Taking the bus....

We hadn't exactly thought through our return trip.  Since we had come on a city bus (or close enough), we just assumed we would take one back the same way.  When we went to Taxco, there were three departure times from Cuernavaca and three departure times from Taxco.  We were well aware of the time and made it back to the station at our goal time.  Here, in Mexican fashion, we showed up (not knowing really where we were or how to get where we were going), hiked what we came to hike, ate where we saw a restaurant, and figured out how to leave when it was time to!

My thoughts were to pick up the bus where it had left us off.  That makes sense, right?

Apparently not.  We stopped at Tepoznieves, the local (yet chain-seeming) ice cream spot and soothed our need for something sweet before standing in the street near the place we had been dropped off.  (It was at this point that I realized my geographical mistake earlier in the day.)

After we'd been waiting about 5 minutes, I decided to try the old traffic cop trick again.  There was a traffic lady, well, I'm not sure what she was doing since there was one main road in this town.  Anyway, I asked her if we could grab the bus to Cuernavaca from here and she said not until much later in the night.  Well, that did not suit, so we asked what to do.

The bus station was up the road on the right.

About that time, a bus pulled up to where we were, a big bus.  It said Cuernavaca, so I asked if we could ride with them.  He said no, but to get on.  Interesting.  I had another one of those movie scenes flash through my mind as I accepted his offer.  I asked how much and he said nothing.

Getting weirder.

We pull into the bus station that would've been too far to walk, so I was thankful for this man's kindness, and again embarrassed that my mind had been that cautious (but I know, better to err on that side- I know).

We bought our tickets and waited for about 5 minutes.  If memory serves, there was no air on this bus either, but it was a bigger one.  And it seems the road was maybe a different route because there were so many more speed bumps.  It was a nauseating ride.  Like so nauseating that we both were turning green.  Now that I say that, there was a flight- I think I was alone- that caused me to hold my barf bag.  Wonder when that was....

We were so thankful for our arrival.  However, the bus didn't let us off in the same place we had grabbed the bus that morning (duh because it was a different bus), but it also didn't drop us at the bus station.  Finally, we just got off when other people did and grabbed a taxi to the house.  It took forever.  On Wednesday, after we got back from Taxco, we had taken a minibus to the house.  (I must insert here that our bus driver, though Mexican based on his accent, was the spitting image of Vanilla Ice.  And his music choice- loud and American- and his laid back seat only added to that image!)  Reed had left instructions for routes and numbers that would take us back to her place from several locations.  The apartment complex was really easy to find once you got on the right road.  However, when you have no idea where you are, and no instructions from Reed, you can't be sure the minibus you take is going in the right direction to get you there sometime today.  So we opted for the taxi on Thursday.

Mind you, we haven't showered since Tuesday morning before the Turibus, bus to Cuernavaca, day in Taxco, and hike up to a pyramid.  We must've been foul.  Poor taxi driver.  Lucky me.  Although I occasionally wish I had a good sense of smell to be able to relate smells to memories, most often I am supremely grateful to not have to deal with the more prevalent foul-smelling things.  In this case, me.

To market to market....

(Considering this is three weeks later, and in the midst of the swine flu stuff, I just laughed out loud, alone, at the title to this entry!)

After we waddled out of our restaurant, we walked, ever so slowly, up the main drag and checked out the local crafts.  Granted, we didn't want to buy a ton of silver, since we had just been to the silver mecca.  However, there's not a city in Mexico that doesn't have earrings to offer me!

We stopped in one store and after asking a few questions, the owner started chatting with me about why I'm here, same ol' thing.  So I told him.  We got into a big discussion about Culiacán and the truth about the dangers here, etc.  It was fun talking to him.  I have started really enjoying chats with Mexicans I encounter.  I feel much less pressure to speak well than I did when I arrived (which is probably directly related to my improvement).  Anyway, I fell prey to three pairs of his earrings.  I'm always a sucker when the person has made the craft they're selling.  In fact, more than several Mexicans have mentioned to me that foreigners in Mexico (especially US visitors) always stock up on artesan crafts while it doesn't interest Mexicans in the least.  When they travel, they want clothes or food.  I found that interesting (remember that for a story from Creel).

We continued up the main drag and found this really pretty restaurant.  I ate here with the guys in November.  It was one of the other two spots mentioned in my book.  I don't think we could've made it that far, though, after our hike.  We were starving!  There's a reason we ate way too much!

