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A Peculiar Encounter

© Hans Hereijgers

One of the most magical moments of my trips to Mexico is the morning a friend of mine and I arrived in the city of Poza Rica, after having spent the night in the bus travelling from Guanajuato, a very picturesque town in the centre of the country. If you consult a map, you will find Poza Rica in the Southeast of the country, in the state of Veracruz, a few hours to the north of its capital. We arrived at about five o'clock in the morning, totally exhausted due to the lousy bus trip. Not that buses are that dreadful in Mexico ... I remember finding them rather well organized compared to what I had imagined and feared. However, a long bus trip will always be a long bus trip, no matter how comfortable your seat is, especially when you, like me, are not able to sleep one bit when finding yourself in a moving object. Moreover, if you've been living in Belgium for most of your life, every bus trip is a long one once you're abroad.

The city was still completely in the dark, with yesterday's heat still hovering and waiting to be reinforced by the next day's. My friend and I found ourselves a small seat in the bus station, or central de autobuses, where we waited for life to come to the city (and our legs). Once the night started changing colour, although quite slow a process, we took our bags and tried to find a bus to take us to the centre of the town. Just a quick look before going to the capital of the state bearing the same name. However, a bus driver changed the course of our day. At 5.45, we stepped onto the first bus we came across, which was completely empty. The driver says he's not working yet, he's just driving to the centre where he's going to have some breakfast, but we can come along if we want to. Of course we want to! We tell him we are foreigners (not that he hadn't noticed), he says his name is César. We had to ask his name again though because a sudden thunderstrike, not too unexceptional in this kind of climate, prevented us from hearing him clearly. "César," he laughs. Something very peculiar had just happened although we didn't know it at the time. When we tell him we would just like to have a quick look before heading for Veracruz, he says not to rush off that fast, that there are plenty of interesting things to discover in the region. Once we reach the centre, he invites us to breakfast. For someone who hardly ever has breakfast, I must say I found it absolutely fabulous. Simple, just pan and un cafecito, but I feel like a child on Christmas day. Our driver tells us we must absolutely go and see el Tajín, the centre of the Totonac civilization, which happens to be located just outside of town and which, moreover, is on his route. We decide to follow his advice without too much hesitation. As we leave the coffee shop and head for the bus again, the city has come to life, and the night has finally surrendered to the day. We get into the bus, along with a number of other people, both Mexicans and tourists, all of them paying their fare, but us ... he would not accept our money, the same thing at the coffee shop, where he paid for everything. After a drive of about 45 minutes, we say goodbye to the most generous bus and destiny driver we had ever met. If there were a Nobel Prize for Hospitality, I would definitely vote, if they'd let me, for him to have it.

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