Post by JVH (f/k/a Bob Dubilina) on Jul 11, 2005 21:18:52 GMT -5
¡Hola amantes de monos!
Greetings from Puebla, Jenny's base of operations for the past three months. When I last spoke with you, we were on the way to the Lost City of Palenque. Well, we made it, and it rocked! Oh, how it rocked! Did I mention it rocked? Well, it did!
That said, the ruins at Palenque are huge and sprawling. What set this site above all others, though, was the overabundance of untamed jungle surrounding the Lost City. Palenque is located at a higher altitude than Chichen Itza or Uxmal, so it was particularly stunning just to wander around and study the mountains of wild green closing in. ¡Que rico!
However, not all was relaxing in our world of Mayan ruins and taquerias. After an afternoon of serious shopping, I finally ran out of cash. No problem, though -- I had my ATM card handy for just such an occasion.
Then I remembered that I haven't used my ATM card in MONTHS.
Simply put, I forgot my PIN number. (Stop laughing. It's not funny. I'm serious! C'mon, knock it off!)
No problem, I would use my credit card to withdraw cash. No go on that either. (Turns out that although I changed my PIN number long ago, the company never fulfilled my request. Lovely. Now stop laughing.) Eh, that was frustrating, but it was time to hop on a bus to Villahermosa and sort it all out later.
We made it to Villahermosa in good time. However, we didn't care for the looks of it, so we decided to catch an overnight bus to Puebla. That left us five hours to wander around. We stored our bags at the bus station and went wandering.
Then I couldn't remember why we should visit Villahermosa in the first place. And the guidebook was now in storage. Great! (I know Chad's shaking his head in shame right now at my obtuseness. Sorry.) Eh, we made the best of it, passed the time as quickly as we could and then hopped on the bus to Puebla (an eight-hour ride).
1:55 a.m.: I awake. It's dark on the bus. Everybody's asleep. I turn my iPod back on and select another playlist. I close my eyes.
2:04 a.m.: The bus shudders. I sit up, my eyes wide. The entire cabin lights up as the bus hits the gravel shoulder. Jen starts screaming in panic, "Oh God, oh God! Bobby, what's going on!" Alas, we have no clue what's going on. I think that we ran over something that popped a few tires on the right side. The bus is still shaking, but the driver has everything under control. We're slowing down. I calm Jen, tell her to breathe. She does. We stop.
I was wrong. It wasn't the tires.
We got rear-ended. Hard. So hard that the bathrooms in the rear were totally destroyed. (Jenny's panicked screams now extremely reasonable.)
We got smacked by a bus!
It turns out that the bus behind us was tailing ours too fast. Our driver must've hit the brake at some point, and the guy behind us didn't have enough space to slow down. BAM!
Everyone was okay (on our bus at least). Our driver had obviously seen better days, but he was still standing. After thirty minutes, we were put on different buses (an entire convoy of six or seven had pulled over to make sure we were okay), and we were back on the road to Puebla. We arrived without further incident. No (partial) refunds were given out, even after we asked. (Wishful thinking on my part, I guess. Blarg.) We made it to Jenny's house and slept most the day away.
We awoke in mid-afternoon . . . and then ran into our second big scare of the day. You see, the water heater for Jenny's apartment has a faulty pilot light. In fact, the thing goes out quite often. And Jenny was having a bitch of a time getting it started. (Can you already see where I'm going with this? Yeah, not good.) After a lot of fussing and fumbling, we finally got the damn thing to work. But Jenny was still checking to make sure that the pilot light was on.
And then came the giant whoosh of the big flame bursting out through the grate. Once again, Jenny screamed. And for good fuckin' reason, too.
THANKFULLY, Jenny didn't fry her face off. In fact, she got off lucky, all things considered. But when you singe your bangs, eyebrows and half of your eyelashes, you're NOT in the best of moods. And when you're the guy who turned the knob while the heater was on CALIENTE, you're not feeling so happy about the state of things either.
However, Jenny remembered that hair grows back, and that if we didn't take showers now, WE (meaning: mostly SHE) would have experienced a lot of trauma for nothing. We took our showers, went to the market, returned with a big chicken dinner and did nothing for the rest of the day lest we anger the Powers That Be even further.
There's nothing much to do in Puebla (although we did see Los Cuatros Fantasticos en español!), so I guess that's it for now. I fly back to the U.S. tomorrow. Jenny plans on packing up her stuff in her apartment and exploring even more of Mexico with her part-time boy toy from Spokane. ¡Que asco! (Translation: Nazz-dee!)
