Everything was going great until …how can we say this in a nice way… o yeah… SHIT happened!!! And believe us, SHIT is an understatement!!. Let us start from the beginning, left home, w/ all our luggage (this is important because on the last trip – Hawaii- we forgot one suitcase and that was Bryan and mine and we ended up buying shorts and swimming suits and toiletries in Hawaii), any way this is important for us to make sure we have everything we need w/ us…. And we did!! (this time), so we got to Mexico kind of late but w/ no major issues, aside for Bryan’s long legs and not enough room for them on both flights, and not really sleeping much… all was ok, after landing we took the bus to Cuernavaca and my sister picked us up at the terminal, drove to her home and slept, is was raining so everything was wet and smelled wonderful!!, Cuernavaca is called the ‘ciudad de la eterna primavera’ (the city of the eternal spring) is really green, and during raining season is absolutely wonderful (for us coming from the desert that don’t see much rain of course) because we get to enjoy rain. Anyway, next morning we got up early, took showers, Bryan his coffee also and my sister let us use her little VW car to go to Xochicalco and to Taxco.
It was really raining, but we were hoping it would clear up in Xochicalco that is like 60 kms from Cuernavaca. we drove almost to Xochicalco to a restaurant that has been in business for at least 50 years in the same place, that specializes in the most wonderful ‘Cecina’ of the country (is a kind of thin cow cut that is also salty and tender, very traditional from this area) (place is call ‘Cuatro Vientos’ -the translation would be ‘four winds’), anyhow, we stopped here for breakfast, had of course Cecina both of us with incredible re-fried beans, super fresh ‘fresco cheese’ and the most delicious sour cream, of course with a ‘Yoli’ which is the Mexican version of Sprite but you can only get it in the state of Guerrero is very refreshing.
Cecina – Traditional dish from the south of Mexico
Breakfast was really peaceful and relaxing; when we came out of the restaurant it was not raining buckets as before but only a soft mist, we drove for like 30 minutes through some winding roads until we got to Xochicalco (see below a quick summary of Xochicalco), got there it was still ‘misting’ but we try to find the good side on this because the place was deserted and as a photographer there is nothing more wonderful than having a major archaeological site by yourself, so we got to the entry, pay our tickets and started with the museum that is full of beautiful small to mid-size sculptures, tools, music instruments and chunks of ‘steles’ and columns that had been rescued from the site. After the museum, we drove to the actual site, park in front of the guard (convenient because that meant that the car was 100% safe). It was still misting but this was actually a huge plus not just because scare everybody on coming to the site but because the site is up in a mountain at approx. 4000 ft high, there are 5 big esplanade of the complex that had been in restoration for the last 100+ years and because is surrounded by cliffs the site looked crazy mystical with the clouds under the elevation of the esplanades coming up, it was actually a surreal site and believe us beautiful. We walk for a while all by ourselves and the birds, being all “Anselm Adams ish” taking ton of pictures walking and reading the descriptions next to the incredible beautiful pyramids and ceremonial temples when one of the restoration workers called us from the top of one of the biggest pyramid, interested in us because we were the only people there that morning, so he invited us UP to the pyramid through a service side (for employees only) and started showing us around and explaining us all the things that you can NOT really read on the books or the descriptions of the buildings at its bases, as it turns out this old guy was one on the few locals that is been working with the archaeologist in charge of the rescue and restoration since 1981 and has been on the site ever since, needless to say that he is so well verse on everything that is been discovered there and in most of what haven’t been unearthed yet on the surrounding mountains, hills and esplanades. It was absolutely mesmerizing the amount of knowledge this man has and details of information that you would only knew if you are an archaeologist, this, so humble, sweet guy with broken knees that make him wiggle a lot as he walks all over the place all day, day after day I’m sure he doesn’t have even have a high school education, have a huge wealth of knowledge, the simplicity of his explanations were an absolute gift from God for us.
Xochicalco, Morelos, Mexico
Anyway, after we thank him and of course tipped him, we parted our ways to Taxco that is at 60+ kms from Xochicalco (it was still misting). As a side note we have to mention that the highway to Taxco is one of the most dangerous of the country, is a winding, Uphill/downhill, narrow and in raining season kind of slippery drive; Bryan was driving very slow, I had to point out that he is a trained driver on all kind on heavy and crazy vehicles, he also can remember the last time that he ever was involve in a car accident (aside from be the one doing rescuing of people). While we were driving, I mentioned to Bryan about what to write in the next post and how fantastic the morning was so far, but Bryan seemed to think that the morning was so far kind of uneventful (this note is important, honestly because coming from a witch/mystical family his words were kind of ‘bad-juju’ we were almost at Taxco, maybe 15kms away, when in a narrow and closed curve from out of nowhere this huge Van lost control in his way down and went right straight to us, Bryan maneuvered the car as best as he could and we honestly were blessed that on this specific curve there was not a vertical cliff next to the highway or you wouldn’t been reading this…. The Van basically t-boned us and pushed us about 10 ft off the road and destroyed my sister’s little car.
