Oh Mexico
part three
There was no one there to meet us. To reiterate, we had no cell phones to call anyone. We would just have to figure it out.
Richard had told us that there was a small hotel in the village, and we were likely to stay there. So, we asked a local who was passing by, “Disculpe, ¿puede decirnos dónde está el hotel?”
He pointed toward the beach. The only thing we saw was a large army-green tent. We thought he must have misunderstood. “No, the hotel.”
“Yes, yes. That is the hotel.”
“The tent?”
“Yes, for now. There was a proper hotel before, but the hurricane destroyed it, and they put up that tent for visitors until they can build a new one. That is the hotel until then.”
Neither Johnny nor I could believe we’d be staying in a tent on the beach, but who knows. We asked about the local Baptist church. The man pointed us in the direction of where he thought it would be, so we set off to find the church and the pastor.
We didn’t get far before a few young Mexican men approached us. They apologized for being late to the bus station. We asked about the hotel and where we would be staying. They didn’t know. They led us to the pastor’s home. He was a middle-aged man with a large, gregarious wife. We sat in his home and drank a Coke while we asked again about where we would be staying. He didn’t know either.
A quiet conversation began between the pastor and the young men who had brought us to him. A couple of them hurriedly left. They returned later, whispered something to the pastor, and he nodded and smiled.
“We have made arrangements for your stay. One of our members has a family member with a house they rent, and no one is living in it at the moment.”
“Okay, great.”
“Let us go and see,” he said, rising to his feet and leading us out of the house. His young helpers grabbed our bags and followed behind as we made our way through the narrow streets of the village.
We came to the wooden door of a small concrete house among a row of similar homes along a brick-paved thoroughfare. One of the young men removed the large, rusty padlock and swung the door open.
Ahh, another cliff hanger!