I left Oaxaca at seven in the morning. The OCC terminal was already awake — people in line, a woman selling tamales from a basket, the ticket desk moving through names without emotion. Four hundred and eighty pesos. Puerto Escondido, seat 19A, departure 7:15. I had bought the ticket the night before.
Héctor handed me a receipt on a scrap of paper at the door. Twenty-five days. That is past my pace.
The bus was on time. A man sat next to me with a plastic bag of bread rolls and a newspaper. We did not speak. The bus pulled out into morning traffic and I watched the city thin into the edges of itself — low buildings, workshops, a mercado still setting up, then the road that climbs.
The first two hours were switchbacks. The road carved through pine and dry ridgeline, the bus leaning into the curves like it had done this before. The man next to me ate a roll and turned pages. I closed my eyes and let the motion do its work.
Somewhere past the third hour the driver put on a film — an American action movie dubbed into Spanish, too loud. I did not watch. The mountains had changed — drier now, lower, the green fading into scrub and dust. A town passed, then another. The bus did not stop.
We stopped once at a roadside station. I got off to stretch and buy a torta from a cart — jamón, beans, jalapeños, pressed flat. I ate it standing next to the bus while a family of four got back on with bags of chips. The man next to me smoked a cigarette and looked at his phone. The driver checked something under the hood.
The afternoon turned hotter. The air conditioning was working but not hard. I drank water and watched the land change again — lower now, the mountains falling behind, trees thicker, the air heavier. We were dropping toward the coast.
By the time we reached Puerto Escondido it was nearly four. The terminal was smaller than Oaxaca's, louder. I got off the bus and stood in the shade for a minute. The air was wet and warm. I could smell salt.
I took a local taxi to Rinconada because I did not have a better plan. Forty pesos. He dropped me on a corner and pointed at a side street. I walked two blocks and found a place with a sign that said rooms. The woman at the desk said two hundred pesos a night. Room 4, second floor, a bed, a fan, a window that looked at someone else's wall.
I walked back out into the heat. Found a taco stand near Zicatela — pescado, two tortillas, cabbage, lime, salsa roja. I ate standing next to a surfer with sand still on his calves. Thirty pesos. The salsa was hotter than I expected.