A little farther up the road, we encountered the market we had passed (and where we had made our fateful wrong turn).  Ashley had seen a soccer ball or two she might be interested in.  I had seen a tie-dye product or two I might be interested in.  I told you it was a hippie town.

We made our way around the square.  I was tempted by a super cute (in my opinion; Ashley hated it) blue tie-dye sweat skirt.  I mean, so cute.  I could just see it with flip flops.  Beach cover up, or real life clothes.  They only had one size, though.  And unfortunately it was not mine.  And after the meal I had just eaten, it didn't seem to be a size I would ever see.

We stopped at a honey stand and Ashley bought some.  It was, in fact, delicious.  The honey craze here is interesting.  It's their cure-all.  Good for them!

So...

So I'm noticing most of my posts (and many paragraphs within each post) start with "so."

I mean, I know that's not how you start a sentence, and in the spirit of writing these posts as if I were having a conversation with you that shouldn't matter, but who knew I used it as a sentence opener SO OFTEN?!

So sorry!  I will try to remedy that soon....

Tepoz

So this is the town I went to in November for the long weekend with Shania's cousin.  He has a house there and we drove by car in the middle of the night (I slept).  This trip was different of course since it was a day trip and by bus.  The only thing we got out of the house to do in November, though, was climb the pyramid, so basically the end goal was the same!

We got on the bus and luckily had entertainment from several small children and their families.  It only took 30 minutes, so it wasn't bad.  

The bus stopped at a corner and it didn't all come back to me, so I asked if we were there and the bus driver assured me that yes, in fact, we had arrived.

We started walking toward the pyramid, only I was still disoriented.  We passed the market that I remembered, but it didn't seem to be where it was supposed to be!

Then I saw it.  There was a church that I remembered raving Beto to.  So we zigzagged our way toward that church, seemingly going down, down, down a new hill with each block (about 4 blocks).  I didn't remember the downhill part being that dramatic.  Hmm....

We walked a little more and then I saw that there was no road in front of the church.  Seems there was back in November.  Weird.  

We stop and ask.  We should turn left, go about 6 blocks, and then take another left.

Turns out we had gone down those 4 blocks unnecessarily.  We had to go back up them.  So we did.  I, of course, was already breaking a sweat and we hadn't even gotten to the entrance of the hike...

This is the main street (that we got sidetracked from!) of Tepoztlán.  The pyramid is not the highest point you see, but the second highest.

The path is 2 kilometers long, but has an incline of one kilometer.  So it's a pretty good grade (at least for this girl).  The sign says that it's about an hour ascent.  We started off with 235 steps before hitting pure rocks.

It's a pretty good hike.  We stopped 2 or 3 times to catch our breath and cool off, which is about 4 times less than we stopped with Beto and Chory, the smokers. 

After about 40 minutes of hiking, we got to the staircases.  There are two: the ascending and the descending.  
We took our turn up the stairs and were about 5 minutes away from achieving the goal for the day.  We paid our 35 pesos to "enter" the pyramid, which supposedly has healing/calming/something powers.
(These two pictures are out of order.  We took these on the way back down.)

Once at the top of the stairs, I stopped and got what I thought was lemonade.  It turns out it was what's called a suerito: which is mineral water, lime, and salt.  Bleh!  But it was cold and I was thirsty.  After getting over the initial nastiness, it's decently quenching.

That's the cup in my hand in the picture above and that's why there are people lined up in the picture below.

At the top of the pyramid, we had to wait a good 15 minutes to get a spot to sit down.  It was crowded!  And once you're there, you don't want to move!  The view is spectacular, but even better is the breeze and sense of calm.  They say this pyramid is a source of energy, and part of me buys it.  This whole town is about hippie stuff and UFOs.  Astrology, etc.

I think we spent about 45 minutes up there next to the sun and Ashley had the sunburn to prove it!  Her shoulders were bright red.  Her legs were the best, though.  She called it strawberry and vanilla from where she had sat with her legs crossed.  I got to be chocolate because I did nothing but renew my tan.
As we were preparing to go back down, who do we see?  The Frenchys.  After listening to them some, I decided they were speaking German, so maybe I misheard the day before?  Ashley was heartbroken, but mostly because "Germanys" is not nearly as fun of a nickname as "Frenchys."

