Off back to Montreal today, our last section on the American continent for this time. We booked another week at the same nice hostel that we stayed 3 nights in when we first arrived from the US.
Toronto's coach terminal is only a short walk away from Bond Place Hotel which gave us ample time in the morning to sleep in a bit, pack up our gear and do the previous day's blogging update before the departure time of 10am.
It was a slow day for photos as we had a long bus trip back to Montreal (6 hours, 20 minutes). Today's Toronto to Montreal route was also our first Megabus experience in Canada as we had only travelled with Greyhound earlier. Oh yeah, we much prefer Megabus.
We left Toronto at 10am on the dot and picked up further passengers in Scarborough on the way, making it an almost full double decker bus. That had not been the case that during any other North American bus trip, but we got good seats upstairs on the shady side of the bus and settled in.
After a quick stop at Kingston (about 2.5 hours into the journey) quite a few passengers left and we quickly spread out taking 2 seats each. We were told it was not a rest stop and we had to stay on the bus. So we did.
There was another quick stop at Cornwall (a further 2 hours into the trip) where nobody continuing on to Montreal was allowed to get off the bus either. While we had plenty of snacks and water to keep us going, it would had been nice to stretch the legs and perhaps have a cup of tea or coffee.
So the full trip was "express" with no rest stops. They changed drivers and kept going. In comparison, all Megabus routes in the US had meal breaks, some more than one if you include a stop at vending machines, while neither Megabus nor Greyhound trips in Canada has had any longer rest stops. If anything 5 minutes only. Do they breed them tougher in Canada? Not getting off the bus meant no smoko either for those poor addicts (but we neither saw nor heard any desperate smoker complaints).
We arrived at the Megabus terminal at Bonaventure in Montreal 10 minutes early and after pulling our luggage around the corner, we were at Bonaventure metro station and just one stop from our destination at Lucien L'Allier. Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...
After checking in at HI Montreal around 5pm we unpacked a little, planned to do some grocery shopping and wandered up to Rue St Catherine to get a feed.
A Mexican place called 3 Amigos was buzzing, with a small queue of people waiting for an outdoor table. We joined the queue as it all had good karma. After a short wait, we were seated, Classic Lime Margaritas were ordered and we went for the Sunday deal which is 69 cents per taco as long as you buy a drink. Easy decisions for both of us - 3 tacos for Di, 4 tacos for Hans. Bargain.
With free corn chips and salsa the Margaritas were perfect.
Tasted good.. Very good.
Our meal added up to less than $25 after tax and tips and was well worth it. They also advertised a Wednesday night Fajita special. We could be back...
After dinner, we did some grocery shopping to cover breakfasts and dinners for most of the week, then went back to the hostel and spent some time organizing space in communal fridges and shelves for our things before relaxing with a cup of tea.
We retired to our room around 8pm to do some research and plan what to do for the week. We picked up a booklet for the Montreal Comedy festival "Just for Laughs" which is currently on here. We may try to catch some acts - a good warm up for Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August - and may swing past the box office tomorrow.
Good night.
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