Hello, everyone!
I'm looking for someone with a pickup, van, or roomy station wagon to move four pieces of furniture and four to six medium-sized boxes of things to Pátzcuaro. The furniture is just a small patio table with two chairs, and a small pine chest of drawers. I'm hoping someone here might have some suggestions, or even know of someone who would like to do this. I've done several online searches and found a few companies as possibilities, but their vehicles are much larger than I need, and I was hoping to find an individual with a suitable vehicle. Any ideas?
Wonder how much stuff the bus will let you tuck under? Are you able to make multiple trips? I haven't bused to Patzcuaro in a long time but I know a few years ago they changed the route to a more direct one. if it was a direct route at least you could get the boxes moved with only a single stuffing and retrieval. Maybe you need do it all at once and you've already thought about this. Getting a favor here is quite tough from what I've seen but the distance in defense is no short haul. I'm sure there are plenty local people who would like the job; do you have any local friends you can ask for references? They are quite enterprising here once you get into local social circles. Several artists I know in San Miguel have family there and visit fairly frequently but that likely does you no good.
Thank you for that thoughtful reply, DonJuane. I've noticed that PrimeraPlus is marketing a shipping service, so that may be a possibility for the boxes. (Perhaps for the furniture, too.) I've thought of selling the furniture and shipping the boxes. I'd lose money, but maybe not much more than the cost of getting the furniture to Pátzcuaro. I could get the boxes to the bus station by taxi. Or heck, for that matter, I could sell or give away everything, and just hop on the bus with the Sneaky Mexican Street Cat. Or find out what the baggage limit is and take only that much.
It amazes me to think that I arrived here less than two years ago with nothing more than a carry-on bag, and now I have over 4 boxes of belongings! Plus furniture, plus cat, plus geraniums!
But, you know, first you decide to buy yourself a coffee maker so you don't have to go out for coffee every morning. Then you decide that life would be so much better with a comfortable bed pillow or two. And of course you need a towel, and sheets for the bed. And a sharp knife. Then it gets colder at night, so you buy a blanket. And two years later . . . darn, you need a pickup to move it all!
When I first came here, I planned to keep possessions to the barest minimum so that I could pick up and travel without being weighed down. Two prepa students undermined that plan when they asked me if I could take a dying kitten they had found in the trash to the vet. After a few days of carrying her back and forth to the vet in the rusty bird cage they provided, I bought a cat carrier. A year later she is still living with me and clearly has plans to move wherever I do.
I wouldn't give up just yet. There are some awfully large boxes on some of the buses I've been on, and on domestic rides the cargo bays are almost always mostly empty and I have never seen anyone say "you can't carry that". So let's say the bus ticket is $20 (just a guess) and how many trips can you make in the bus vs what someone would want to charge to take the stuff? If the boxes are 1x1M I would assume they would probably take them with no problem but I am just guessing.
My approach is that if you ask permission too many times in Mexico always someone likes to exude authority just for the sake of doing so and say no. If you walk up to the luggage area with your two boxes and just roll it out to the bus like you know what you are doing, I'm thinking they likely just load them. If they won't then just walk back to the ticket counter and ask for a refund and say they won't load your bags. Even if they won't give the money back, you've only lost the price or a ticket and cab.
Otherwise if you call and talk to too many people to get permission, someone's bound to say no.
So otherwise how large are these boxes and if they are as wide as a bus, can you put the payload in 4 smaller ones?