I just remembered that we actually saw them on the way up.  We started the hike at the same time, thought I think they sprinted it.  But it was when we were headed back down that we realized that it was German.

The descent is never as fun as the ascent.  Not to mention it's almost harder.  It's harder on your joints (in my humble opinion) and you just want to be there, but have to go cautiously to avoid a slip.

A very nice restaurant (that was one of the three recommended in my book) was conveniently located before the exit from the hike.  We were more than happy to enter (as you can see below from our absolutely exhausted expressions).  We were less than thrilled, however, to have a  new set of stairs to first descend and then ascend to get to the restaurant.

Once inside, it was peaceful and beautiful.  It's too bad we looked like we did!
I had a mole dish that was INCREDIBLE and terribly expensive.  We shared a jar of some mixed juice: mango and pineapple maybe?  Even though I had had my 1.5 liters of water throughout the hike, plus the salty drink, I still had more than my fair share of 2/3 of that pitcher!

We both ate way too much (as in basically licked our plates clean, including our appetizer of guacamole)!

As if we hadn't had enough trouble walking due to too much activity, now add to the fact that we were miserably stuffed.

On the positive side, there was a great bathroom at this restaurant.  (And Ashley can contest that you don't ever want to use a bathroom offered by a sign on the side of the road.)

Dirty, breakfast and traffic cop...

So Thursday was to be the day to hike the "mountain" and then climb the pyramid in Tepoztlán.  It would be a very sweaty day.  Again, we decided rather than battle the nasty bugs and cold water, we would just sweat it out (what's the other phrase?) one more day.  We got dressed, pulled back hair/hatted head and all.  

We had bought 4 tamales for 10 pesos at the bus station upon arriving from Taxco, so we split one of those for breakfast.  We also tried the jicama.  I don't think Ashley was sold on it.  After all the effort it took to cut it, I'm not sure I am either.  I'll stick to eating other people's pre-cut jicama from now on.  

Reed has no microwave and we hadn't turned the gas on, so the oven and stove were out.  We ate our chilled tamal, and oddly enough, even a cold corn tamal is delicious.

This trip to Tepoztlán apparently was not as big of a deal as the trip to Taxco.  We took the city bus that passes by Reed's apartment complex to the bottom of the hill (about a 3 minute drive).  There we were to cross the street (but this intersection had 5 options....) and wait for a bus to Tepoztlán.  That was a little nerve-inducing.  As we crossed the first street, we were going to ask in a shop (though we were warned by Comexus that Mexicans will give you an answer always, even if it's an incorrect one and they know it) when we realized there were traffic cops in the middle of the intersection.  We walked with traffic towards them.  As we walked up, the one we would ask was cleaning off his aviator sunglasses which Ashley just found hysterical.  I asked if he could help us find the bus stop for Tepoztlán.  He looked confused, continued wiping, and looked around.  Great.  Apparently even traffic cops who don't know will give you an answer.  Luckily, as fate would have it, a bus marked with Tepoztlán on it pulled up.  It was across another two streets, but no fear!  Our friendly traffic cop stopped traffic and walked us across the intersection!  We sprinted to the bus, paid our 13 pesos, and sat down!  This was your typical, un-air conditioned city bus.  Gonna be a long ride!

La cucaracha

So the song goes like this: La cucaracha, La cucaracha.  Ya no puede caminar.  (The cockroach, the cockroach, can't walk anymore.)  If only I'd known how true this song was!

So we had gotten back from our delicious dinner and sweets spending spree and I decided it was time to update Mom on the happenings of the trip so far...  My wireless wouldn't connect in the house.  Maybe too much concrete or something?  So I took my computer, and a glass of wine out to the pool.  I guess because it's the open air, there was a better signal.  Ashley and I sat on the steps by the pool while a little boy swam and a maintenance man (who knew the little boy) cleaned the area.  There were no outside lights besides those reflecting from inside the pool and from the surrounding apartments and bungalows.

I set my wine down (thoughtful, by the way, to leave us yummy red wine) and connected to the internet.  The little boy started splashing and talking about a cockroach.  It was on the other side of the pool from us.  However, after turning my laptop around to shine light around us, we saw a friendly little cockroach not far from where we were.  

I logged into gmail and sent Mom an email saying I was there if she wanted to get on.

We opened facebook and caught up on our Nashville gossip.

Ashley was antsy and asked me to flash the light again to keep tabs on the cockroach.  As I did, she said it was getting closer.  I didn't buy it.