One more month of vacation. See you when I get there (or when it ends).
Stay sexy,
BobbyDobbyD
Greetings from Puebla, Jenny's base of operations for the past three months. When I last spoke with you, we were on the way to the Lost City of Palenque. Well, we made it, and it rocked! Oh, how it rocked! Did I mention it rocked? Well, it did!
That said, the ruins at Palenque are huge and sprawling. What set this site above all others, though, was the overabundance of untamed jungle surrounding the Lost City. Palenque is located at a higher altitude than Chichen Itza or Uxmal, so it was particularly stunning just to wander around and study the mountains of wild green closing in. ¡Que rico!
However, not all was relaxing in our world of Mayan ruins and taquerias. After an afternoon of serious shopping, I finally ran out of cash. No problem, though -- I had my ATM card handy for just such an occasion.
Then I remembered that I haven't used my ATM card in MONTHS.
Simply put, I forgot my PIN number. (Stop laughing. It's not funny. I'm serious! C'mon, knock it off!)
No problem, I would use my credit card to withdraw cash. No go on that either. (Turns out that although I changed my PIN number long ago, the company never fulfilled my request. Lovely. Now stop laughing.) Eh, that was frustrating, but it was time to hop on a bus to Villahermosa and sort it all out later.
We made it to Villahermosa in good time. However, we didn't care for the looks of it, so we decided to catch an overnight bus to Puebla. That left us five hours to wander around. We stored our bags at the bus station and went wandering.
Then I couldn't remember why we should visit Villahermosa in the first place. And the guidebook was now in storage. Great! (I know Chad's shaking his head in shame right now at my obtuseness. Sorry.) Eh, we made the best of it, passed the time as quickly as we could and then hopped on the bus to Puebla (an eight-hour ride).
1:55 a.m.: I awake. It's dark on the bus. Everybody's asleep. I turn my iPod back on and select another playlist. I close my eyes.
2:04 a.m.: The bus shudders. I sit up, my eyes wide. The entire cabin lights up as the bus hits the gravel shoulder. Jen starts screaming in panic, "Oh God, oh God! Bobby, what's going on!" Alas, we have no clue what's going on. I think that we ran over something that popped a few tires on the right side. The bus is still shaking, but the driver has everything under control. We're slowing down. I calm Jen, tell her to breathe. She does. We stop.
I was wrong. It wasn't the tires.
We got rear-ended. Hard. So hard that the bathrooms in the rear were totally destroyed. (Jenny's panicked screams now extremely reasonable.)
We got smacked by a bus!
It turns out that the bus behind us was tailing ours too fast. Our driver must've hit the brake at some point, and the guy behind us didn't have enough space to slow down. BAM!
Everyone was okay (on our bus at least). Our driver had obviously seen better days, but he was still standing. After thirty minutes, we were put on different buses (an entire convoy of six or seven had pulled over to make sure we were okay), and we were back on the road to Puebla. We arrived without further incident. No (partial) refunds were given out, even after we asked. (Wishful thinking on my part, I guess. Blarg.) We made it to Jenny's house and slept most the day away.
We awoke in mid-afternoon . . . and then ran into our second big scare of the day. You see, the water heater for Jenny's apartment has a faulty pilot light. In fact, the thing goes out quite often. And Jenny was having a bitch of a time getting it started. (Can you already see where I'm going with this? Yeah, not good.) After a lot of fussing and fumbling, we finally got the damn thing to work. But Jenny was still checking to make sure that the pilot light was on.
And then came the giant whoosh of the big flame bursting out through the grate. Once again, Jenny screamed. And for good fuckin' reason, too.
THANKFULLY, Jenny didn't fry her face off. In fact, she got off lucky, all things considered. But when you singe your bangs, eyebrows and half of your eyelashes, you're NOT in the best of moods. And when you're the guy who turned the knob while the heater was on CALIENTE, you're not feeling so happy about the state of things either.
However, Jenny remembered that hair grows back, and that if we didn't take showers now, WE (meaning: mostly SHE) would have experienced a lot of trauma for nothing. We took our showers, went to the market, returned with a big chicken dinner and did nothing for the rest of the day lest we anger the Powers That Be even further.
There's nothing much to do in Puebla (although we did see Los Cuatros Fantasticos en español!), so I guess that's it for now. I fly back to the U.S. tomorrow. Jenny plans on packing up her stuff in her apartment and exploring even more of Mexico with her part-time boy toy from Spokane. ¡Que asco! (Translation: Nazz-dee!)
One more month of vacation. See you when I get there (or when it ends).
Stay sexy,
BobbyDobbyD