Adventures in Mexico 5: Toasty Tapachula

On Thursday, December 31, 2015, we awoke in Tapachula in a nice, air-conditioned hotel room.

Soon it was clear that it was time to take the Erika for a walk.

So we had breakfast and then swam at the hotel's pool.

The Elders in Tapachula had a little package for us to deliver to Rubén Salinas (the former A.P. who we had stayed with in Mexico City) on our way back home, so we gave them all of our leftover chocolates. We had been handing them out to people we visited, but knew they would do us no good in Tapachula because they would all melt. In fact, some melted on the Elder's shirt while we talked! Sorry, Elders!

Linette was tired of her ear ache and being under the weather, so we went to a pharmacy, which had a free doctor upstairs who told you what to buy at the pharmacy. So she bought 3 things and that seemed to fix her right up. In fact, when she tried the cough medicine, she said, "Woah! That's amazing! You can just feel it working all the way down your throat." (Kelsi had the same reaction after our trip when she used some of it. I joked that it was probably just bourbon. I mean, how would we know?)

Next we visited a lady named Nancy and her daughter Pichi (in the picture below). They invited us to come back and have lunch with them. It was New Year's Eve day, and apparently that's a huge day there, kind of like Christmas Eve here, where families get together and have big meals.

Our next stop was to visit the bishop, who had formerly been an Area Authority. He was very nice and looked like a Latin Elder Ballard (which he had heard before). Kelsi always thought of the bishop's wife as her grandma and we thanked her for taking such good care of our daughter.

Their daughter was also there. And the family invited us to join them for dinner around 10 p.m. that night with the rest of their family.

They had a replica of the stone at the nearby archeological site that looks like Lehi's dream. (You can see it a lot better here than in the real stone, apparently).



Back at Nancy's house, we had a big dinner of spaghetti, macaroni, mashed potatoes, turkey ham, and tortillas, along with horchata to drink (which is a cold drink made with rice and cinnamon). Nancy's daughter-in-law had a cute baby and Linette got a chance to hold her.

Hermana Conde, one of Kelsi's hijas, came for lunch, too, along with her hija, Hermana Connoly (who wasn't feeling well that day).

Erika got a turn with the baby, too.

 I told Kelsi, "Your daughter has really grown! She's taller than you now!"

Pichi, Hermana Connoly, Hermana Conde, Kelsi, Nancy's daugher-in-law, Nancy

I called this the "Four Generation" shot, because it has Linette, her daughter Kelsi, her hija Hermana Conde, and her hija Hermana Connoly.

After lunch we visited Kelsi's dear friend Jenny, who had gone on so many visits with her while she was on her mission there. It was fun to finally see her in person after seeing her in several pictures, like the one below from 2014.

Hermana Bastian, Jenny, Kelsi. May 2014, Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico.

Here is Kelsi talking with Jenny's little sister Alma. Note the young women symbol on the wall.

Jenny put on her official "Tapachula Ward" (Barrio Tapachula) T-shirt in order to go visiting with us, just like the old days.

Jenny brought along her little brother Marcos and sister Alma, too. It was great to have a minivan for this part.

Jenny, Marcos and Alma (Linette and Erika photobombing in the back).

Marcos, Jenny, Alma and Kelsi.

Our first visit was to a lady named Angela, who was very happy to see Kelsi.

I loved the content, peaceful smile on Jenny's face as we sat and visited.

Linette, Randy, Angela, Kelsi, Erika.

After a nice visit, Angela said, "Oh, let me get you some chocolate!" Apparently she gets it for free somehow. But she didn't just give us a few pieces, she loaded up a big bag of it. This apparently happens every time. Then she said, "Oh, Jenny, let me get some for you, too!" and she loaded up another whole bag (which is why Jenny's trying so hard not to laugh here).

Chocolate for everyone!

On our whole trip, we had to greet each person, and especially say good-bye to each person individually. With the girls, that meant giving a kiss on the cheek. The same held true in Tapachula, the only difference being that when they weren't looking you had to discreetly wipe the sweat off your cheek. (Everyone had a little sheen of sweat at all times there).

