The Bus Stop

Here we stand, finally in the village of Coba. Behind us is a crocodile infested lake which, despite numerous visits, wielded not one single sighting.

Coba is just a forty-five minute bus ride from our previous destination, and so as we boarded the bus I was looking forward to nice short journey - a magical thing after most trips being between six and twelve hours long.

It was the first time we'd used a second class bus, but there wasn't a whole lot of difference between it and the first class ones we're used to. It set off bang on time, and when it pulled into what I thought was it's first stop fifteen minutes later, all seemed well. The driver got off, along with a couple of passengers to buy themselves a drink.

Ten minutes passed, and I started to wonder why we still hadn't moved - the driver at one point returning, shirtless, to the bus, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a mobile phone in his hand.
Soon after, there were huge clanking sounds and the bus shook gently from side to side. I moved to the other side of the bus to see what was going on, and soon realised the 'bus stop' we were at was in fact a vehicle repair shop complete with rusty generator, obligatory old car carcass, and hundreds of tyres piled up next to oil-spattered mechanics.

And so we realised there was a problem, and one and all we waited patiently aboard the bus. With no engine running though and thus no air con, the temperature slowly began to rise. I could feel my whole body heating, and I slowly began to sweat more than any man should.
Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and left the bus with a few others, enjoying the almost identical blistering heat of the outside. To my chagrin the bus was now missing a wheel, and clearly going nowhere for a while.

An hour passed, then the next bus arrived and we all piled on board. Lucy stealthily managed to grab the last seat, but after some comedic attempts at sitting down in the narrow aisle, I was forced to stand. The suspension on the bus however, was clearly designed by the same poeple who make pogo sticks, and so a frankly disturbing two hours later we finally arrived in Coba.

Despite our hotel doubling as the town bus stop, I still managed to walk five hundred metres in the wrong direction, only to be pointed back to exactly where we'd been dropped off when I finally asked a local.

Tomorrow we'll hit the great pyramid ruin of Nohoch Mul, which you can climb as it rises high above the jungle. It's meant to make you feel like Indiana Jones. It better not disappoint.