We woke up pretty early since we wanted to take the 9:30 am ferry over to mainland in order to make the 12:30 ferry to Cozumel. We awoke with an excitement for life that we hadn't had in a few days (6!) now, since we could finally move on from our sickness. Isla Mujeres is a lovely place to relax and spend a week, but we were feeling more than ready to move on. We loaded up the bike and checked out no problem, and were even early arriving at the ferry. It was hot, and we were sweating everywhere already, but we knew we only had a short drive today to get to Cozumel so our spirits were still high. After loading the bike on the ferry, I started feeling like I had a slight fever again and my stomach decided it wasn't completely over its illness, so I stripped my moto pants (I had exercise pants on underneath) and tried to use the ferry bathroom which was surprisingly clean but hotter than a sauna. That wasn't successful so I decided I would just wait the hour or so to the next hotel. Since I was feeling hot and uncomfortable, I put my pants and boots back on but didn't zip them as I planned to let the air flow through for just a little bit longer. When it was time to get back on the bike, I put my helmet on but lifted the visor to feel the breeze while we were riding. I put my jacket on but didn't zip it, and I put my gloves in Eric's backpack he was wearing in order to temporarily save myself from heat exhaustion.
By the time we made it back out to the main highway I decided it was time to gear back up. I zipped up my jacket, and put my gloves back on. Though it was upper 80's to lower 90's outside and extremely humid the 50 mile and hour wind eventually helped enough to where it felt comfortable to pull my visor down. Eric and I started getting into a heavy debate as to whether or not we should get a GoPro when Eric interrupted me saying:
"What is that truck doing?"
Me: I think he is yielding
Eric: Oh my God he is pulling out (slamming on his breaks)
Me: silence
Eric: We're gonna hit, I'll need to lay the bike down!
I felt a sudden tightness in the bottom of my stomach. We were gonna hit. We were traveling 50-60 miles per hour when we saw the dump truck pull out 100 feet in front of us from a right side road and stop in the middle of the highway so he could yield for traffic the opposite way before making a left turn. We were the only vehicle around at the time. He must have just not seen us, either that or he didn't care thinking we would stop in time. We soon discovered that on a motorcycle, its pretty hard to go from 50+ to 0 in just 100 feet. That tightness in my stomach was suddenly replaced by blackness, the blackness replaced by pain everywhere, and the next thing I remember was hitting the ground with the wind knocked out of me struggling to breathe. Realizing I was conscious I immediately tried to get up to see if Eric was all right as I was facing the opposite direction of the accident but soon realized I couldn't move. My body was in a sort of fetal position, and I found myself hyperventilating and waiting for my breathing to calm down before I could make my next move. I'm not sure how long it took for that to happen, but once it did, I was able to sit up and turn around to witness the mess we had caused. We struck the truck hitting the gas tank right below the drivers door. I was facing the front of the bike, and saw it took a hard hit as the front was completely smashed in. There were people everywhere, including the federal police. I looked down to see what used to be in the milk crate on the back of the bike was now scattered all over the pavement surrounding the bike. What I couldn't see was Eric. A man ran over to make sure I was alright. I tried to get up, but he wouldn't let me. "You need to stay down" he said in English. He was Mexican. "Mi Esposo?" (my husband?) I asked him. The man looked over at where Eric was laying and made a face as if to say "oh God how do I tell her". I tried getting up again but he wouldn't let me. Before I had a chance to get too worried I saw Eric rise from the ground and start to play with his glasses. He had obviously been unconscious and was now acting wacky. I noticed some people were trying to talk to him but he was too fixated on his glasses to respond to them. The man that was previously helping me handed me a water bottle that had fallen out of our milk crate. "Esta gasolina" I said to him. It was a denatured alcohol bottle we had used for our alcohol stove all week. The people helping us appeared to be bystanders, I realized. Though the federal police were standing by, they were just standing around with their arms crossed seemingly unconcerned with the entire situation. Eric finally made eye contact with me and I mouthed to him WTF!? and he replied a long exaggerated f*ck. Good. At that point I knew he was ok.
By this time the ambulance had arrived and asked how I was doing. They spoke in broken English. As they were assessing my body, I told them I had pain in my ankle and rib cage. I also had some road rash on my hip which was bothering me. I realized then that I was missing one boot, no doubt because I didn't zip them up this morning. I always remember to zip up my boots right before getting on the bike. Guess I was still foggy-headed from the food poisoning. That explains the ankle pain. Thank God I zipped my jacket up and put my gloves back on. The EMTs took my jacket off me and strapped me down on the backboard and as I looked over at Eric I saw the same thing was happening to him. Eric was bleeding from his face, and I later found out it was because he left his visor up before the accident so the bleeding would have been caused by his glasses shoved up onto his forehead.