Our next stop was to visit a family who had traveled a bit (one of their kids lives in Greece). Their son Seth was a really good guy, and Kelsi had joked with Erika that "I found your husband." We didn't say anything to the family, but kept giving Erika little looks.

Here is the family, along with Jenny and her siblings, and, of course, Seth.

It also happened to be Marcos' birthday, so when we took Jenny home, we sang Las Mañanitas. I knew the words by then, because Kelsi had taught it to us during the crazy drive to Tapachula.

We also lit off a few small fireworks, even though it wasn't quite 10pm yet. Their mom didn't let them go out at midnight due to the number of people who shoot off real guns that can hurt or kill people on occasion when the bullets come back down.

What a wonderful family.

Finally, we went to spend New Year's Eve with the bishop and his family. They still had their Christmas tree up. Their cat seemed to have it pretty good.

We had a wonderful dinner of tamales, meat, potatoes, apple soda, and so on.

At midnight we walked outside and stood under a cement overhang to watch the fireworks. They erupted with a fury and went for 10 minutes or so before tapering off. It was pretty spectacular.

Here is their family.

On the way home that night, we talked about what to do the next day. We considered going to a nearby mountain, or going to the beach. Erika suggested, "Or, we could sit in people's living rooms and drink juice..."

We all died laughing, because that's pretty much what the trip had consisted of. Classic comment.

On New Year's Day we visited the former bishop and his family (and drank juice). When we told them that we had seen the Cascades de Chiflón, his wife asked if we had seen the lakes of Montebello. No, we told them, we hadn't. One of their daughters came out and we had the same conversation. "Oh, did you see the Lagunas de Montebello?" No. "Oh! They are so beautiful. Each lake is a different color!" Then the other daughter came out. "Oh, did you see the lakes of Montebello while you were there? No? Oh, they're so beautiful! You must see them!" Alright, alright, so we blew it, ok? :)

We visited another family that was really fun. The mom talked really fast. Their daughter and son-in-law were expecting a baby, so Kelsi had a little baby gift for them.

It was a warm day and we had fun walking the town. (Especially since there was a foot of snow back home.)

After visiting, we went by Jenny's house again. Her mom is from Guatemala, which was fun for Linette. (It was a little hard for Linette to be 8 miles from the border and 2 hours from her old mission home and not be able to go this time).

Then we took her kids and went to go get Seth. We sent Erika to the door and later teased her for asking him "¿Estas listas?" (Are you [informal] ready [feminine plural]?) or something like that. Erika and I tried speaking Spanish with varying levels of success.

Then we all drove to the beach! It was fun to play in the sand and the waves on New Year's Day!

Little Marcos was always off by himself just having a grand time.

Alma wrote a nice "Wilson" message in the sand.

Erika, Kelsi, Alma, Seth, Jenny.

While I went to get stuff from the car, they apparently buried Marcos alive! o.O

We wanted to go to a taco shop, but it seemed like everything was going to be closed for New Year's (like it was the night before), so we stopped at Little Caesar's Pizza, which was having its grand opening.

We knew we had a long drive ahead of us that night, but we did one last visit to Kelsi's cute investigator and friend Violeta and her mom and little brother.

And with that, we headed out of town and drove up the coast to Ocozocoautla de Espinosa ("Coita").

We had an exciting moment when the army lady at a checkpoint asked to see our papers and thought they weren't in order. She couldn't see where it had our names anywhere on the rental papers. I finally took a look and showed her that "Linette Wilson" were the first two words on the page!

The drive was mostly on excellent highways, except for one section where we apparently missed the toll road and ended up on a ridiculously winding brand-new road that went up and over a mountain. The whole time we knew something was wrong because we didn't see a single other car (in either direction). But we made it.

In the next episode, we visit in Coita and have tummy troubles.

Adventures in Mexico 4: Waterfall!

In this episode, we say good-bye to San Cristóbal, visit a waterfall, and drive a death-defying road to Tapachula.

Wednesday morning, December 30, 2015, we said good-bye to the nice family we had been staying with at the Lowe's house in San Cristóbal and did a little more shopping on our way out of town.

