Getting killed in a multiple passenger bus by a rock slide has got to be the fickle finger of some vengeful god. Why did he not choose one or two 2 passenger Ford Ranger pickup trucks so popular in Mexico?
The recent disaster of almost 40 dead in a land slide in Puebla, Mexico should be a caution sign to anyone traversing mountainous areas in southern Mexico. Let's not even speak about Guatemala, where death by mudslide is probably more frequent than death by intestinal diseases.
The dichotomy of Mexican roads, waffling between 21st century super highways to narrow 2 lane roads along precipices is just another symbol of 100's of years of corruption in road building and failure by Mexican engineers and their political sponsors to provide safe passage to its citizens.
Locally, each year numerous mud and rock slides disrupt the roads leading through Los Tuxtlas. Fortunately no full passenger bus has been affected recently except for a few that fell of bridges and some that missed a curve and plunged down 50 feet.
Fortunately there is a super highway bypassing Los Tuxtlas, at a cost of several days wages for the average local wage earner. That road is so unused and straight, that a blind person could possibly drive it except for those 1 foot deep potholes that unscrupulous Mexican contractors caused to be left behind to remind passing gringos who is boss in this part of the world.
I feel deeply sorry for those mud killed passengers, especially after reading they were mostly impoverished peasants, probably spending an entire day coming and going, to collect the equivalent of a 32 dollar Mexican welfare handout.
Those overhanging cliffs, though, are surely beautiful, especially on the roads through Oaxaca.
It is really a thrill there to stare up to a 1000 foot overhang while navigating a road along a 1000 foot dropoff. What a marvel of engineering that road between Puente Nacional and Oaxaca is. Those Mayans at their Chichen Itza rock piles simply do not compete, irregardless of possibly being declared an international monument today.
