The People's Guide To Mexico

Once the initial shock of being crammed into a rusty tin box with fifty other people plus a variety of market goods and domestic animals wears off, you'll enjoy a feeling of warm camaraderie and anticipation.

As the bus lumbers out of the terminal, you smilingly agree to a woman's request to hold her wide-eyed baby while she whips up a few tacos from ingredients extracted from a greasy piece of newspaper. When she's managed to assemble lunch, she takes the baby back and offers you a rag for the mess in your lap.

Beads of sweat are breaking out on your upper lip, but the window is frozen shut by years of rust. You take a deep breath or two and find a taco under your nose. You've been invited to eat.

You want to decline the invitation, but from the thrusting motions she is making with the taco, it is clear that it would be grossly impolite to refuse. No matter, it turns out to be your favorite: steamed goat head with lots of chile pepper. The air you suck in through tightly pursed lips sounds like ripping cloth and you attempt to cover your embarrassment at reacting to the pepper by staring out the window.

Through tear filled eyes, you gaze over a 1,000-foot precipice, but the taco, stuck halfway down your throat, blocks a scream of fear.

You are just about to go under when the bus lurches to a stop. Everyone piles out to see what's gone wrong and you gratefully stagger into the fresh mountain air.

A front tire has blown, the second flat of the trip, and there doesn't seem to be another spare. After a quick look at the other tires, the driver decides to remove one of the rear duals and put it on the front. As he does this, his assistants, a motley collection of boys about eight years old, fill the leaking radiator with water from a nearby ditch. They're using one beer bottle and a leaking oil can so they have to make several trips...