This is… was my sister’s little car.
Everything after that went in to a complete chaos, I jumped out like an angry cat with my very ‘flowery Spanish’ and put everybody involved in its place, the car that was driving behind us was hit also by the Van and the downhill traffic and uphill traffic just stopped, there was a lot of craziness happening, but I’m not going to bore you w/ all gory details of this mess, however we were injured, I couldn’t breathe right, Bryan was the one that was hit on the side of his body and he went and sat on the side of the highway (he couldn’t do much anyways because his Spanish is limited to the kitchen lol!), we could not just abandon the car to go to the hospital, we needed to wait for the police (Federales) and the insurance, when I finally was able to communicate w/ my sister she of course from the distance w/ her phone while driving to meet us, somehow managed to helps us to resolve the ‘whole enchilada’, needless to say that this mess took a lot of time and we needed to make sure that we did not have internal bleeding because we were about to take a plane at 5am the following morning; when we were finally able to go to a local clinic, got X-rays and to my surprise these was the doctor’s take: Bryan: whom got the hit completely on his side did not have any ‘structural’ damage, all bones were complete, in place, no internal bleedings but a bunch or muscles in a knot, pain in his back mostly because of previous injuries, his shoulder had a huge lump on the left side and he was in ton of pain, however all and all a good outcome (my son thinks that Bryan is from Krypton BTY… I’ll let you in that story in another post) Laura: … I was the copilot, nothing really hit me, it was mostly inertia and backlash but really nothing hit me that I can even record, but I could not breathe right, and it felt just like I broke a rib or 2 (BTY I broke 2 ribs falling from steps like 5 years ago) so I know how it felt (like I said before we were mostly worried about internal bleeding because the 5am flight to Lima a few hours in the future), the doctor say…’mmmm well, not bleeding, that is good’… I was about to celebrate and assumed that the pain while breathing was maybe due to stress or maybe just got a muscle pulled or something like that, when he said: ‘BUT you have 9 & 10 broken…. (ribs # 9 & 10)’… AWESOME!!! (at this point, this was all we knew we got, however when we got back home -2 weeks later- we were just feeling really bad by the end of the trip, so went to see our family doctor who send us to the Trauma hospital and after X-ray, MRI’s, blood test among other it turned out that I have 5 broken ribs and Bryan got a ‘leak’ on the vain that carries blood to the brain and made a huge hematoma in his neck, doctors were very surprise we were able to continue the trip after all that… well we didn’t knew it was that bad) I have to say that we were in a lot of pain and still needed to catch a flight and the entire situation of leaving my sister w/ all the issues by herself absolutely killed us; however we weren’t going to be able of really help her much after all the police and insurance reports were filled-out, declarations done and so forth, at the end, she managed to get us to Cuernavaca (in one piece), then we modify our backpacks because now we were no able to carry anything on our backs, and then she drove us back to Mexico city to get to our flight…. It all sound like a breeze but trust me it was mostly a bad tornado with multiple damage. Of course, with all that happen we never really make it to see Taxco and enjoy most of what is about and that was very disappointing. However there a few things that we got realizations off: from the moment that we woke up to the moment we were seating on the waiting room for our next flight to Lima, there were tons of complete strangers trying to help us, the guy in Xochicalco, the cars that stopped on the freeway trying to let us use their phones and offering to drive us to the hospital, to the guys in the tow trucks and the Federales, it was amazing the kindness, selfness and true honest willing to help. My sister and the friend that drove her from Cuernavaca to Taxco of course deserve the ‘Oscar’ for the best sister and friend of the planet. We are going to be forever grateful for these, we are also very thankful with God, Destiny, Buda, Ala or wherever is out there taking care of us because we survived this one w/ bruises, swollen muscles and 2 broken ribs, but we are going to still be able to see, kiss and hold our kids in a few weeks!
To all the people that helped us, tried to help us and was with us, we send you our utmost thanks, our respect and absolute appreciation!
Gracias Mexicanos for been soooo Cool!
