Once we got there and after Hector’s wife had left, he realized that he forgot his head lamp, at first I thought that he forgot his hard hat, so I thought we were going to hold up everybody because it was like a 20 min drive from his place, but he decided to just go with out it he had other flashlights, so there was no hold up.
Walking up to the gathering area there was a big group of people gathered, the guys going on the trip and some of their wives and children to see them off. The bus finally pulled up and it was a turquoise charter bus that said “especial” on the front where it usually has the destination. I couldn’t tell if the bus was owned or rented, but the driver seemed as if he was one of the guys along with his helper, a younger dude that loaded all of the luggage and did the small things. I really couldn’t tell who was going and who wasn’t until we got on the bus. Once on there were 33 guys ranging from 14 to roughly 60 and one girl that was a teenager, so I was a little relieved to see that it wasn’t going to be extremely rigorous because these old guys and these kids can do it. I was also relieved to see that there was a lot of boozin’ going on, so that to showed me that there was nothing to worry about, nothing like getting a beer shoved in your face at 8 am, I love it. There was a group of about 7-8 guys that were about my age that were just getting hammered, I wanted to join in but I still didn’t know what was ahead of me so I took it easy. We made a couple stops for beer and for the bathroom. The drive was about 2 hours SW, we took the same road that we took when we went to Acapulco, it was about half way between Mexico City and Acapulco. The pic is me in the front of the bus with most of the "older crew."
The guys on the bus reminded me of my uncles and the younger dudes where identical to my buddies back in Grand Rapids, so I felt at home. The picture is Hector, chchillo, me, and Fernando. There was sexual jokes and swear words flying left and right, they kept joking about me being new I had to be somebody’s “bitch,” That guy happened to be a guy that they call “Cochillo,” if you remember from before that is the word for dirty or nasty. He was Aztecan; he had very dark skin, big facial features, shorter and heavy set. He was very difficult to understand because he had an accent that was very different; actually I couldn’t anything he said. Imagine that my first language was Spanish and learned English in Michigan, then imagine that I had to talk to somebody from Liverpool (for those who know Sponge Bob and how he talked with marbles in his mouth!). I wouldn’t be able to understand anything. Anyways, the kept making jokes about me and Fernando kept asking me if I was OK and he kept saying that they were just joking. I had to keep reassuring him that I was cool and that I understood what was going on.Then there was a point where the leader of the group, Martin, made some announcements and welcomed the rookies. There were about 10 of us that have not made the rip before. They handed out jerseys and hats to everyone. If you have gone before you got a yellow jersey and a white one if it was your first time. They were soccer jerseys with a logo on the left breast that said “Pumas 2006.” Pumas was the name of their group, this was their 7th year taking this trip. They were proud to announce that this was their first international trip with an American on board, me.
There were many conversations where I could not understand anything due to the speed and use of expressions and all the swear words they were trying to teach me, I could tell you that it was a swear word if I heard it but I can’t remember which word means what! After somebody said something to me I had a look of confusion on my face and they would look to Fernando and say “explícame (explain me).” That could very well be the phrase of the weekend, either that or “no entiendo (I don’t understand).”
More comming tomarro!
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