El Pollo Loco – The Chicken Bus Experience

The last time we wrote a blog about buses it was described as “a thrilling read” and “well done” by such Canuck Walkabout readers as Mike Lewis. So with that lofty praise in mind, we’ve had for some time in the back of our minds the idea to write about the Central American chicken bus experience. Experience being the operative word here. After all, do you remember the last time you were on a yellow school bus? Chances are its been a while. Do you remember those cold mornings when it felt like the buses had no heat? What about the awful feeling of the cheap vinyl seats? Or the race to the back of the bus to get the best seats? Well in Central America you can relive the glory days of public school with one of the region’s most iconic forms of transport – the chicken bus.

When they’re finished up their time running around school kids in the United States or perhaps Canada, those yellow buses of our youth somehow find themselves down south with a new lease on life. Toss in a crazy paint job, a flat screen tv, a speaker system of questionable quality, and maybe some bling or even some scriptures on the sides and they’re ready to go.

Note the hood spoiler, for extra speed and bling.

This one has one a spoiler too. It also has its old job name painted on the side – “Goshen Community Schools No. 39”, which Google tells us refers to the town of Goshen, Indiana.

Central American chicken buses are a lot like Sri Lanka buses, which also seemed to start life as a school bus of some sort. This is Galle, Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan ones were less like school buses on the inside, though.

Travelling on a chicken bus is always an adventure, provide you have some patience and a sense of humor. It might seem confusing at first, because the buses often don’t have any published schedule or route. But finding them is easy enough – just check the bus station, if there happens to be one. Sometimes the station is just a collection of streets where the buses park while waiting for passengers.

Waiting for the bus in Panajachel, Guatemala.

The bus station in Dangriga, Belize.

The Dangriga bus station was one of the few places we found an actual bus timetable, complete with destinations and arrival times. Very helpful.

The bus station in Liberia, Costa Rica was pretty straightforward. There were four bus parking slots, so you simply lined up at the one you wanted to take.

The bus station in Rivas, Nicaragua is in the middle of the market. This was one of the only times we had real difficulty with getting a chicken bus, as the one we waiting for never showed. And we had trouble getting straight answers about where/when it would arrive, because the local taxi drivers would lie to try and get you into their cab.

Chicken buses run anywhere and everywhere throughout Central America. They are the most popular form of inner-city and intercity transport, and they’re consistently the most cost effective (i.e. cheap) way to get around. Regular city buses as we would typically know them in Canada do not exist. Fancier coach buses do exist, but they’re typically for tourists traveling on a larger budget. For everyone else, both locals and foreigners, there is the chicken bus.

Chicken buses are typically found wherever you might need one. This one was conveniently waiting on the dock as our ferry arrives at the San Jorge back from Ometepe, Nicaragua. It loaded up with both locals and tourists and headed off towards Managua.

As soon as we passed through customs in Punta Gorda, Belize there was a chicken bus waiting for us. This kid was helping walk people from the ferry dock to the bus.

Chicken buses usually have two staff – a driver and a ticket person. The ticket persons are the true hero of the chicken bus. They help load bags (some buses have storage underneath, but we opt to keep our bags where we can see them), find seats for everyone, fight their way through the crowds to take money, and make sure the bus stops when people need to get off. They are a lifesaver for travelers, who often don’t know exactly where the bus is going, where they need to get off, or which bus to get onto next. We have also found them to be refreshingly honest, compared to their taxi-driver and ferry-boat driver counterparts, and do not jack the price for us gringos.

The ticket taker loading people into the back of the bus. With our big packs, we normally end up going through the back door and getting seats at the back.

The ticket takers work hard, and don’t usually get seats. This one chose to ride on the back of the bus because it was busy inside.

Both of these buses are in motion. The blue shirted guy is the ticket taker for the blue bus, and he is hanging on the ladder and bumper as the bus leaves town. On the left a passenger hops on the bus as it slows down to go over a speed bump.

