Thread: A journey joining two worlds

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A journey joining two worlds

El Paso-Denver bus route a path to family, American dream

By Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
August 20, 2005

Felipe Jesus Moreno is headed from Denver back to his hometown of Queretaro, Mexico, aboard an El Paso-Los Angeles Limousine Express bus, after meeting his father for the first time.

Mauricio Gutierrez is returning to Chihuahua after getting laid off as a hotel maintenance worker, his third job in less than a year.

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"I won't be coming back to the United States for a while," he says, as the roadside landscape of Interstate 25 whizzes by. "It has gotten too difficult with all the increased vigilance by immigration authorities."

Theirs are among the countless stories of dreams fulfilled and hopes dashed on the Limousine Express from the Front Range to the Texas border.

There are at least six bus companies in Denver that take passengers to El Paso and other border cities in about 12 hours - part of a growing number of Hispanic-owned or operated companies providing direct service between the United States and Mexico.

From El Paso, the buses make connections to cities as close as Ciudad Juarez and as far away as Mexico City.

Some of the buses originate in Greeley and make short stops in Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Some companies that operate out of dilapidated storefronts seem fly-by-night. Others are more established. Limousine Express has been in business for 39 years.

On a rainy midsummer morning, passengers arrive en masse just minutes before the 10 a.m. bus for El Paso departs.

The Limousine Express terminal is a converted downtown gas station on Champa Street and Park Avenue West. Across the street, two other bus companies, Camionetas Chihuahua and Guadalajara Tours, wait to take any leftover passengers.

There are at least six bus companies within a three-block radius, all of them attracting throngs of people at various times during the day.

Just two blocks away from Limousine Express the hulking, square-block Greyhound station appears virtually empty.

"I used to take Greyhound," Gutierrez says. "But the trip is longer and the fare is more expensive. This is much better."

Lonny Kane, general manager of Greyhound's TNM&O subsidiary, which runs buses in the Southwest region, including Denver, says the growing number of cross-border transit companies are proving formidable competitors.

Greyhound recently cut more than 80 stops in the Southwest, shaving off almost two hours in travel time between Denver and El Paso, he says. In July, the most direct run took 16 hours and 40 minutes. The same trip now takes about 14 hours and 30 minutes - still 2 1/2 hours more than the other bus lines.

Greyhound also has lowered its prices in response to competition from the border buses. One-way ticket prices from Denver to El Paso recently fell from $82 to $57. Still, tickets on Limousine and the other privately-owned lines average about $45.

"With our passenger base being predominately Hispanic, we have no choice but to compete with these other companies," says Kane. "Our selling point remains a safe trip on a clean, well-maintained bus.

"Some of these other carriers - some which aren't insured or keeping their buses clean and in good working order - can't promise that."

In addition to rising fuel prices, the cost of insurance, union wages, maintenance and other expenses makes competing with the other carriers a challenge.

Shipping people, goods, papers

Limousine Express, which is headquartered in Los Angeles, is fully insured and follows strict operational standards, says director of operations Ricardo Cepeda.

He says business has grown by 30 percent in just the last year alone. While the majority of customers are Hispanic, an increasing number of non-Hispanic college students, families on a budget and others are taking advantage of his bus line's fast service and low prices, Cepeda says.

Hector Nevarez started Camionetas Chihuahua in Denver eight years ago. He began with a fleet of vans and soon switched to 55-passenger buses. His service specializes in destinations in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, including the cities of Chihuahua, Cuauhtémoc, Delicias and Parral.

Like the other bus companies, much of Nevarez's business comes from package and freight service.

"In the summer, a lot of migrant workers send clothes, appliances and other purchases back to their families in Mexico," says Nevarez. "From Mexico, we get a lot of documents so that people can arrange their legal residency.

"Most of our customers come from Chihuahua. Many of them know each other or are related to one another."

