Come on snake eyes!  Mama needs a new portable dvd player (I do need one, don’t I?) 

Parent Blogger Network and PickPackGo, a new travel site specializing in vacation rentals, are hosting a contest to find the best vacation stories that include children. The grand prize is a portable dvd, which I will re-gift to a lucky reader who comments on this story.  Since there are usually no more than ten comments on my stories, chances are EXCELLENT that if I should win (random draw) and you were a commenter on the story, you will win.

Seriously, if the assignment had been to write a book on this subject, I would have had no problem because I’ve a got a ton of vacation stories – because I’m always on vacation?  Not. Here’s a story, aptly named "Picture of Me Burning In Hell" from this summer’s vacation to Mexico:

Lucky you – you get an exclusive view of what it is like to witness someone burn in hell. Since I have the experience of falling down an unexpected and frightening shoot with twists and turns that dumped me into a burning pit of hellish fire, I’ll give you a glance of what it looks like.

Clearly, I have done something offensive to the heavens and am being punished.  Earlier this summer I wrote about my unsanitary experience at a small-town Texas water park.  Despite the fact that I almost perished from various health risks, I survived my time at Schlitterbahn and learned a valuable lesson that I am not tough enough to frequent water parks.   What could possibly be worse than an American water park…

…a Mexican water park!!!

Many readers will doubt the veracity of this account, but I pledge to you that the details are nothing less than fact.

During our Mexico vacation, the little people in my family were restless with the routine of watching their parents read books and write dissertations. Despite the fact that the parents rented an ATV (wildly out of character for the staid professor), and raced the little people up and down the steep hills of San Miguel de Allende, agitated boredom was still in the air.

To combat the idle time we packed a bag of towels, sunscreen and a map and drove out of San Miguel de Allende to the hot springs.  The guidebook mentioned that Wednesday was the best day to go to the water park because the water was changed on Tuesdays.  It is Friday. I need no vague insinuations to paint a picture of dirty, warm, stagnant water teaming with hordes of open-sored people.

A separate entry in the guidebook detailed another hot spring and explained that for the price of an “expensive” lunch one could gain entry in to a private, manicured, clean hot spring park. The book noted that “expensive” was about $30 USD.  Let’s see, for $30 we can avoid disease?  Schlitterbahn cost almost $200 for four people and there was no lunch included!

Navigating the main road out of San Miguel we are on the way to the private hot springs of Taboada.  Heartbreaking poverty passes the car windows – we have officially left the bubble of San Miguel de Allende.

A hand lettered wooden sign announces we have arrived at the appointed turnoff.  An Appalachian still is marked more clearly.  I always wondered why urbanites outside of snowy regions purchase the 4-wheel drive feature on station wagons. Now I know that Volvo makes the off-road feature for times when you are driving to a Mexican water park!Img_3425

No exaggeration here. We drive about five miles down an unpaved road through barren fields dotted with the occasional partially constructed hut that is roofless and vacant.  My husband regales the family with possibilities of how the water park is a rouse to attract tourists who will be robbed and killed.  Two sets of wide eyes stare at one another in the backseat.

The car arrives at a literal and proverbial fork in the road. The sign reads AGUA MAGICA WATERPARK (arrow left) TABOADA (arrow right).  Absurdly, like a pack of fools, we take the left turn toward Agua Magica.

The rough road almost cracks our teeth as the car bumps along and we see nothing man-made other than a discarded pile of cement.  Coming to my senses, I demand that my husband turn the car around at the next availability.   

TOO LATE.

( view of dirt road from the passenger's seat) The next part of the road that is wide enough to make a turn gives a sneak-peak of the top of a rickety water slide.  The children scream and buck like they have been injected with a syringe full of glee.  There isn’t even the smallest chance in hell that I can deny a visit to this water park that looks like Ernest T. Bass built it with sticks and stones. However, I try.

We park in a stony field, and I remove all potential valuables from the car, including my three-in-one nail file and buffer. For approximately $3 USD a visitor is afforded total access to the entire water park.  Lucky me.

The children race inside as I pointlessly and stuffily call, “Walking feet!  Use your walking feet. No running!”  I imagine holding a tourniquet around a bludgeoned skull while trying to speed through the rocky pasture toward the nearest hospital which is 20 miles away.

To my complete and utter shock, in the midst of this thorny, cactus-riddled worthless land, the inside of the water park is a ballmoss’ throw from gorgeous.  Thick, lush green grass surrounds the five multi-leveled CHLORINATED pools.  There are a handful of children at the park, but they are not wearing bathing suits and hardly anyone is in the pool.  Later in the day it becomes more populated, but the longest wait for the water slides is the amount of time it takes to climb the stairs.

On a grassy knoll under the shade of a tiki hut, I spread my towel, insert my earbuds and open my book.  The chill of the shade forces me to slip on my cardigan over my swimsuit, but outside of the shade, it is plenty warm enough for the children to swim.  In America I resemble Ugly Betty, but in this Mexican wonderland, I look like Paris Hilton in my skimpy swimsuit.  Compared to the conservatively attired women, a few of whom are wearing aprons as they prepare lunch, the cardigan stands between Playboy and me.

While Agua Magica is not Disneyworld, it is about $500 cheaper, 110% less crowded, bizarrely cleaner and absolutely peaceful.  What baffles me is how Americans can afford a $70 entrance fee to a park and not know enough to adhere to basic grooming principles like cutting their toenails, dressing their wounds or keeping their mucus inside their mouths. Everyone at the Mexican water park seems to have exfoliated, graduated from etiquette school and used their smoking cessation patch. Go figure.

Comments

[MonkeysMama]

LMAO! Your last paragraph summed it up nicely. Those photos are great, especially of you! Quite the glam pose and sombrero!

I also read your 'About' link and find your background fascinating!

[hokgardner]

I loved the story the first time around, and I laughed just as hard the second time! I managed to avoid taking the kids to Schlitterbahn this year somehow. But I'm sure my luck won't hold next year.

[Holmes]

That was hilarious. I'll keep this in mind when my little dude is old enough for water parks.

[Liz]

I was sad to see that Penelope didn't comment on this one....

Remember Penelope? If she commented and I was you, I would have sent her a portable DVD player, just because it would be funny.

P.S. My 7 year old son has a DVD player for the car so he doesn't bug the shit out of us when we go on road trips. Guess what really bugs the shit out of me? The battle for him to turn his headphones down so I don't have to hear A Bug's Life instead of Justin Timberlake (c'mon, we all love him) and for me to turn JT down so my son can hear A Bugs Life. Ditch the portable DVD player idea, just give the little darlings a martini for the drive....