of Tlacolula. We’ve been to this town in the past because they have a fantastic indigenous market on Sundays. Anyhow, we walked into town to find some lunch while the mechanics looked at Igor.
Then we went to the main market to find some lunch. Sunday is market day, so it wasn’t nearly as busy on a Wednesday, but there were still some stalls open.
You can’t come to Oaxaca and not have the local specialty… Tlayudas! They are like a pizza, made with a special type of corn tortilla as a base. They can be open faced, or folded over. Either way, delicious!
We chose ours folded over! Here’s what it looks like inside…
Yummy!
Then we walked back to see how the mechanics were making out. They weren’t finished yet, and we had to sit around for more than an hour. But, considering we hadn’t had an appointment, we couldn’t complain. We were both falling asleep in the waiting room though!
Eventually, they said he was ready to go. They replaced the one brake line, inspected, cleaned, and adjusted the rear brakes, but said they were otherwise fine which is surprising because the Canadian mechanic that had (very expensively) done Igor’s front brakes two years ago had tried to sell us on getting the rear brakes completely done at the time as well. Glad I passed on that since we’ve now had two different Mexican mechanics tell us that they are just fine! They also replaced the engine battery with a high quality one. That was a pricey decision, but a good battery is expensive, especially in Mexico.
Total bill for everything came to 5,400 pesos ($403 CAD, $289 USD) which was actually less than I was thinking we were going to have to spend… except I though it would have been mostly brake work and instead we needed a new battery as well.
Hopped in Igor, and drove back towards the city of Oaxaca and into the El Rancho RV Park. Surprised to find it quite busy… there are probably about 15 different rigs here, with quite a few Europeans… and children! I’ll take some photos for you today.
Got Igor set up and opened the vale to the propane. I though I caught a whiff of a propane smell which is not a good sign. I closed the valve again until we actually needed to use it. But when I opened it again, you could actually hear the propane leak. I haven’t looked at it in the daylight yet, but I’m guessing it needs a new regulator. I’ll know more today. That will have to be fixed before we can hit the road.
Slept like a log last night. I’m sure I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow! So, happy to be back in Igor, but we’ve got a day or two of work to get him cleaned up and everything operational the way we want. Then we will do the drive down to Puerto Escondido.
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