There are many bridges in Mexico. They are loved by all, fully taken advantage of, and extremely useful. These bridges also require no engineers (of which there seem to be an unhealthy glut in these parts). This weekend was one such bridge, or ‘puente’ to use its correct name. The regular weekend rolls into a bank holiday Monday like terra firma onto a suspension bridge, thus giving a long weekend open to an extra day of lazing, travelling, eating, gardening or housework. We chose the travelling option, and bussed it across the teensy-tiny distance to the next state along, Tabasco to get saucy (harhar) in Villahermosa, bridging the gap between ourselves and Alex, assistant extraordinaire over in his very own ‘green hell’ (lush vegetation, scorching heat). Alas, time was not something we had in bountiful supply (24-hours bus to bus), but there was an abundance of all manner of other virtues: conviviality, what with the trilingual conversations with Alex’s French housemates and Mexican friends; generosity, as our ‘guide’ took us an hour out of town to visit a chocolate hacienda and didn’t ask for a penny; and innocence, as we whiled away a gleeful half hour on a bicycle caddy thingamabob in the park, winning races against a group of children, only be told to ‘be quiet old woman’ when I gloated about the fact in good humour. Not so virtuous was the chocolate hacienda, where we learnt about the laborious chocolate-making process, from bean to bar, when all we really wanted to know was buy some of the sugary stuff. I wasn’t so childish and gleeful when confronted with the central park’s resident crocodiles, wandering around the waterside nonplussed. I would like to suggest an addendum to the song I learnt at primary school: never smile at OR use flash photography on a crocodile.
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