By the Way, Did I Mention We Almost Died Yesterday?

Okay, no trip to Mexico would be complete without a ride from hell with some crazy driver. There is no exception this trip. Caroline and I woke at the break of dawn on Saturday and walked over hill and yonder to get to the combi stop, arriving at around 7am. There were already a few people in the combi waiting to leave. Caroline took her seat in the front and I in the seat behind the driver (who I will call Pedro) While we were waiting I commented to Caroline that the broken window wasn´t a great sign for the kind of driver we were going to get. When we finally took off at about 7:20am. Pedro didn´t shut the door which I thought was interesting. It slammed shut itself as we pulled out of the parking lot. We laughed. Little did we know.
As we were pulling out of town Pedro put his seatbelt on. This is something you never see in Mexico. They laugh at you when you try to make the seatbelt work. I made a comment to Caroline that this was also not a great sign.
As he was putting on his seatbelt, screetching around a corner, the woman sitting next to me double or triple crossed herself. She promptly fell asleep. She was in such a peaceful sleep that during some of the more ¨curvas peligrosos¨ (dangerous curves) she fell into me.
The beginning, middle and end of the ride was like being in a bad video game. At each curve (only some were labeled peligroso and I wondered what made one more so than another since they all seemed extremely dangerous to me) Pedro would lean into the turn and lean back the other way. He was a wanna-be race car driver.
I guess I should explain: this was about a 3 hour drive of curves up mountains and down, similar to Wild Cat Canyon or Grizzly Peak. Most of the time on the edge of one cliff or another. This 3 hour drive took only 2.25 hours! At some point I said to Caroline, "Well, IF we get there, we will get there early."
At certain points Caroline and I would look at each other and give each other knowing stares of pure terror. Occasionally Caroline would get out her camera and try to take a photo of some scenery. There was a point at which she wanted to take one of the volcano Popo and not having very much luck. He actually stopped the van and let us get a decent photo of it. Then back again, lurching back and forth over the mountain side.
One of the last people to get off was a man who said, ¨No mas.¨ Dejarme aqui (Let me off here). At that time Caroline turned to me and told me that he was sometimes going at least 100 km/hour! We were laughing hysterically. I actually was laughing so hard I was crying.
Did I mention that there were lots of pot holes in the road which he would steer around, crossing into the oncoming lane - at a blind corner. At any moment another car could be coming and we would have been dust. Or, another car could be doing the same and we could hit them, especially since we were going so fast. There would have been no time to stop or get out of the way. On a number of occasions we just missed cars in our lane and the driver honked and cursed at them! As if.
One of the things that made it feel like a video game was that he was playing chicked with other cars on the road, particularly taxis. One taxi ¨Street Pirate¨ was really playing. Going slow and then speeding up so we couldn´t pass. He was driving so close we almost touched the taxi´s bumper (more than once according to Caroline). Mr. Driver was really unhappy with him and kept calling him a ¨cabron.¨ My response to that was, ¨Now who is the cabron here?¨ I would have certainly said our driver. He was completely insane.
What I learned later from Caroline was that throughout the entire drive Pedro was grabbing the cross he had hanging from his rearview mirror, kissing it and then crossing himself with it. He did this at least 10 times!!
By the time we arrived in Chilapa Caroline and I were both shaking and could barely get out of the van and stand on our feet. I felt like I had run another 1/2 marathon! My legs and butt cheeks ached. It was as if we had had a full body work out while basically sitting still the enrire time. What a concept. I think someone could make some money off gym equipment that simulated something like this!
We have gotten rested and are fully recovered. Enjoying the heat, beaches, food and beautiful people of Acapulco.
In my next installment: baños and bm´s (another story that has to be told when you are traveling in Mexico!)