The Bus From Nowhere to Nice
25 August 22
For any of you following my journey, you have come to learn that public transport has not been my friend. I have done everything from take the wrong train in the wrong direction to forgetting how to count stops to riding a train all the way to the end of the line to double or tripling my walk time. If there is a wrong way to take public transit, I will find it.
I was bound for Nice, France, a four-hour drive east of the cute town of Narbonne, France (six and a half hours by bus). My incredibly friendly and accommodating Airbnb hosts offered to drive me to the bus station because “I think you have too many bags to walk. It’s too far.” After giving myself heat stroke manically marching through the midday sun on my way to try to find the Airbnb from the train station when I first arrived a week ago, I was not going to argue.
(Turning Travel Backpacking into an Extreme Sport)
Entering the parking lot to the bus station was a little confusing, looking like there was no entry from either side. Friendly host circled twice and then entered the space between the bus and train stations. I assured her I would be fine walking the length of the parking lot to the little station house at the other end. She looked dubious and cringed for me as I put myself through the now familiar routine of loading giant green bag on my back, slinging day pack over one shoulder, and hefting black bag onto an arm, but she wished me well and safe travels before I trundled off down the long, long parking lot to the little station at the far end of the parking lot, where my day’s plight was about to begin.
I entered the little station, presented my digital ticket, and asked where I was to wait for my bus.
Oh, that bus doesn’t come here. You are looking for BlaBlaBus (yes, the actual name of the transport company). They pick up waaaaaay over here on the outskirts of town.
For context, map app tells me it’s a 49-minute walk, and I’m sure they’re calculating that based off of a very capable, fit person, not someone laden with so much extra weight they already want to cry (and who already gave herself heat stroke less than a week ago doing that very thing).
So too far to walk. Check.
But there is a city bus that will drop me exactly where I need to be, helpful attendant explains. She presents me with a bus schedule and very patiently and carefully directs me which line and which stop and, sort of, where to get on said bus. It picks up right in front of the train station, which is more or less right next door, directionally speaking. Locationally speaking, while schlepping things across parking lots, we’ll call it about half a mile. And we will completely ignore the question of why neither a coach bus nor a city bus pick up at, um, a bus station, where I am currently located.
Shrug, heave a big sigh, remind myself this is why we start these things hours in advance, and trundle back across all the parking lots. At the train station, buy a pack of mints with my last 10 euro note so that I could have the exact fare of 1 euro 20 cents for the bus, as recommended by my helpful friend at the bus station. Ask the clerk at the little train station shop, with points and gestures, where I should go to wait now for this bus.
Lots of pointing and gesturing, and I was pretty sure I understood her directing me to the curb just outside the train station. And there, lo and behold, was a sign with a bus on it. There was another sign about 3 feet before I got to this sign that also had a picture of a bus and an arrow pointing me out of the train station and across the road. But I’ve looked up and down the street in front of the train station several times and see nothing at all resembling a bus stop. So I bargained with myself that I will wait on this curb next to the picture of a bus until my bus is scheduled to pick up, at 12:22, in about half an hour. If, in half an hour, my bus does not arrive and I have seen no indication where else I might have to go, I will march across the lane to where the taxis are waiting and take a damn taxi.
Twenty minutes in, I antsily start moving closer to the main road just in case I see a bus stop somewhere outside of the train station so I can split the distance difference and maybe make a run for it in either direction. 12:22 comes and goes. 12:23, I move all the way onto the street corner and start to inch down the block. 12:24, I watch my bus, still another block in the distance, turn right into the city. Schlep just a bit faster up the block in time to see it stop a couple of blocks away. Debate with myself how fast I’d have to move to catch it. I’ve seen buses. They don’t tend to stop for very long. And I am not just me, one person, running for a bus. I am me, two heavy bags, and an unwieldy day pack.
So instead, as I promised myself, I backtrack and hop into the first taxi in the lineup, a nine-person Mercedes van. I don’t feel great taking up this big van that a bigger group of travelers may better utilize, but in my half-hour wait next to the picture of a bus in front of the train station on a bus that was never coming anywhere near my orbit, I watched a single traveler take this exact same van and, moments later, a family of four squeeze into the sedan next in the lineup. And the air conditioning just feels too good for me to keep up my incessant need to question my right to take up space. Because it is hot and muggy and I almost could have walked the entire way to this random bus stop in nowhereland with all the back and forth by now, and I am sweating. And I am not talking a cute, ladylike glisten. I am talking cartoonish lakes of sweat pooling on my face and dripping off of my nose and chin in waterfalls.
Not particularly friendly taxi driver takes me to a giant roundabout surrounded by a highway, in the center of which is a parking lot and exactly one bus stop. At least I know I’m in the right place this time, right? Right?! There is a coach bus currently loading, and it’s still way too early to be my bus, but at least I can ask the bus driver to verify I’m in the right place. Except he snaps at me in French and takes off, so I am left sitting, at the one and only bus stop, my brain bouncing back and forth from “Of course it’s the right place. There’s nowhere else it could be” and “Exactly how many times have you been right today?” and “If it’s not right, you’re out of options. You’re stranded in the middle of this highway with nowhere to go and nowhere to stay tonight.”
And this odd little carport island surrounded by the swift-flowing river of traffic is not like the bus station or the train station, where there were people around to ask for help. It is just me, about a hundred parked cars, semi-trucks whizzing past on the highway, and an empty bus stop. Oh, and the family sitting across the driveway in a little waiting area entertaining their young child.
Just as my antsy self-questioning is about to break me, another coach bus pulls up. It’s still too early to be mine, but maybe I’ll luck into a friendlier bus driver. Not only do I luck into a much friendlier bus driver, but the family from across the way has crossed to board this bus, and they speak English. So family translates while friendly bus driver explains that this is the stop for FlixBus. What I want is BlaBlaBus, which is over there, vague gesture, past the trees on the other side of the highway from this odd little island.
