i was going to post this at the end, but have decided to do a double post tonight. this will be a review of the transport that we used to get to and around mexico. things didn't start off well though, we had an american airlines flight (run by qantas) to los angeles delayed by about eight hours (initially they said about six hours). to make up for this, qantas gave us $62 dollars in food vouchers to use at the airport (they had five $14 vouchers, and one of them was crossed out and changed to $6, a token of good will for us to get a bit more than $20 each 
). we decided to hang around the airport (which, in hindsight was probably a bad decision, but it would've been expensive and time consuming to get out and back), and had some food, then found out that melbourne airport doesn't have a viewing platform.
los angeles airport (lax) is almost certainly worse, i never wanted to go to america because of their ridiculous finger print laws. unfortunately for me, i had no choice, their customs is so ridiculously slow, and unhelpful, we had to wait four hours at that airport before the flight to mexico city on mexicana. we had no issues whatsoever with mexicana, on time, efficient, and straightforward, and they spoke english too (even on the internal merida to guadalajara flight).
travel between cities in mexico is probably best done by bus, there is an extensive bus network, and it ran very smoothly for the majority. prices quoted in lonely planet are pretty outdated it seems, but trip times are pretty much right. here are the prices that we paid for first class buses on ado (comfortable and very secure for us), between cities, at the time, pesos to us dollars was about $1 usd to $10 pesos.
we had a snag in escarcega when our scheduled bus didn't arrive, and we ended up having to get our tickets replaced so that we could get on another bus that was heading our way, ended being about an hour later, so not a big loss.
second class bus trips and shorter bus rides were a bit more amusing and interesting. we used buses most of the time to get to ruins and other things outside the cities.
, it's not clear how to get back in the lp, just go back out to the main road, and there is a bus stop across the road, wait for a bus there, and make sure it's going the right way, buses go to campeche and merida (despite what the sign says), one goes back to merida at 12.30pm at least.
in terms of buying these tickets, the first class ones, we bought at the terminals or ticketbus offices in the city, usually at least a day before leaving, the bus was only full once, but we didn't want to risk it. for the second class buses, the people at the terminals usually just told us to get the ticket on the day. colectivos, they'll tell you the price at the end, usually ten pesos or so. small, local buses usually just give the driver a ten peso coin, and he'll hand back some change.
from the airport and bus terminals into the city or to your hotel, there are usually set zones, where the price is set, just pay whatever they say, it's very cheap anyway (relatively speaking). if a taxi has a meter, you almost certainly want to use it, when we went from guadalajara to the airport, the guy said $170 pesos (that's what we paid, the authorised taxi from the airport cost us $200 pesos), the meter barely registered $90. otherwise, ask the driver before you get in for the price, and it's usually a pretty standard figure. but make sure that you are both in perfect understanding of where you are going, when we went to tequila, the taxi driver gave us a ridiculous first price, which we accepted, cos we didn't know what was going on (even though i specifically said the terminal name according to lonely planet, don't say antigua central, ask for viejo (old) terminal), then he went to the wrong terminal, and ended up charging us $100 pesos and getting us there late. i reckon he was dodgy, i don't know, we stuffed up when we accepted $70 pesos when we knew the bus terminal wasn't that far.
here is a short video of us riding the metro in mexico city, it's fast, the next train is never far away, and takes you pretty much anywhere you want to go, in the city. a couple problems exist though, it does get crowded (supposedly can be insecure, although we never experienced this, the insecure part), and the doors close very quickly, so don't waste time getting on or off. also worthy mentioning, it costs two pesos (20c) per trip (until you actually exit a metro station), so you could change trains several times till you reach your destination for two pesos, connex is shit!!
that's my transport review, inside mexico, it was all pretty smooth, the public transport system works pretty well as far as i'm concerned. pic of a beetle speaker car, though we never got in a beetle cab, there are still plenty around, but not as many as i thought (much less than 50% 
), we also did a lot of travelling by foot.
Last edited at 6:35 14th-may-2008
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