World traveler and STN contributor Anson Stewart’s bus ride becomes interactive as he transforms from a rider to a worker.
The former school buses on Ometepe were quite durable. I talked with one of the island’s first bus owners, and she told me about how, despite the island’s rough roads and lack of any garages (meaning the buses have to take the ferry to the departmental seat of Rivas for maintenance), the buses hold up pretty well. After completing a paving project between the port towns of Moyogalpa and Altagracia, the government is now slowly proceeding to pave the road out to the town where I stayed, Mérida. I unexpectedly got the chance to help out with this construction work.
STN’s Stewart is a graduate of Swarthmore College and a recipient of a 2010 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a grant to study abroad. Stewart’s project is “School Bus Migrations: Recycling Transit in the Global South.” Follow his blog and see more photos from his journey.
