Mexico

Mexico

Posted by Trevor

Kristy can confirm that I don't typically deal with vacations very well.  My inner perfectionist craves workahol, and if I don't receive my regular fix of software development somehow, I start getting the shakes.  Occasionally, that means spending a day or so to create some useless phone app to turn myself into an Obama campaign poster or an 8-bit image, but more often than not, it means rocking myself back and forth, counting down the hours until I can get back to work.  Sick, I know.  So when Kristy and I planned for me to take off three whole weeks for the December holiday season, was I worried?  Heck yes.  How horrible would it be?  Arby's food horrible?  AT&T horrible?  Spider Man 3 horrible!?  *gasp!*   I pretty much expected to come out of this vacation with sunken, blood-shot eyes, sallow skin, and that look on my face that says, "I'm probably crazy enough to bite you."

I need me some C#.  I neeeeeeeeeed it!

Pausing work cold turkey like that for three weeks cannot possibly be healthy.  But three weeks it was, and it was awesome!  First, we flew to Hawaii for a week.  (Kristy will be writing about that trip soon, so no spoilers here.)  Then, we drove to Moses Lake with the Earls for Christmas.  And then, my brother Robert and I jumped south of the border to visit my amigos in Jaltipan, Veracruz.

Surprisingly, both of our spouses were totally cool with us ditching them for a week to visit a foreign country.  (After all, if Liam Neeson has taught us anything at all, it's that we should never under any circumstance ever travel anywhere at all.)  I'm not sure how Robert's wife handled it--what with having four kids and all--but I know for a fact that Kristy was able to cope only with the aid of binge-watching multiple seasons of Smallville on Netflix.

The plan was simple: Fly from Seattle to Houston to Villahermosa and then jump on a bus headed toward Jaltipan.

Greg! Let's go to the map!

Our epic adventure began in the wee hours of December 26th.  I caught one of the earliest flights from Seattle to Houston.  But halfway through the flight, the guy sitting directly in front of me started having a seizure and passed out, causing all sorts of mayhem and panic, prompting the airline attendants to nervously ask over the intercom: "Is there a doctor on-board!?"  (I seriously thought they only did that in movies.)  He ended up being fine, and we landed in Texas just in time for my 7-hour layover.

After meeting up with Robert in Houston, the two of us flew out to Villahermosa together, arriving late in the evening.  We stayed at the Hilton right next to the airport.  The hotel's self-description uses words like "luxurious" and "modern" and "elegant" and "breathtaking."  But for $65/night, I was really just hoping for a place to not be murdered in.

The next morning, we caught a bus headed toward Jaltipan.  Unfortunately, what should have been a 3-hour jaunt became a 7-hour arduous journey due to last week's insane flooding.  Apparently, the river and one of the highway's bridges had a disagreement and ended up parting ways.

Not pictured: A bridge

Finally, that evening, after almost two full days of travel, we arrived in Jaltipan.  Jaltipan is a tiny little pueblito (pop. ~20,000) pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.  I had lived there for about 10 months in 2005, and I was returning to attend the wedding of some friends I had gotten to know in my time there 8 years ago.  We had a few hours to burn before the wedding, and we both were starving by this point, so we hit up the first taco joint we passed.  Tacos al pastor.  Man, I love those tacos.  And you know what made those tacos even more delicious?  Throwing caution to the wind and risking getting violently, explosively ill by eating street vendor food, that's what.

Like Russian Roulette but with our digestive systems

We made it to the wedding, and it was wonderful to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen in years.

Pepe and Alma, parents of the bride

The wedding itself was amazing.  For most festivities, the Mexican version is always more fun and exciting, and weddings are no exception.  In American weddings, there's always a point when the bride throws her bouquet of flowers over her head, and the girl lucky enough to catch it is destined by fate to be the next to marry.  Well, in Mexican weddings, the same rule applies, except instead of tossing the bouquet, the bride is blindfolded, spun around by all her bridesmaids (while dancing through a song), and completely disoriented before she picks someone to receive the bouquet.  Not to be left out, the groom then does the same with the groomsmen.  But instead of being simply spun around, it looks more like a mosh pit or a Lucha Libre match.  And instead of receiving the "bouquet of destiny" the lucky chosen groomsman is forced to chug a bottle of... something.  The poor kid was having a hard time drinking the whole bottle without throwing up, so I guess it was either tequila or Fresca.

Over the next few days, we visited more of my friends, and I took Robert to the outskirts of town to show him the jungle.

Rubi, Ramses, Esmeralda, me, and Isai

Victor, Andrea, Fernanda, me, and Alma

Me and Armando

Welcome to the jungle!

While we were in Jaltipan, Jorge and Lili were kind enough to offer their beautiful home for us to stay in.

Jorge, me, and Lili

While staying at their house, I had my first authentic Mexican breakfast in years!  (Huevos a la mexicana, of course!)  And Lili made the most delicious hamburgers I have ever eaten.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the masterpiece, but at least Robert got a video of me eating them:

It was sort of like that

It was great to visit old friends, make a few new friends, and eat tons and tons of Mexican food.  But, after all this vacationing, more than anything, I'm just relieved to be able to go back to work tomorrow.