She was bothered enough (and requesting a light check frequently enough) that I gave in and we moved to the higher steps, by the smaller pool.

I took my wine with me and had another sip.  Mom got online and we started chatting.  The rest is a bit blurry.  I'm not sure if Mom and I finished our conversation or not, but I went for another sip of wine.  

I lifted my glass, took my sip, and then realized I was seeing something very large and cockroach-shaped swimming around in my wine glass!

I set the glass down.

I stood up, holding my laptop ever carefully, and spit the wine out into the grass.

"What in the world?!"  were Ashley's thoughts I'm sure...

I tell her what had happened.  Then it hits me what has happened.  I freak out.  Wipe off my tongue.  Shiver.  Freak out.

The good news is, I only saw the little critter fanning its fingers/arms; I didn't feel it.  It never touched my lips.  I may never have eaten or drunk again had it touched me.

Bleh!

The issue remained, however, that there was still a rather large and cockroach-shaped cockroach in my wine glass.  I wanted to just drop the glass onto the ground kind of as therapy (since that wouldn't have gotten rid of the critter), but the glass didn't belong to me.  The other part of me just wanted to leave it there to die in the pool of wine, since it was too big, and the glass was too curved, to get out.  Again, not my glass.

Ashley, thank goodness, found some inner strength and tossed it all into the grass.  (In case you're wondering, the swimming boy and cleaning man had already left before the gringa drama.)  We ran, high stepping it, to the house.  I had turned under toes and creepy crawly thoughts all night!

Gringo 2

That was the name of our dinner destination Wednesday night.  It's amazing what shopping will do for your appetite!  

The way Mexican restaurants work is really amazing to me and is something I know I will miss once I'm home.  In Glasgow, the waiters at the Mexican restaurants literally run to make sure you get your food quickly (and get out the door quickly).  Service at my Mazatlan in Brentwood is similar, though they seem to literally run less frequently.  

In Mexico, no one is in a hurry for anything.  Especially at meals.  That doesn't mean your food doesn't come quickly, because it does.  But you'll never have a check brought to you before you explicitly ask for it; it's considered rude and pushy if they do.  There's never any waiting for a table.  It seems all restaurants always have empty tables.  And you just walk in and choose your seat.

The place we ate this night, though, was a typical taquería that was not exactly your idea of a restaurant.  It was open to the sidewalk.  In fact, our table was on the sidewalk.  There was a pastor man (not a preacher, but a man cutting the pastor meat off the pole it was on being roasted over the fire) also on the sidewalk.  People would walk by and chat with the owner/manager/cook.  He would come out, lean up against the cars parked parallel to the sidewalk and just chat.  If someone wanted to eat and there wasn't a place to sit (at these places, there are far fewer tables), people would just order it and eat where they were, standing up!  Several people came to get to go orders.

Ashley got pastor tacos and enjoyed watching the pastor man cut the pineapple from the top of the pole and shoot it into the air and into his hand, holding the tortilla.  I had hoped to get a video, but he stopped.  We figured we'd be back the next night, anyway, it was so good!

I had a torta, which is basically a sandwich.  It was with the pastor meat, too.  We each had delicious horchata (another thing I'm going to miss terribly) and raved about the guacamole.  We had gotten quesadillas on the side as well, just in case.  I was unable to eat all of my food since tortas are so big.  Two quesadillas, three tacos, two horchatas, and a torta, and we still came in under 100 pesos.  That's less than about 8 bucks.  Really?!

I like to sit after I eat, and we could've without being rude, but there was a crowd forming, so we decided to walk up the block some and explore.  We explored right into a pastry shop and bought a piece of tres leches cake.  Ashley got some merengues.  As we passed a fresh market, I decided to buy a jicama so Ashley could try it.  It's a root of some sort and I really like it.  With a little lime and chile, it's really good, but it's pretty good by itself.

We marched back to the house to make the plan for the following day.

Frenchy

In one of the markets, I heard what I thought was French being spoken.  It looked like two recent grads (I say high school, Ashley says college) on their backpacking trip before the real world.  Anyway, we continued our day without thinking about them again.  

However, at the bus station, we saw them again.  They were on our bus.  Ashley affectionately began referring to them collectively as Frenchy.

When we got to Cuernavaca, they stayed in the bus station and bought another bus ticket.  We went to the Oxxo and bought toilet paper...

