The last post was very brief and to the point. I’m sorry that time did not allow for details. We were in the terminal at the Mexico City Airport preparing to board our flight to Cancun. A lot has happened since then and as I write this I am on a bus somewhere on the Yucatan Peninsula with two other teammates (Stacy and Jennifer Crane).
When we arrived in Cancun we were greeted by our Squad leader (Stephanie Fisk) and two other teammates (Jennifer Crane & Dre Lindquist) who had to take an earlier flight. They had a surprise in store for all of us, as well we also had a surprise for them. We presented our surprise first…
Over half of our team accounts had no money and we were unable to withdraw the amount she had asked us to take out per team while in Mexico City.
Then Stephanie’s surprise…
Today is race day! First team to Palenque, Mexico wins.
The union of these two surprises would present quite the problem. How do 30 people get from Cancun to Palenque with out enough money. Several phone calls were made and more ATM transactions attempted all the while it kept getting later and later. Eventually the decision was made. It was too much of a safety concern to have six teams racing across Mexico in the middle of the night. Race day was postponed. We would move forward as an entire squad to Palenque, or so we thought.
We gathered our things and bordered a bus taking us from the air port to the bus station. From the bus station we would all take another bus 12 hours to Palenque through the night. Then a funny thing happened, CREDIT CARDS NOT ACCEPTED. We only had enough cash to get half the team on a bus that night. It would not be until morning that AIM (adventures in missions) would be able to get the needed funds into our accounts to purchase bus tickets for the remaining twelve of us. Our team (B.O.L.D) & Team “G – Racers” stayed behind.
It soon became aware to all of us that sleeping in the bus station was not allowed, as one of our teammates attempted to stretch across a few seats to take a nap and was abruptly told, “”NO.”
We put our collective heads as there were now two problems that needed to be addressed. The first was making sure there were going to be enough seats on the bus the next morning and the second was finding shelter for the night. We found out there would be two buses leaving for the Palenque area, one at 7:44 am (with only 3 available seats) and one at 11 am (with 10 available seats). Once again we would need to be split up.
While some of us were setting up bus plans for the next day Kira called her mom to inquire about a possible timeshare her family once owned in Cancun. No go on the timeshare, however Kira’s mom did bless the 12 of us by offering to pay for a couple hotel rooms for the night. (THANK YOU SO MUCH KIRA’s MOM!) The hot shower and bed were amazing and we are all very very thankful. The next morning Stacy, Jennifer and I headed to the station.
So now here I am on a bus. It will be a day of bus stops and bad English movies dubbed in Spanish. It is our hope to make it into Palenque late into the night…we hope.
