El Puente Negro

So this is the black bridge.  It's one of the things that Culiacán is known for.  In fact, when Yuri and I had only recently switched places, she was telling me how beautiful she thought Culiacán was (ha) but how much prettier Nashville was, and how she felt at home seeing the pedestrian bridge because it reminded her of the puente negro in Culiacán.

After I slept all day and afternoon on Sunday, I sent Alma a text telling her I was finally up and willing to do something (7ish).  She was at the movies with the girls (Johana and Karina) and they would come get me soon.  She forgot to mention that they had just gotten to the movies!

At ten, they were at the house picking me up.  We were going ot get some raspados.  We ended up stopping at this place on the malecón that I had gone to with Alma and Lenin once that sold everything.  Their raspados look like they won't be very good, and they're true to form.  I got one, but was sorely disappointed.  Alma got a coconut, Karina got a cup of peanuts doused in lots of Mexican sauces (the Japanese peanuts that you like, Mom) and lime juice, and Johana got something else.

We ate and called Johana's friend Yuri (a boy).  We decided we'd pick him up to come hang out, too.  The music in Johana's car was so loud I could hear the speakers busting as we drove.  I wondered how much more hearing loss I would have after getting back from this year in very loud Mexico.

We picked up Yuri and tried to decide what to do.  We played a "game" called papel tirado to decide who would decide what we did.  Each person got a small piece of paper and the one with the dot on it got to decide.  Somewhat like drawing straws.

Karina won or lost depending on how you look at it.  I didn't want to win because I had no idea what to suggest considering I had school the next day!

Karina decided we'd go to the puente negro and cross it.  It's a train bridge.  It's supposedly still active, but I have yet to see a train on it.

We got there, parked the car, and started climbing up.  It crosses the river, so it's no small bridge.

Karina and Johana were in their Mexican heels, so they had a little trouble scaling the wall.

Alma was ready to go!  She walked across it as if it were any road- as if she couldn't see the ground underneath between the slats.  She and I covered some ground, but my fear of heights got to me.  She wanted to cross the whole thing, but it is long, so I told her we could go to where the water began and then come back.

Johana and Karina, aside from having heels on, were paralyzed with fear.  Alma just laughed at them.  The pictures we have are terrible quality because they're from Alma's cell, but they beat nothing.

You can see Johana and Karina holding hands in the background because they were so scared.

I was laughing, but it was a nervous laugh as if at any minute it could be me who was paralyzed!

Alma, the fearless one, poses with confidence.  (I don't know if I mentioned her wreck.  Someone ran a stop sign- a common occurrence in Mexico- and smashed the front of her car.  She walked away, but was very sore the next few days and was prescribed the Mexican cure-all: a neck brace.)
After Alma and I had gone all the way out to the water and back, we took some pictures of the scaredy cats still working their way back from the 15 steps they had taken.  They barely even got to the part where the tracks begin to separate from the ground.

Happy faces after it was over, though Karina and Johana were still clinging pretty tightly to each other.  (Me, Alma, Karina, Johana)
The girls with Yuri the rescuer.  After we had accomplished our goal, everyone else was hungry, so we went to a taco stand outside a park.  Then we took Yuri home and headed there ourselves.  After a day of traveling, bridge crossing ending at 1 am isn't the best plan.  Ni modo.  (Translation, more or less: Oh, well.)