Travel Tuesday: Bathrooms in Mexico

It was suggested to me by Running Mama to start a Travel Tuesday entry on my blog  where I save the best of the traveling stories for that particular day. Since I am rotten at organizing my thoughts and stories, I couldn't help but jump on the suggestion...so here it goes.

It was my good fortune that I was invited to join my aunt and uncle on their annual drive to my uncle's home town of Curimeo, Michoacan Mexico, December of 2011. As it turns out...regardless of where...I love to travel, and a road trip in to Mexico was an experience for the bucket list. I have visited Mexico many times before, and with the exception of one trip to Chichen Itza, my trips were typically in to small towns, immersing in to the everyday culture. So when I was told that I would be hitting up cities and towns on my three day drive, places I had yet to see, I was ecstatic. Not to mention that I would be staying in a very small town once arriving...I thought the experience would be excellent fodder for a book that I will never write.

Being the small town that it is, Curimeo has roads that were barely  wide enough for the Texas size truck we had, but we said fuck it. Upon arrival in to the town, my  first site was the guy with a tequila in one hand, and the reins of his horse in the other. I thought, yes, this is true Mexico. It was great and fucking inspiring. I wanted to ride a horse and drink my tequila at the same time. One fucking day...

My uncle and aunt are building a house in this town. But because this town is so small we would have to go two towns over to buy materials for its construction. So one day while we were running errands, we decide to have a Michoacan style torta ahogada. Now for you non mexi's, torta ahogadas are a Jalisco delicacy, not a Michocan one. But I said fuck it, and ate one anyway at the local eatery. Almost immediately I felt the rumble...a slight stirring in my lower bowels, a dance upon my intestines. We get in the truck and descend down towards home base.

It was about half way in to the truck ride that I thought, shit...I am about to shit. I turn to my aunt and say, "Tia, I have to go, get my ass back to the house." I was clenching with all of my might but I knew that clench could hold out for so long. I had to go in the worst way. This "going" was going to be fucking epic too. So I turn to my aunt again and say "get me to the fucking house". Now, because we had taken the three day road trip down to Mexico, we had equipped the car with rolls of toilet paper, in case we had to stop and take a piss along the road. I had never factored in taking a shit along the road. So my aunt, fully aware of the toilet paper availability, pulls the truck over...on a driveway...with some random home only fifty yards away, and says to me "just go here". Now at this point my ass was in so much pain. It was holding back the literal shit storm ready to reign over this poor souls driveway. I will be honest, the prospect of relief was a moment of euphoria for me. But no, the thought of my ass spewing over someone's driveway was too much to bare, and the fact that this was broad fucking daylight on a road that was traveled often fucking enough to catch me shitting. I climb back and clench so much harder...

The home that was under construction was located at the entrance of Curimeo, and therefore would be   one of the first houses driving in to town. I ask her to stop at their house, the one that was under construction. With a chuckle, Tia tells me "There is no running water, we have to go to your uncle's mother's house." FML.  We continue to drive in to the town, you know, the one with the narrow fucking streets. Well on this particular day, some asshole decided to have a party and shut the one fucking street down...the one street. We had to go around, park a Mexican block away. I didn't even let her stop the truck, I jumped off and ran towards the house, tripping over the cobblestone and running through the tape that shut down the streets....

I didn't exactly make it....I am not the most graceful traveler...