The trip got off to a bumpy start when our first flight (to Mexico City) was delayed enough to miss our connection to Tuxtla Gutierrez, and both Delta and their partner AeroMexico seemed to think there was no way to get there for three more days (!). But we saw that there was a midnight-to-noon bus from Mexico City to Tuxtla Gutierrez that could get us there if nothing else worked out, so we boarded our plane anyway.
Linette battled to get us $100 flight vouchers along with seats in first class, so while we were disappointed to miss our first day of the trip (including seeing everyone at church on Sunday), it was sort of fun to try out first class, which I had never done before.
The steward on the flight turned out to be a guy who was working on the flight that Kelsi had flown home on from her mission.
I'll have to admit that the food in first class was indeed tasty.
It was dusk when we arrived in Mexico City.
Kelsi got a message from a former missionary, Rubén Salinas, who had been an assistant to the president (AP) and had returned home from their mission a week before. He said that if we had any trouble in Mexico City to let him know.
When we landed, we found out that we had been booked on a flight for the next day (Sunday afternoon), so the Salinas family graciously offered to come pick us up and put us up for the night. Here we are at the airport waiting for them, kind of excited that our adventure had begun.
Rubén and his dad picked us up in their van and drove us to their house, which was a bodega, sort of like a cement storage unit with metal doors in front. We worried that we were putting them out of their beds, but I think there were enough couches and mattresses that nobody had to sleep on the floor.
We chatted and Rubén played the guitar for us for a while, and then the family had us pile in the car and van and took us to a ward party that was going on. There was some sort of pageant happening when we arrived.
And then suddenly we were at a table being fed an entire meal of meat, bread and "ponche" (a hot drink that's like wassail with chunks of fruit in it).
Wilsons and the Salinas family. Mexico City. Saturday, 12/26/15. |
When the pageant and dinner were over, the tables were cleared, the music broke out, and the dancing ensued. Soon Kelsi was dancing the salsa with Rubén. I had been keeping Bob updated on our trip, so I texted this picture to him, with the message, "Things turned out ok in Mexico City."
He wrote back, "Wow! Wasted no time in getting into a party frame of mind! ¡Olé!"
Kelsi also saw another guy from her mission there.
Back at the house, we took turns playing guitar songs before turning in.
The next morning we went to church with them. It was funny to be sitting in the chapel that less than 12 hours before had been used for dancing the salsa.
Brother Salinas' van said "Prensa" on the back, which means "Press." He runs a vegetable stand and used to get robbed on the way to buy the vegetables (including by the police). But ever since he put "Prensa" on the back of his van, nobody has bothered him.
After church the family served us a wonderful traditional meal with meat, beans, rice, tortillas, salsa, limes, soup, maybe some cactus or something. It was perfect.
I just thought these were some of the best people in the world.
We still had a few hours before our flight, so we all piled into the van (seatbelts, shmeatbelts) to go visit the Mexico City Temple.
We had a nice visit in the visitor's center. (Sorry the random photographer cut off Jesus' head. He forgives them.)
This hallway tells the history of the church in Mexico.
I thought this was pretty, so I had the flowers stand by her for a picture.
The Mexico City Temple was just recently rededicated in September 2015.
At that, we flew out of Mexico City. Given that we weren't originally on this flight, our seats weren't together (That's Kelsi and Erika way back there). But I was glad we had seats at all.
I thought it was amazing to see how the houses had sprawled their way up this volcano in Mexico City.
It was night by the time we arrived in Tuxtla Gutierrez.
The rental car place was out of the car we had reserved, so they gave us a free upgrade to a min-van. When this hatchback pulled around, we thought, "Gee, they sure know how to put the 'mini' into 'mini-van'!" :)
But really, we got a Dodge Grand Caravan, which had loads of room for our luggage and ended up coming in very handy for hauling friends around with us.
I was originally nervous about driving in Mexico, but then I turned into a driving madman and it was really exhilarating! The highway from Tuxtla Gutierrez to San Cristóbal de las Casas was new and nice, so we were able to make good time. There was officially only one lane in each direction, but most people drove on the shoulder so that you could pass even when there was a double yellow line and even when there was oncoming traffic (and even someone passing in the other direction!). Yikes.
Finally we arrived in "San", and by then it was late enough that we made just one visit on our way to where we were staying. We dropped by the home of Mari-Ester, a recent convert, and had a wonderful visit. She is thinking of going on a mission.
Her mom isn't a member of the LDS church, and was worried about her daughter going on a mission, but Linette told her how great of an experience it is, and the mom seemed to respond to that.
Finally we arrived at the home of "Papa and Mama Lowe". He was the ward mission leader there and was an American whose father had been a BYU archeology guy. His wife was a local. They were unfortunately up in Utah at this time, but had offered to have us stay in their home anyway. The wife's sister and her family were there. So we did, and it was lovely.
We were pretty hungry when we got there, not having wanted to shop on Sunday, so Kelsi asked if the family had any fruit or anything, and they gave us four cold plain corn-on-the-cobs. Which were surprisingly delicious, and hit the spot perfectly.
In the next episode, we "Visit like there's no yesterday" (since, you know, we missed out on a whole Sunday to visit on).
No comments:
Post a Comment