Summer is a good season for Jose Ortiz, who sells tacos, refreshments and "the best Mexican coffee" (with cinnamon, milk and sugar) in the parking lot of the Limousine Express station.

He and his wife get up each morning at 3 a.m. to make a dizzying variety of tacos that sell for $2 each: beef tongue with green chile, red chile with beef, beans and cheese, steak and onions, and chicharrones (fried pork rinds).

"By 8 a.m.," says Ortiz, starting a joke about his competition that amuses Limousine Express drivers Nicholas Olivas and Socorro Chan, "there are usually two vendors out here, and an envious woman in the corner. If you have good food, business is good."

Olivas and Chan attest to the quality of Ortiz's food as they devour tacos and coffee before starting their morning run. The two signed up as drivers in the spring after driving trucks in Utah for two years.

"Being a truck driver is a hard life," says Chan. "You're away from your family. You have to sleep wherever. Driving a bus is easier, cleaner. You get to meet new people, and you get to be with people who share your culture and customs. The money's not as good, but it's worth it."

At 10 a.m. sharp, Chan announces the departure of bus 315 to El Paso, and the passengers climb aboard. The smell of diesel fuel fills the air outside.

Long trip routine for some

The bus is clean, but shows signs of wear and tear. The overhead reading lights don't work, nor do three of the six television monitors placed throughout the bus. A fuzzy picture fades in and out.

Chan pops in a videotape of Walking Tall starring The Rock. Despite the fact that most passengers speak Spanish, the bus' film library consists mostly of English-language movies.

The bus ride south on Interstate 25 is smooth, and the air conditioning keeps passengers comfortably chilled. In Colorado Springs, the bus picks up two passengers at a shopping center parking lot.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged couple, Maria Teresa Gonzalez, and her husband, Jose Manuel Gonzalez, share a sack lunch of bean-and-cheese burritos, chile-and-lime-flavored wheat snacks, and a Tupperware bowl filled with Spanish rice. They have made the round trip from El Paso to Denver and back dozens of times.

"We come to visit family a couple of times a year. I like the trip. I like spending time with my husband and watching the scenery," says Gonzalez, who recently left her job at a maquiladora plant in Juarez to sell Avon products. The manufacturing plants are located mostly along the Mexican side of the border, where workers are paid less.

The drone of the bus engine and the pitter-patter of rain on the tinted bus windows lulls many of the passengers into a dreamlike state. A few strike up conversations. Some are on cell phones.

Gutierrez reclines in his seat and stares at the TV. For him, the bus is a first-class form of travel compared with his adventures in crossing the border from Mexico.

An illegal immigrant from Parral, Chihuahua - where a seemingly large majority of passengers are from - Gutierrez says he was twice smuggled into the United States in the trunk of car. Another time, he hopped aboard a freight train and was shot at by a farmer near the Arizona border.

"They say that this is the land of opportunity, but you don't realize how much suffering there is," he says. "Not everyone finds a better life here. I'm tired of feeling like a stranger. Tired of living in fear. I miss my family. I miss my four children."

A few seats away, Moreno says he is thankful for finally getting the chance to see his father, who was left by his mother when he was an infant. But he is glad to be returning to his hometown in the state of Queretaro in south-central Mexico. It was his first trip to the United States.

"I was happy to see my father. I saw myself in him," says Moreno, who found a temporary construction job during his three months in Denver. "I enjoyed Denver. I found it easy to get around. I was able to obtain several fake drivers licenses with different names. I made up Social Security numbers to get work. My father was sad to see me go, but Mexico is my tierra."

DEA agents climb aboard

At the first stop, in Pueblo at the La Nueva Tortilleria, a tortilla and Mexican pastry shop, passengers are given exactly 20 minutes for lunch. But like the Gonzalezes, most bring their own food.

Baltazar Garcia, a 64-year-old migrant farmworker, uses the break to smoke cigarettes. For eight years, Garcia has been taking Limousine Express back and forth from his hometown of Chihuahua to follow crops in Colorado, California and other states.