As we walked across the central square, Linette stopped to talk to one of the street vendors.

This of course attracted all of the others.

Soon there was an entire mob offering their wares. I love this picture: Kelsi's sidewards glance; the baby on the back; and the purple and other colors on the lady's shoulder. Linette ended up buying the hoodie she's holding.

The hoodie was for Jared, but it fit Linette just right, and it was slightly chilly that morning. Here we are at a bakery (panadaría) that costs a little more than some of the others, but has better stuff (according to Kelsi's experience). Sure enough, it was darn tasty, and that was our breakfast.

We also dropped by the main market again to buy a few more things. Gotta love the colors.

I think Kelsi was happy to have Erika along on the trip.

On the way back to the van we stopped by the clothing store where we had visited a member the day before. This time her husband was there, so we had a nice visit with him. (I tried to take this picture in such a way to give him a Christian halo).

Linette tried to buy a skirt in order to be nice to him, but then he gave it to her for free, and won the "being nice" game. (Heyyy!! Linette said.)

After that, we drove around town to say good-bye to a few people who we had told we would see before we left. There were lots of hugs and tears.

We said good-bye to Rafael Lopez at his shop.

Then we dropped by the Lopez family's house to hug the rest of the family.

They followed us back out to the street to say good-bye one more time. What an adorable family.

Erika, Linette, Carmen, Natan, Alín, Dulce and Kelsi.

With that, we headed out of beautiful and magical San Cristóbal de las Casas, and were off to our next adventure.

We drove down a mediocre road with frequent topes (nasty speed bumps), out in the country. It was fun to see what things looked like in the middle of nowhere.

We saw a surprising number of huge trucks filled with sticks. I'm not sure what they were doing with them.

Then we arrived at the Cascades de Chiflón, a series of waterfalls and pools around the mountain from Comitán.

The water was amazingly blue, and a lot of people were wading around in it.

We came to several different waterfalls as we walked along.

You can see a little structure above this waterfall. That's where we ended up zip-lining from!

Linette really wanted to go in the water.

Just a little further...

My biggest regret of the trip is that we didn't put our swim suits on and jump in. It was a pretty warm day and the water looked so inviting.

We didn't know if we had seen all the waterfalls yet, but I thought there was supposed to be a bigger one, so Linette and I kept going while the girls waited at the spot above.

Sure enough, not far up the trail we came across the main falls.

I had to do a panorama shot to capture the whole thing.

So we went back down to find the girls...

...and told them how close and awesome the falls were, so they went up too.

On the way back down, the girls and I went zip-lining. (Linette was still under the weather a bit and wasn't feeling up to it). That first moment when we went off of the platform and right over a tumbling waterfall was pretty awesome.

We enjoyed some quesadillas on the way back down.

We tried to go see a pyramid called Tenam Puente near Comitán, but alas, it was closed by the time we got there. On the way back to the main road we got caught behind a herd of cattle and took our time as we all meandered down the road together.

At that point, it was time to drive from Comitán to Tapachula on the road from Hades. Holy cow, it wound back and forth and back and forth and hither and yon and around and around. Here is a satellite picture of one small segment of it.



We drove for several hours on this ridiculously winding road in the dark, with a tope every minute or two. We had to speed up, swerve, swerve, and then jam on the breaks for a tope, then speed back up and go for it some more. Fortunately, nobody got carsick. And, I have to admit, it was the most exhilarating drive of my life! It was like a Disneyland ride (except, of course, one wrong move and you're dead).

The road had a tope in front of each person's house that was built along the highway, and the road also went right through various towns, such as this one.

But at long last we made it to a real freeway that went nice and straight and fast, and arrived in Tapachula at 10:30 at night, at which point we ordered some Domino's pizza from across the street, pulled the dark shades, and finally got a good, long night's sleep.

This last picture has nothing to do with our trip, except that it ended up on Kelsi's phone during it. I thought it was hilarious.

In our next episode we buy drugs in Mexico (legally) and celebrate New Year's in sweaty Tapachula!