I've never really had an issue with car sickness.  I really didn't even understand it.  I'd even roll my eyes at people holding their stomachs in the car.  Sure, it's bumpy, but get over it.  I once crossed the Andes mountains from Chile to Argentina in a double decker tour bus kilometers over the speed limit.  It was scary to say the least, but the long winding turns on cliffs did little to me physically.  The view through massive Coach bus windows is extraordinary, and worth every twist and turn.

So when they warned me the roads were bad on my trip from Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondido, I assured my host family and oodles of other student travelers that I would be fine.  They needed to toughen up a little bit....

 Time:  5:10 p.m.  A large gray suburban pulls up.   It's a ten seater.  There's eleven of us.  Since I know others get queasy, I volunteer to sit in the far back of the van, next to the window, ready to be dazzled by the breathtaking trip through the mountains.  

 Time:  6:00 p.m.  It has been one smooth road since we left, I can tell we are starting to drive upwards into the mountains.  I've also become relatively irritated at the fact that there are "Topes" about every fifteen feet.  Topes are makeshift speedbumps, installed by villagers to prevent tour vans like ours from speeding through the no stoplight-no stop sign roads.  We have to literally come to complete stop, become airborne in our seats, speed up for 30 seconds and repeat the process.  May I also mention that it is 90 degrees outside and the windows do not roll down.

Time 8:00:  Of the ten girls on this trip, the first one loses it.  We see her face turn green and scrabble around for an empty bag.  Luckily, our driver has seen this before and hands her a small, thin pink plastic bag.  We all feel embarassed for her as she heaves into the bag, listening to her vomit splashing against it.  She has to hold it for almost an hour.  At this point we are taking right angle turns back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  And up.  And over topes. Practically sitting on top of one another.  And it is HOT.  And it smells like the bathroom of a corner bar.

Time 9:00:  We have stopped at a remote man-made shack in the mountains.  It's dangerous to stop because you can't pull off the road, you can just park on it.  There are six dark and wrinkled Mexicans waiting to charge us a few pesos to puke in their "toilet".  They sit there, in the dark, no walls to their shelter, staring.  In the mountains.  One by one, ten young white women, I mean green women, step out of the van, each balancing their double bagged pink splashy vomit bag.  We place them at the side of the road, attempt to each get one more good barf out in the hole for 5 pesos a pop.  I decide to buy a bag of extremely hot Doritos, you know, to replace what came out.  

 Time:  10:30:  Any pride I had or inkling of an idea that I couldn't be phased by car sickness is gone.  None of us even flinch when we hear the next splash of fluid into the pink bags.  We all clench five to six bags in our hands.  I am trying to think about anything other than this road, but it doesn't stop.  Not ten feet of straight, smooth road.  I can feel the heat from the vomit bag of the girl next to me and the swishing and splashing is surround sound.  There is no where to stop, no way to leave, no other cars in sight, and turning back wouldn't solve anything.  I would love to somehow be knocked unconscious.  I would welcome a blow to the head.

Time 12:00:  We are almost there.  We ask the driver to stop one more time.  He never says a word, just shakes his head at us. We have to stop one more time, as we cannot possibly cargo any more pink bags.  Some have holes in them.  Finally, he stops.  The suburban, with no air, is one big suffocating smell of sweat and puke.  I stumble out of the car and into another makeshift shack.  I have to eat something.  I notice a small wicker basket filled with cellophane wrapped sandwiches.  One reads "pollo" and looks relatively simple.  A bun, some strips of chicken, maybe some cheese or avocado.  I rip it open and take a heaping bite.  I just wanted thick bread to calm my stomach, but got a giant mouth full of salty, crunchy chapulines.  

Chapulines are crickets.  

I travel, and I'm usually a tryer.  But eating hot crickets with extreme nausea in the dark on a mountain and four sploshy bags of my own lunch in my hand was not what I had in mind.  

I puked on my shoes.

We arrived thirty minutes later and all miserably fell asleep in our hostel.  No drinking, no dinner or late night swimming on the beach.   

 We woke up in the morning to fresh banana pancakes on a balcony on the beach, filled with pelicans and brightly colored boats.

And was the coast worth it?  

It absolutely was.