(standing in the aisle: age and sex are irrelevant, timing is everything)
Although the exact details of the transportation varies from country to country, I'll do my best to give you a basic understanding of what it's like getting around.
The smallest trip anywhere, when taking local transportation, can take you all day. Here in Nicaragua, with the schedule-less microbus system, things have been a little easier, but it's still always a challenge. I say schedule-less, but it's a little more ordered than that: microbusses, which are really just minivans, leave whenever they fill up. And that's pretty often, because getting around is necessary and cheap. You can take a microbus for an hour and pay between $1 and $2.
The microbusses are the faster, more expensive option. For a few cordobas less (Nicaraguan currency), you can take a far slower and more adventurous local bus. Here, as everywhere else south of Mexico, the busses are old school busses, privately owned and operated.
I almost never check bus schedules. Why? Well, unless I'm going a long way, the information, if you can access it, will almost certainly be wrong. And it will be different from each person you ask, or sign you see... all that you can assume is that it's probably not accurate. In the end, I figure I save time and frustration by not going to the station in advance and trying to track down the correct information, and just going and waiting for a bus to leave toward where I'm going. And always, this works out.
Luggage, that's a whole other issue. The microbusses are hit and miss for luggage storage. Sometimes they'll throw it on the roof. If you're lucky they'll tie it down. And if you're REALLY lucky, like, winning the lottery kind of lucky, they'll throw a tarp over it to protect your gear from rain. The other half of the time, you and your bags are crammed in with the other 14 passengers, sometimes it's behind the seat, sometimes it's in the precious space allocated for your legroom, and sometimes, it's on your lap. And that's just the way it is, so people smilingly accept it.
(bed on a bus)
With the local busses, it's a great transport system. They take your cargo, whatever it is, and hike it up onto the roof. I've seen guys carry 100 pound sacks of rice up the bus ladder, balanced on the back of their necks, and chuck it on top like it's nothing. Amazing. And they'll take anything. ANYTHING. So with our bags, although I initially felt a little guilty about the weight, until I realized that our bags are like feathers, perfectly packaged feathers.
Other local modes of transportation include...
(horse and carriage: something you see here, and don't even flinch)
...and the ever popular...
[pictures to come... on a DVD]
(two person bike!)
Of course, there are cars, trucks, and motorbikes all over the place too...
I thought I'd mention one of my least favourite things about Central America in this section also, even though it's not directly related to getting around.
Garbage disposal.
It's disgusting. Look at this photo that I took at the "bus station" (where all the buses park on the side of the road in the market) the other day:
(note that there IS an almost empty garbage can)
This is unbelievably common. There is just no social consciousness when it comes to pollution and littering here. None. When you finish something -- plastic, rubber, styrofoam, glass, whatever -- all you do is drop it, or pitch it out the window if you're in a vehicle. It's the norm. And it's sad, because you see the littlest of kids see their parents doing it, and then you see them turning around and do it. Okay, this is a small problem relative to some of the other problems here, but one that's so easy to fix. But alas, that would take public education, and government funding, and I'm pretty sure that it's not way up there on the 'to do' list.
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