bus headache, beach mishap and rain rain rain!

i´m finally, after a semi tedious two day trek, in zihautanejo. i love love love this place. was greeted by their first rainfall in six months, and it is pouring! none the less, i feel like i´ve finally arrived home.


guadalajara was nice, but we didn´t connect quite the way i had hoped. i did find a favorite spot, in front of the library (in the pic) and coffee shop (one of the few that doesnt serve instant!) so all was not lost, and perhaps it has potential for a second, cooler visit.

my sunday afternoon and night was spent at a little town about 20 mins from the beach. my hotel room resembled something of a cell, but it had a fan, cable, and i have to say was a step up from my ´harry potter-cinderella´stye digs in guadalajara (reference to cupboard under the stairs).

i jumped at my first chance to go to the beach. yay beach! and a surfer beach too. i envisioned buff surfer dudes strolling around in board shorts as i ever-so-cooly sipped a cervesa under a palm tree. of course this wasn´t so much the case.

instead, i arrived at a decent beach. definitely not swim-able with the monster waves - and the occasional surfer dude sitting under a shelter near one of two budget surf hotels on the beach.

after a little stroll up and down the beach, i decided to park myself in front of the one hotel and do some writing (of course secretly hoping a surf dude might wander by and ask me where i was from... i guess everything is secretly since i´m goin solo... unless i just wandered around making random announcements... anyhoo). so i´m feeling somewhat cool and indy-traveller like, when i feel something wet at my feet... then WOOSH.... the tide. in. with mud. all over me and my stuff. right in front of three surf dudes, about 6m away, watching from their shelter.

i´m so very cool. so i not-so-cooly hoist up all my things and run up the beach, put my stuff down, try to shake out my muddy wrap, only to have it happen AGAIN.

so cool. so extremely cool.

i ended up having to wander into the little hotel and ask a lady who worked there if i could use a shower, she nicely pointed out a giant bucket and a hose just a table over from the three surf dudes. awesome. now, in the after-school special version of this story, one of the surf dudes would have fallen for my clutzy charm, helped me clean off my stuff and spent the next week of my vacation teaching me how to surf.

but no.

instead, i had to hose myself off and dunk out my stuff like an old washerwoman while one surf dude asks me what the time difference is in california(presumably to call his girlfriend), the other says "got taken by suprise, eh?" and the other wandered off with a beer in hand to pass out in a nearby hamock.

i think i´m cured of any surf-guy fantasies i may have had....

so

today...

the bus ride today could

only be described as unneccessarily uncomfortable and long. 9 hours. second class bus (only available). initially seemed ok. cushy seats that recline reeeaaally far, a/c... but my first and only visit to the toilet gave me a nice big clue as to what i was in for. beyond nasty. so i figure - no more toilet visits. okay. then i realize my seat is tilted toward the floor, so i have to prop my feet on the seat legs in front of me to avoid wedgy-ing myself as i slide towards the floor. then, half way through the trip (or what i had hoped was half way) we stopped for lunch.

lovely authentic mexican stop overlooking the ocean. however, me being the only non mexican, i have no idea what is going on, or how long we are stopping for. i go off to the bathroom and return to see all the bus passengers (about 10) seated at random tables. i sit, stand, walk up the road a bit to find a sloth (i think it was a sloth) in a cage, just randomly outside someone´s home... not cool...

i return to the "restaurant" to find people magically eating wonderful but strange looking mexican food. i´m not sure when or how they ordered (as there are no menus anywhere or servers taking orders), so i sit down in hopes that someone will come to my rescue and eventually a server came and asked me what i wanted. not having a menu, i used what spanish i knew to try to order food that i didn´t know the names of. as a response, the server grabbed me a well hidden menu and lunch happened. not without losing some dignity, i might add... i think this whole trip is going to be a big exersise in humility.

the remainder of the bus trip was seasoned with a lovely selection of kung-fu movies, dubbed in spanish and played at full blast. i fashioned earplugs out of napkins, which didn´t work, and arrived at my destination grumpy, annoyed and with a splitting headache.

lesson learned... research your bus company...