Gracias Angelica, and “thanks a lot” Linda

Turns out crossing the border wasn’t as easy as it had seemed. We needed a tourist card to legally be in the country of Mexico, but we didn’t know that because no one had told us when we were crossing. So our stay with Angelica was going to be longer than planned. Which was fine. There were so many delicious foods to cook and try! We ate elote, Mexican hot dogs (yes, they are different), and coconuts. I made swiss bread with Angelica and her son, Joel. We also made flour tortillas. During all that baking, Benjamin got prepared for his first scuba lesson.

Amelia trying coconut with sour sauce and lemon Photo by Angelica

Making bread with Joel and Angelica. Photo by Victoria

Since he learned about it, my brother has always been interested in sea life and the ocean. He loves to swim. I remember him fantasizing, “when I’m rich, I’ll own a glass house underwater so I can always see my fish!” or something similar to that. He was going to have four lessons. The last two lessons he would actually be scuba diving. The last lesson all of us went. Mom, Nate, Saul (the boat pilot) and I snorkeled. Benji, and his instructor, Daniel both went scuba diving. We saw parrot fish, Dori’s from Finding Nemo, an unpuffed puffer fish, tons of different schools of fish, and dark blue fish with shiny specks on it like little saphires.

Benjamin’s first dive out of diving 2 other times.  Photo by Victoria

This was Benjamin’s last dive, this time with the family. Photo by Nate

A turtle had just laid her eggs and was returning to sea. Photo by Amelia

Tuesday we left. Everything needed to be packed and moved to the van. We ate breakfast, brushed teeth, got stuff organized, and the last thing to do was say our good-byes. We all hugged Angelica… some of us more than once… and started towards Cosmo. Mom had begun to tear up. Angelica said she wasn’t going to cry. She did. The  van was turned on and we were gone.

Saying goodbye to Pepe and his ticks. Photo by Benjamin

The ferry to Mazatlan was our next destination. We got our legal papers dealt with, and got the tickets. When we were getting on the ferry, Nate and Cosmo went in different directions than mom and me and Ben. Later, we found our room after catching up to Nate. There were two bunk beds. Kids got the top bunks and the adults, the bottoms.  That night we had the ferry’s “gourmet” dinner, played black jack with Mexican coins and shells, and watched Ratatouie until Nate turned it off because the rest of us were asleep.

The ferry BEFORE we got on. It looked nice. And then…. Photo by Nate

Four hours later I woke up to a rocking boat in the middle of the remains of hurricane Linda. I found that Nate was awake too and not much later Benjamin and mom were also. I ended up climbing down to crawl into mom’s bunk. Then Benji wanted to too, so mom got in one with Nate and Ben and me in the other. We clutched each other until we fell asleep. The next morning we were supposed to get off the boat at noon. We ate breakfast, which was really bad. The boat was still going rocking. When we ran back to the room because we felt sick, we fell on top of our bunks, listening to a poor guy puking outside our door. Then it smelled as if the sewage had broken… it was the smell of throw up, poo, and pee drifted out of the bathroom when it was opened. We all got sick with diarrea later… some worse than others. We were over all miserable.

This is us for 24 hrs.

We went up to watch a movie that was playing while we waited to get off. It was 4 pm. Later, a cleaning guy told us it was time to go. Mom looked up and noticed that there was no one left but us and another family. Relieved, we got up, went by the furnace room and walked into the blinding light of mainland Mexico.

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