Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico - Servicio Postal Mexicano

"No intiendo," I said.

"¿No intiendes?" she asked. And then she laughed and started cutting open our box. Ok, fine. The contents have to be inspected. She gave us the ok, gave our box back in complete disarray and then told us we needed to wrap our box in yellow paper. Something about "for the stamps."

Then Michael and I had a fight, so we decided to get some lunch and calm down. Lunch was good, (Sandy's buffet again) except: Don't bring me something without asking if I want it unless it is free, esta bien?

After lunch we went back to the papeleria and bought some paper from the same kid who, three hours ago had not sold us a box, and two hours ago had sold us tape. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, we stood in line with our box and our paper. The post office lady did not understand why we were in line with our box unwrapped and shooed us away to wrap it.

Then we traded $260 pesos for several sheets of $6.50 peso stamps and four $1 peso stamps. The lady helpfully told us to put the stamps all around the sides of the box and on the back. Ok, these are the complaints that will get one told to "stay home if you want everything to be like it is at home." But no, because a) I really don't care. I'm on vacation and b) come on... would it really be such a bad thing to give out stamps in larger denominations than $6.50?

So we stuck all those stamps on, took some comemorative photos and then let our little package go. We got a receipt for it which surprised me because we sent it the cheap way (first class was over $50 USD).

It was all very arduous, but next time we'll know what we're doing... and now we have lots of tape.

(Some other post office tips learned the hard way: In the US, do not seal your box with electrical tape. In India, you must have your package sewn up in white cloth by the package-wallah, or a tailor.)

We bought a night bus ticket to Mexico City. We don't want to get there in the middle of the night, so we chose a bus that leaves Guadalajara at 11:00 pm.

We spent what was left of the day chilling around the city. When we went back to the hotel to pick up our mochilas (and I oh-so-gracefully told the desk clerk in Spanish that "us backpacks there" and pointed) we met a couple of guys who were riding motorcycles around Mexico. Well, we met the young guy. The older one was very aloof. Anyway, our guy told us that his parents believe he is doing the trip by bus. They know exactly where he is, since he keeps in regular touch with them, but they have no idea about the motorcycle.

Don't worry, we're really on the bus.