"I've worked fields of broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, onion, sugar beet, tomatoes," he says, counting the crops on his thick, calloused fingers.

Back inside the bus, as it climbs a steep hill just past Trinidad, John Mason is working a crossword puzzle.

"I know I'm the only white guy on the bus. I usually am," says Mason, a teacher at an alternative high school in Commerce City and a native of Wisconsin who on his way to visit his sister in Albuquerque.

"Being on this bus doesn't bother me one bit. I've probably taken it a half a dozen times. It's cheaper and a lot faster than Greyhound. You wouldn't find any of my friends or family on this bus. Who cares?"

Chan inserts another tape, The Santa Clause. As the bus crosses into New Mexico, the landscape flattens and the road stretches into the horizon.

As the miles go by, times seems to contract at certain periods, expand at others.

The distance between Trinidad and Albuquerque seems unusually short. The bus pulls into downtown Albuquerque, where it backs into a slightly rundown station.

An armed man dressed in black opens the chain-link gate. Federal Drug Enforcement Administration officers climb aboard and inspect baggage in the overhead compartments and in the luggage compartment below.

A few passengers are questioned. "Habla Ingles?" one of the DEA agents asks.

"We wouldn't be here if we didn't find anything," says one officer, who asked not to be identified or photographed. "This is a routine, random stop. We usually find guns. Sometimes drugs."

Five minutes later, the big chain-link fence with a sign that reads, "Help Wanted, Bilingual Ticket Agents," opens and the bus heads back out to Interstate 25.

As darkness falls, the last leg of the route between Albuquerque and El Paso seems interminable. Soon after passing Truth or Consequences, N.M., the bus crosses the Texas border and enters the outskirts of El Paso.

Olivas emerges from his sleeping compartment, a plywood box in the back of the bus containing a twin mattress and a radio. He walks up front to join Chan, who pulls over to the side of the road to switch seats with her co-pilot.

The Rio Grande, which separates the United States and Mexico, soon appears alongside Interstate 10 into El Paso. White U.S. Border Patrol SUVs are parked at about quarter-mile intervals, monitoring the river and a high fence topped with razor wire for illegal trespassers.

The bus veers off the highway and pulls into the station in downtown El Paso, just five blocks from the border. Taxis wait to take passengers into Ciudad Juarez, where Limousine Express has a sister station. From there, passengers take buses to all points south.

At the El Paso station, the throng of people quickly thins out. Moreno, carrying luggage and a large plastic red truck for one of his four children, lights a cigarette and disappears into the night.

Northbound for the 315

The next morning, buses heading north leave at 8 and 10, and then at 7:30 p.m.

An elderly couple, Simon Uribe and Guadalupe Atorga, have just arrived from Santiago Papasquiaro, Durango - a 17-hour bus ride. They are on their way to Denver to visit their son, but are told that that the 10 a.m. bus is full. They will wait in the terminal for 7 1/2 hours before boarding a bus for the 12-hour journey to Colorado.

"We don't have much of a choice," says Uribe. Although there are other bus companies they can use, they are loyal to Limousine Express, and decide to wait it out.

At 10 a.m., bus No. 315 pulls into the bus bay for its return trip to Denver. Passengers are rushed to their seats and the bus pulls out less than five minutes later.

There are considerably more families with young children on the bus than there were on the trip south. A grainy Flintstones cartoon dubbed in Spanish appears on the three working TV monitors, eliciting squeals of approval from the children.

Rocio Melendez, of Lakewood, dotes over her four young ones, handing them candy, sodas and playing cards.

Her daughters, Leslie Rodriguez, 10, and Ashley Rodriguez, 7, crawl under a Hello Kitty blanket and giggle. Their younger siblings, Maria Rodriguez, 3, and Oscar Rodriguez, 5, sit with their mother. She squeezes her children tightly and they soon drift off to sleep.