A familiar site in Central America, whether its at a town square, a boat dock, or a bus station: hordes of men trying to get you into their taxi, van, or in this case their chicken bus. The taxi and van drivers are annoying and won’t leave you alone, but the bus drivers are much more helpful and will make sure you get on the right bus and off at the right time.

But what makes a chicken bus ride so memorable? They certainly aren’t fast, and no one would call them particularly comfortable. But they are usually quite fun – each chicken bus ride seems to bring new crazy adventures. First off, there is no maximum number of persons allowed per bus. If someone flags the bus down on the side of the road, it will stop and they will get on – regardless of how many people are already on board. The seats fill up, then the aisle, and then sometimes people are hanging out the doors. And there’s always the option for the roof. And then there is the music: its usually a weird combination of the ever-popular reggaeton (think Despacito) and early 90s R&B, with a healthy spattering of outdated American pop songs. And we can’t forget the ride itself – bumping along brings back memories of riding these buses to school and back.

If you’re on a fancy chicken bus, you might find a flat screen tv mounted above the driver. Usually its playing some rather alarming Spanish-language music video, but as those of you with keen eyes may have noticed, this particular bus was playing a classic holiday movie instead: Home Alone, dubbed en Español of course. It was December 22 after all, so it was appropriate.

Each time the bus stops, either at a station or even at a stoplight, there are street vendors clamoring to get on board. They battle their way through the already crowded bus, selling everything you can imagine – bananas, empanadas, candy, batteries, earphones, ice cream, etc. If you need it, they’re selling it. And to our surprise, the vendors do quite well. The locals on the bus are always buying. And we have to admit, its convenient not having to get off the bus – especially when you aren’t sure how long its stopping for.

Vendors battling their way through the crowded bus.

But we haven’t answered the question that is no doubt occupying your mind – why are they called chicken buses? To find out more, we have prepared a challenging multiple-choice quiz for you to complete. Only then will you know the answer.

Chicken buses are called “chicken buses” because:

a) they are yellow, like a chicken.

b) they don’t pay attention to rules of the road, and passing other vehicles at inappropriate times often leads to the bus playing “chicken” with oncoming vehicles.

c) they are used to transport chickens.

d) they cram a crazy number of people onto the buses, as if they are transporting chickens.

And the answer is…………………………………………….

The answer you seek lies within this cardboard box. Can you see it?

If you’re lucky enough, you might actually see a chicken on the chicken bus.

If you want to get technical about it, Wikipedia says that the answer should be both c) and d). Having stood next to a chicken, we can certainly see both. And even though Doug made up b) for your guessing pleasure, Em feels its not far off.

As much fun as chicken buses can be, sometimes its better to look at other options. Because of safety concerns – sometimes real, sometimes overly hyped – in much of Central America, there is a huge industry of direct shuttles that cater to tourists and travelers alike. They’re much pricier than chicken buses, but they will save you time and get you where you need to go. For example, say you want to transit across the entire country of Honduras to meet some family on Christmas Day…

We didn’t take too many photos during Christmas and New Years. We wish we had more of everyone to include. We must have been focusing too much on the rum punch and beach volleyball, and not enough on the camera…

But unfortunately, this route involved travel through two of the most murderous cities in the world (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula). To our credit, we did figure out how to do it using local transportation. But in the end we decided to go with a tourist van, 16 hours from Leon, Nicaragua to La Ceiba, Honduras. It was just easier and safer, so in this case paying $80 CAD per person was worth it.

These large vans are used as tourist shuttles throughout Central America.

Or for particularly popular routes, sometimes the shuttles are small buses.

If chicken buses turn out not to be your thing, these shuttles go just about everywhere, including all the smaller towns that are so popular with tourists. They pick you up from your hotel and usually drop you somewhere convenient. For longer hauls, they’re tough to beat. But when given the choice, we’d chose the chicken bus nine times out of ten. Its just a more fun way to travel.

• Doug and Em / January 31, 2018 @ 12:38pm / Panajachel, Guatemala @ Casa Colonia