We got back to the house and decided to try the taco place up the street that Reed had highly recommended.

The Silver City

Our wake-up call came at 8am.  We just aren't so much morning people on vacation (Although, my family I'm sure would insert here that that's no different from real life.  I have to disagree.  My professional life has made me quite the morning person; just give me my 25 minute ride to school and then I'll be ready to speak!).

Reed had told me I'd need to light the pilot light to get the hot water heater going.  I have a fear of gas tanks and fire, so we thought we'd wait til morning.

Well, then we decided we'd just prolong showering.  For one, we were about to travel; no need to get clean to do that since we could do it when we got back.  For two, since they had been traveling for the week and a half before, too, the house (mostly the bathroom) had been occupied by some bugs.  The ones in the bathroom were really gross and took me back to my Lipscomb bathroom cleaning days!  They're the kind that just spread and then hover when you turn the water on.

I digress.

We got dressed, left the apartment and grabbed a cab to do to the bus station.  Reed had left directions for getting there by bus, but we figured the last thing we wanted was to be late, so we didn't chance it.

We got to the bus station in time to get our tickets for the 9:25 departure.  I knew I'd be hungry, so we ran up to the Oxxo to get some water and breakfast bars.  

The bus was your typical charter bus, which is sometimes nice.  Through the winding roads it isn't always great because sometimes they close the curtains and you can't see the road.  BAD NEWS for someone like me.  Nice because if it's a longish trip, there's usually a movie...

Here's the embarrassing part to the story: The movie playing was AirBuddies.  It's the sequel (or maybe the third in a trilogy?) to AirBud, about a golden retriever that becomes a town's basketball star.  I obviously never saw AirBud.  And I laughed (maybe even audibly) when the screen said AirBuddies (AirBud and the neighbor dog have puppies).  Of course it would be an animal movie- a kid animal movie at that!

Okay, none of that I suppose is particularly embarrassing.  But this is: we enjoyed it!  We watched every second of the movie and really enjoyed it.  I must make some commentary here. 

1- The dog acting ability was way better than the adult acting.

2- I always love a good kids' movie in Spanish because it's easy to follow.

3- I really liked the movie and I'm totally embarrassed by that fact.

AND- sit down.  This is me talking now, May 6.  I can't stop thinking about golden retrievers.  I kinda want a puppy when I get back.

WHO AM I?!

Moving on.

The road to Taxco is super windy and mountainous.  Luckily, we had Airbuddies to distract us from that fact.  As we got closer, the views were breathtaking.  It's a really pretty town on top of a mountain.  We pulled into the bus stop and didn't know where to go.  We grabbed a taxi and it turns out you keep going UP to the main square.  The dominant figure on the square is the pink church seen below.

Let the pursuit of silver begin.  I had mad intentions of completing the female side of my Christmas list.  Unfortunately, there was nothing that stood out to me for anyone.  I realize that's disappointing, and I'm sorry!  It's hard to buy jewelry for others.  I had a ring picked out about ten different times for Grandmother, but how do you buy a ring for someone else?!

I fell in love with tea sets.  I wanted one for me.  That is, until I saw the price tags!  The weight of silver determines the price.  Earrings, quite obviously, typically don't weigh very much.  Bracelets on the other hand, do.  I always want bracelets as gifts when in Cozumel, but they always cost so much that I decline.  Same happened with these tea sets.  I had to defer my dream for when I come back to Mexico as a richer, older person.

We made our way through a market and bought a few things, but mostly made our mental list of things we wanted before leaving.  

All that thinking, pricing, listing sure made us hungry.  We couldn't make a decision about lunch based on our tour book or based on the restaurants we saw.  Luckily, a vendor must've read our minds and pointed us in the direction of this place called "El Fondito" that had homemade tortillas.  Of course, when we wanted a picture of the woman patting them out, she was gone...
We saw the family at the table next to ours eating what looked like some yummy enchiladas.  We asked what they were having (the meat choice on the menu of the day) and we were told chicken.  My gut told me enchiladas, but who's to argue with the waitress?  Well, our plates came out with chicken.  Like with the bones.  It looked delicious, but it wasn't what we had wanted.  She had misunderstood which plate we were referring to on the other table.  Luckily, because Mexico is such a great place, she took it back and replaced it, worried only that we'd have to wait a bit longer while our enchiladas were fixed.  We had each already had a soup/pasta plate.  Then we had our big plate of food, and I mean big.  Then we got desserts- we weren't crazy about them: a gelatin and arroz con leche.  No worries; we had seen a churros man in the square earlier.

