ok…before i explain what is going on…i think seth needs to give us bonus points for blogging while in the race!! 🙂
so the race began at 6am this morning. no wait, it was yesterday morning 🙂 our shuttle picked us up and drove us to the border. it took six hours. from here, we had to get out, drag all our bags to the border station…and do the necessary stamping in our passports. from here, we picked up another shuttle and headed to san cristobal, mexico. this ride was about 4 more hours. its always interesting to me being out of the US because services are much more fast paced. its not as much catered to you, as it is how soon can we pick up the next group to make more money.
so, we were literally dropped off in 30 seconds and soon found our way into another bus station. this one was not so much a caravan size. more greyhound size. 🙂 and also ok with me! we went in to book our tickets to mexico city and were told it would be 14 hours. ugh. it seemed so close on the map 🙂 but we knew we had to do it because our flight was leaving from there. so we boarded at about 4:10 and the journey started to mexico city.
it reminded me of being on a plane. very comfortable seats. the little personal air vents and lights up above you. personal window shades if you would like to sleep. and tvs throughout. again im excited thinking…we can watch a movie! hehe…right. forgot we were in mexico. so the first movie came on and it was Racing Stripes. but in espanol. so, i decided to just fall asleep. i awoke at the buzzing from the movie ending and figured another one would be coming on. so while the previews were showing, we sent our translator elliot up to the front to ask if they would put english subtitles on. he came back and said…”the movie is in english with spanish subtitles.” YES! so the movie started. and there was no english happening. more like a japanese movie in spanish. pretty funny. so again i crashed til we arrived at the bus station in mexico city…6am today.
we got off the bus and looked into a little outside hub filled with tired/distressed people. we were under the impression that we booked tickets that took us directly to the airport. this obviously wasn’t true and we began asking people how to get there. we were given two options: 5 minute taxi ride for about 15 dollars or a 20 minute subway ride for about 2 bucks. we of course being broke…chose the subway option. big mistake. it wasn’t step on a subway that was near, and exit at your gate like i was naively under the impression. it was more or less, hike up and down 20 sets of stairs, cross over the nile river, climb the grand canyon, leap onto a flying subway and pray you didnt get smashed in the door… ok, maybe that all isnt true, but it was quite difficult with our gi-normous backpacks and 20 other carry-ons we have. kim and i have confidently decided that half our crap is going home in LA.
i felt horrible because i even smashed some innocent girl in the face with my annoyingly attached sleeping bag on the subway. but it was such a relief when we finally came out of this little tunnel and saw the airport!! but we entered at the “national” gates. the “international” was another mile down. but thank you Lord for sending us 3 older men with the little push carts. before they could ask us if we needed assistance, our bags were already piled on their carts 🙂
we checked with the united desk and it would be $50 per person to take a standby flight. although we figured it would be nice to fly to LA today…we thought we were safe flying tomorrow. our assumption of what the other teams were doing still made us think we would be ok (our thought was they were all taking buses…) so about two hours later, and after we turned down the standby offer, what do we see…but the
RED TEAM!! are you kidding me??!!!! we thought they were taking buses…but NO, they were flying out at 1:00!! DANG IT! they are in the lead!
so, we are like, ok…at least we should get second place. also kind of laughing thinking…what if we saw another team here. well what do you know…the
BLUE TEAM shows up!! AUGH! as i type this…both teams are secretively trying to figure out the other teams flights. we arent sure if they have a flight or are trying to fly standby.
so this is our home til tomorrow
morning. we have made friends with starbucks and the security standing outside the United entrance where our mountain of stuff lays to rest. 🙂 please pray that we get on our flight BEFORE the blue team gets on theirs! it is intense… but oh so fun!!
the ending to come…..
