God has pissed on our heads

A series of misses:

In Guananjuato we missed the Callejonada - a gay little procession with a bunch of period costumed troubadours through the backstreets of the town. Reason for missing: too busy eating undiluted condensed soup.

In Zacatecas we missed the culmination of La Morisma - a mock battle recreating the triumphs of the Christians over the Muslims (Moors) in old Spain. Reason for missing: watching Back to the Future II at the hostel, then when we did go out, it was pissing it down with rain.

In El Fuerte, we missed out on getting the train up the Copper Canyon. On our 4th wedding anniversary. Coming here was pretty much the only thing we really wanted to do in this bit of Mexico. Reason for missing: Tropical Storm Henriette wiped out the entire transport infrastructure in and around Los Mochis.

We´re currently stuck here (Los Mochis), hoping to get a flight to Tijuana tomorrow lunchtime in order to be in LA to catch our flight to the Cook Islands on Sunday. We better had catch it, cos they only go once a week.

It´s actually been a pretty bad few days here, what with all the rain and stuff. This picture of Ben was taken when the storm and consequent flooding all seemed like a big laugh:

This was taken in Los Mochis, wading through town on Wednesday to get a bus to El Fuerte, where we were due to board the Copper Canyon train the next day. This was after the longest and most annoying bus ride ever from Guadalajara: 1 burst tyre (90 minutes to fix, borrowing our mobile phone to use as a torch - it got wet, now numbers 1, 2 and 3 don´t work. Or the joystick. Or the left soft-key. Anyone got a spare phone they want to send us? Seriously! Sony Ericsson preferred, please cos we´ve got the right charger etc.)...

The bus was also stopped - I kid you not - 7 times over the course of 16 hours. 4 stops by cops, one featuring a full drugs search, including unscrewing the digital clock at the front of the bus and examining the cavity behind it, plus one that had us hauled off the bus to produce our passports. We think they were fishing for a bribe, but they gave up when Ben told them we were writers, who are obviously paupers. The other 3 stops were for some sort of health/sanitary inspection. No idea what they were looking for.

So, then we wake up on the morning of our anniversary and the hostel owner says "No hay tren hoy". There is no train today. Shit. Shit shit shit. Damn. Shit. As we were trying to work out how to get to Chihuahua to catch our bus to LA, we met Doug of Mexico Horse, who was kind enough to give us a lift back to Los Mochis, where we found out we were in bigger trouble than we thought - no way at all to get to Chihuahua. Er... damn.

Finally, we met Elisabeth at the Los Mochis Tourist Information Office who was an absolute superstar, finding us a cheaper and quicker alternative route up to LA via Tijuana, and talking the bus people round into refunding 85% of the cost of our Chihuahua to LA tickets.

Anyway, things could be much worse - we only got wet and inconvenienced, not like dead or anything. Plus we kept our spirits up and stuck together in the face of a ruined anniversary, so all in all, not too bad.

We´re currently holed up in the rather nice Hotel Fenix in Los Mochis, just chilling and watching All New Judge Judy on cable, waiting for the plane tomorrow.

Still quite gutted about missing the Copper Canyon, but we´ll come back and do it on one of our other anniversaries. Also, this way we have avoided the 22h bus ride to LA, which we weren´t looking forward to.

All being well, we´ll be in the Cook Islands on Monday as planned. Bring it on!

Ben

P.S. We´re serious about that phone ;-)