We returned to the square and our man was gone.  But we passed the time in a great Spanish teacher store.  It was kinda upscale compared to the silver markets, but it also had things besides silver.  I went CRAZY!  I bought a beautiful corn husk doll (made completely out of corn products- ever her hair was made from the silks) dressed like the dancers we had seen on Sunday at the ballet folklórico.  The colors were amazing and I just loved her.  She'll make a great addition in my classroom.  I also found some really cute skeletons for Day of the Dead.  Finally, there was a tiny little Sinaloa doll.  Of course the dolls from other states had cuter clothes (I mean, what were they gonna do?  Dress Miss Sinaloa up in sequins, tight shirts and jeans with heels?), but Sinaloa was obviously the one that meant the most to me.

After dropping quite a few bucks in that store, we went back on our silver mission.  On our way was the churro man again.  He was a complete let down.  The churros were too crispy, not hot, and came only with condensed milk instead of caramel.  Boo.

After my mad spending spree in the teacher store, we bought silver rings, bracelets, and earrings to our heart's content.  

We had read in my Mexico book that there was a hotel that sold some "Special" silver designed by some woman, but that was sold to Neiman Marcus.  After we had worn ourselves out debating about our silver purchases, we grabbed a 15 peso cab to this hotel.  Joke's on us.  It was about 10 steps from where we were.  Due to the one way streets (or else to our cabby's attempt to confuse us), we went around the square, down one street, and around the block.  We just had to laugh when we got out of the cab.  The driver shoulda just said, "Give me your 15 pesos, it's right there."

We were sorely disappointed with the selection.  I guess when there are markets going on next door, it's hard to sell the fancy stuff.  The hotel was neat, but that was about it.

On our taxi ride around the block, we saw another market of sorts.  It was the typical Mexican stuff (blankets, hammocks, ceramics), but no silver.  We got sucked in.  There were some serious deals!

Damage for the day: 2 rings, 2 bracelets, 1 pair of earrings, a ceramic vase and little pot, blanket, 2 paintings, bookmark.

GET ME OUT OF THIS CITY!

We made our way back to the bus station (see the first picture of us waiting for our bus) and did a quick rundown of what we had bought.  We were actually surprised at how little silver we had walked away with...  It was almost regretful.  But we had been happy with our purchases.  No need to rethink it...

On the road again...

Our original week-in-DF plan had been to spend a day in DF, three days based out of Cuernavaca, and another 2-3 days on the road to other little day trips.  Thankfully, I realized what a headache that would be.  Traveling that much in that little time with that many suitcases (remember I had to pack for two weeks, including a stint in the US) would have been a nightmare.  Unpacking every night in a new hotel just to repack in the morning would not have been fun.

So when we got in the bus on Tuesday evening, it wasn't miserable (like it would've been if we'd been doing that daily).  

The bus was windy and inclining- I forgot Cuernavaca is a mountain town (well, city) and that all around DF there is nothing but mountains.  That was a wee bit nauseating.  I made it worse when I got out my computer and tried to send some emails.  I was already hopelessly behind on my blog and realizing that I would pretty much never be caught up.

We arrived, grabbed a cab, and got to the apartment complex.  I had to leave my ID at the front gate, but Reed had prepared me for that.  There was a little note with the key, but we were just interested (as was the driver) in getting there.  

We started unloading, I paid the driver and off he went.

Well, we were staying in Bungalow 3.  I knew this much from the instructions Reed had given me for the gate man.  However, there was nothing marked on any of the four "bungalows."  There was a guy on his laptop on the porch of the apartments right by the bungalows, so I asked him if he knew which one was bungalow three.  No dice.

So then I just decided trial and error.  I tried knocking and then the key in each bungalow (starting logistically with the two middle ones since we were talking #3 out of four).  Finally success.

After we got in, found a bottle of red wine and a folder of Cuernavaca information, I re-opened the note Reed had left with the key.  Of course it had a map of the place, showing not only the layout of the land and which was Bungalow 3, but also which door worked with the key...

Nice.

We got into the house and it was warmer than it was outside, but we turned on a fan in the bedroom, made our plan for Taxco for Wednesday (bus leaves at 9:25), and hit the sack.