"We usually travel by night so the kids can sleep their way through most of the trip," says Melendez, who makes the journey from Denver to visit her parents in Ciudad Juarez about three times a year.

From the bus, a large white statue of Jesus Christ can be seen atop a hill that rises from behind the Rio Grande. Melendez says the figure marks a route commonly used by immigrants who cross the border illegally.

"Everyone knows about it, except la migra," she says, referring to immigration officials.

A few seats away, father and son Gilberto and Ibrahim Mendoza, of Denver, read fotonovelas. Ibrahim listens to a CD by rap star 50 Cent while he reads.

The Mendozas are returning from vacation in Durango, where they fished and swam in nearby rivers and visited with relatives.

Lights of Denver beckon

Just before Las Cruces, N.M., the bus pulls into a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. A large sign boasts: "Drug seizures: 19,421 pounds."

A dark-skinned customs agent climbs aboard the bus and asks passengers in English: "Are you an American citizen?" Some carefully enunciate "yes," while others show visas, work permits or passports.

The agent checks the bathroom while The Bourne Identity plays on the working monitors above.

A few hours later, the bus pulls off the freeway for lunch at a truck stop in Albuquerque. Ernestina Enriquez Aragon spends most of the 20-minute break smoking cigarettes. She takes the bus from Torreon, Mexico, twice a year to visit her son and grandchildren in Denver. The trip takes 24 hours total.

"You get used to it," she says. "I actually enjoy it. It's nice to see the scenery and talk to people you meet on the way. Too many people are in a hurry. People need to take the time to slow down."

More miles pass. Another videotape, Charlie's Angels, is popped into the player. The children on the bus seem mesmerized by the action-adventure film. One boy gets up and mimics the martial arts moves of Cameron Diaz.

As the afternoon turns to early evening, most of the passengers zone out. Children sprawl on seats, pressed against their parents or adult relatives.

Soon, the lights of Denver glow inside the bus, arousing the passengers from their in-and-out slumber.

The skyline and colorful lights of Six Flags Elitch Gardens are welcoming to Melendez, who combs her hair and reapplies a bit of makeup before meeting her husband at the station.

"This is the best part of the trip," she says. "Coming home."

quinterof@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5250

I don't know about you, but I get sick and tired of reading this type of bull bologna.

Felipe Jesus Moreno is headed from Denver back to his hometown of Queretaro, Mexico, aboard an El Paso-Los Angeles Limousine Express bus, after meeting his father for the first time.

Mauricio Gutierrez is returning to Chihuahua after getting laid off as a hotel maintenance worker, his third job in less than a year.

"I won't be coming back to the United States for a while," he says, as the roadside landscape of Interstate 25 whizzes by. "It has gotten too difficult with all the increased vigilance by immigration authorities

."

Things are looking up!

Mauricio, if you came here LEGALLY, then you wouldn't have to live in fear! So .. go home and stay home!

Theirs are among the countless stories of dreams fulfilled and hopes dashed on the Limousine Express from the Front Range to the Texas border.

Cry me a river! <sarcasm!>

I was able to obtain several fake drivers licenses with different names. I made up Social Security numbers to get work. My father was sad to see me go, but Mexico is my tierra."

Gee, here's an invader bragging about his exploits. Arrogant leeches need to stay south of the border!

From the bus, a large white statue of Jesus Christ can be seen atop a hill that rises from behind the Rio Grande. Melendez says the figure marks a route commonly used by immigrants who cross the border illegally.

"Everyone knows about it, except la migra," she says, referring to immigration officials.

Thanks to you, Melendez, they certainly know about it now. Thanks for this tidbit of very valuable information. :P

MopheadBlue,
Great comments.

Originally Posted by jp_48504

MopheadBlue,
Great comments.

Thanks. :P

Talking back to these weepy-themed articles helps one vent. :P