More than a little panicked, I blurt, “Can I get there from here? I have no car.”
“I think you can walk there,” helpful husband tells me. “It’s not far. Just beyond those trees.”
I thank them all profusely, reload my packs onto my person, and walk the length of the parking lot twice to confirm for myself what I already suspected to be true. There’s no walking path off this island. But at least it is a roundabout, so I only have to dodge three lanes of cars and semis moving in one direction to stand, panting, on a median, while I attempt to gather myself and understand where it is I’m supposed to go. One direction is a string of toll booths, beyond which is open highway as far as my eye can see. One direction, well, I can’t tell what it is, but it seems to be in a different direction than my latest helpers were directing me. At least forward, I’ll only have to cross one more lane of traffic, and it seems to be an on or off ramp. And I see gas prices on a lightboard, so maybe, just maybe I can find someone to help me at the gas station.
Once I start heading in that direction, I do see a bus stop. Seems like any random bus stop you’d see in any city or town, only there is not a single person in sight anywhere in this abandoned-feeling industrial area in nowhere. The placard on the bus stop has all of the lettered lines and colors my first helper from the bus station showed me printed on the sign next to the stop. I still see no indication this may or may not be where BlaBlaBus picks up, and now I am getting closer to pickup time and no longer have the luxury to wait and see. So onwards, past the bus stop, seeking the gas station and civilization of any kind.
Gas station is unmanned. Not only is gas station just a bunch of automated pumps with no station and no attendant, but the only patrons are semis parked in what seems to be a truck rest area. Still not a soul to be found. Defeated, fighting panic as I glance at the clock one more time, I maneuver back toward the bus stop. Across a smaller traffic circle, there seems to be a movie theater and possibly a small shopping center. I’m in the process of gauging just how long it will take me to walk way over there when an older gentleman comes bopping up the driveway from that direction, pushing his wheeled suitcase in front of him, like a magical mirage. He sees me looking hopelessly lost and confused and merrily calls out to me in French from across the circle. I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying even if I could hear him clearly, which he seems to understand, so he calls out “bus?” in English. When I nod, he gestures up the road, the direction I’ve just come, but on the opposite side of the street.
We meet on his side of the street, where he is still walking quickly back in the direction I just risked life and limb to get from, and he gestures to another bus stop featuring all of the city lines and, face/palm, a sign that says BlaBlaBus. Mind you, this was not an easy-to-spot sign or one I could possibly have read from the other side of the street. But I’m here now, and I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that just maybe I’m finally in the right place. Kindly gentleman, still attempting to be friendly and helpful, wants to know where I am going. And when I show him my ticket, he shows me that this stop is for buses heading west towards Barcelona; in other words, the exact opposite direction from Nice. With lots of French I don’t understand, a few words of English, and lots and lots of pointing, he seems to be postulating that maybe my stop is on the other side of the street, but he seems to think it’s more likely in the middle of the roundabout.
No! I just came from there! I frantically type into my Google Translate to communicate to him that I was already there and was told that BlaBlaBus was over here. More gesturing and map showing (and possibly a text with a friend of his?), and he’s pretty sure he’s right. So he insistently urges me to come with him, up the street, back across oncoming traffic, back to that first bus stop in the center. This is probably about three-quarters of a mile each way. But I am running out of time or options or people willing to help me, so I gamely jog with him across traffic, back down the parking lot, back to the bus stop. He peers carefully at the signage on the bus stand, then beams. “This one FlixBus. This one me. You, BlaBlaBus,” gesture back toward the bus stop we just left.
I smile partially to keep from crying and partially because he truly is a very kind gentleman genuinely trying to help a lost American girl, and who has no idea how very far she’s lugged these damn packs in pursuit of this elusive bus today. I thank him profusely and frogger my way back across highway traffic for a third time, back to that little BlaBlaBus sign, where I sit, use my water bottle to soak my face and back and contemplate just dumping it over my head.
And here comes a city bus, the C, the one friendly bus station helper directed me to take. Face/palm. And next, here comes a BlaBlaBus. When I show him my ticket, he tells me, no, he is headed toward Barcelona, and when I Google Translate my question about am I waiting in the right place, he nods and tells me, “Next one, you.”
So I sit. I just spent hours racing all over this town. I am physically and emotionally exhausted.
Next bus is, indeed, finally my BlaBlaBus bound for Nice, and the very friendly bus driver scans my ticket, helps me load my packs into the undercarriage, and urges me aboard. As soon as I am seated, he takes off. I glance at the clock, confused, as it is still a little earlier than the departure time listed on my ticket. I would almost question whether I’m actually in the right place even now except that he had my name on an itinerary. And the last stop on the placard he has posted in the window says Nice.
He pulls his bus into one of the gas pump bays and fuels the bus, after which he pulls back out onto the road, heading the opposite direction, and stops at that nondescript little bus stop across the road from where he picked me up. He stops the bus, makes an unofficial announcement in French to the bus at large, and about three-quarters of the patrons on the bus pile off and light cigarettes and gamely stand around chatting and smoking. It is dawning on me that friendly bus driver picked me up on the wrong side of the road out of the goodness of his heart.
As our prescribed departure time approaches, about a dozen people show up from every direction. I mean, I know I’m an exhausted wreck, but I’m starting to question my sanity. I was just here, walking up and down this very street, and there was no one and nothing and nowhere, and now people are just appearing from everywhere as though they were here all along.
Friendly bus driver and all of our smokers and all of our new patrons pile onto the bus, and we are finally, mercifully on the road bound for Nice, I think. I hope. At this point, I’m too tired to care.