I realized then and there that all of our money, passports, and expensive electronics on top of everything else would be left behind. I asked one of the EMTs to grab me my bag. "No", she said, "its not possible, we need to bring you to the hospital". I then told her my insurance cards and ID were in the bag and she quickly ran over to get it for me. This bag held our money, passports, ID's and my phone, but that was about it. I asked her if she could bring me our tank bag since all of our camera equipment was in there, but I told her more of our insurance cards were in it so she would bring it to me. I looked at everything else we owned sprawled out over the ground. As we loaded up and drove to the hospital I wasn't sure what would happen to the rest of our stuff or the bike, but at least I had Eric and we were alive and relatively OK, so at that time that was all that mattered.
We were taken to Victoria Medical Center, a small private hospital in downtown Cancun. It took us about 20 minutes to get there from the scene of the accident. On the drive there, Eric was talking nonsensically with the EMT about how she was doing and her education training and other sorts of rubbish but was coherent enough to realize that he had a broken leg and able to deny IV drips and medications. Leave it to Eric to maintain a social conversation in the mist of this sort of accident. The EMS worker asked me why I wasn't talking to her, and I realized then that shock and anger was setting in. At the hospital, they took Eric in to get x-rays first and then me shortly after as he appeared to be in more pain. They found Eric had a tibial plateau fracture and an avulsion of the fibula at the time of the ER visit. While I was waiting for my x-rays to be read I realized that I could not lift my left leg. While struggling with this, the ER doctor came in and asked Eric if I had had a history of scoliosis. I said no, but put the leg problem and the new found scoliosis together and start to lose composure. Thoughts of being paralyzed from the accident started running through my head and how I would spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. After I was done filling out paperwork Eric told me there were no broken bones and that everything appeared to be fine with my x-rays. Composure regained! As it turns out I pulled my groin muscle and was able to walk fine again a few hours later.
We waited around for five hours in the ER, waiting for the police to come and take a report and the orthopedist, but neither showed up. Finally, the next shift doctor came in and asked for a credit card deposit because they had not received authorization from our medical insurance companies yet. He also called the police five times, each time being told they were on their way only a few minutes more, but finally the doctor told us to just take a taxi to the public ministry a mile away. We took a taxi there and asked about our motorcycle but no one could help us. They seemed to think we were in the wrong place. Finally they realized we were in the accident with a truck, and someone came to help us. He explained that Eric would have to be detained for 48 hours until the fault of the accident could be determined. He even called the American Consulate to have them explain it to us. On the bright side, however, since he had a broken leg, he could spend the 48 hours back at the hospital.
By this point, I decided it would be a good idea to call someone who knows Mexico more than we do, so I called our friends Dan and Pam who we just spent a few days with in Puerto Aventuras, who called their close friend Robert to help us since he lives right there in Cancun. Robert is a complete stranger, but he immediately jumped in his car to come down to our rescue as he is a fellow motorcyclist. Robert's (Roberto's) English is fantastic, so once he arrived only 20 minutes later and we explained the situation to him he acted as our translator for the rest of the day. At least now we knew exactly what was going on. He spoke with the official filing the accident (I suppose this is mandatory in any automobile accident in Mexico that involve the federal police anyway) and found out that the guy driving the dump truck would most likely be guilty. Even so, we would have to spend 48 hours detained in the public ministry building in a holding cell, or since Eric had a broken leg we could stay in the hospital for 2 days instead. Of course we picked the hospital. As it turns out, only the drivers involved in the accident would have to spend the 48 hours in a holding cell which meant I would be able to wait in a hotel in the mean time. If Eric stayed in the hospital at least I could stay with him.
Robert drove us back to the hospital where we checked in upstairs and settled for the next 48 hours. The room was nice at least; it was almost like staying in a hotel room except with hospital staff coming and going as they please. It was a very large suite with an extra day bed for me to sleep on, a recliner chair, and a table to eat at. We had the room all to ourselves. Eric didn't want to be hooked up to IV fluids or any pain medication so the nurses really didn't have to come in too often. Once Eric was settled in I took a taxi to Walmart five minutes up the road to buy some essentials we were missing from the accident; soap, deodorant, make up (essentials!), flip flops and a change of clothes to at least sleep in. The EMTs took my other boot off at the accident and left it there, so I was walking around with just my socks on all day. Walking around Walmart in spandex shorts, a tank top, no shoes, greasy from the day and moving as slow as possible from the pain of the accident I was completely aware that I looked like a schizophrenic homeless person and the other vacationers in Walmart made sure I knew it; the looks I got were horrific. I had never been so jealous of vacationers with carts full of wine, meats and the aura of a good time to come as I was that day.
The next 48 hours consisted of us posting on Facebook about the accident and the phone calls received afterwards being our number one source of entertainment. Thankfully my phone was in the small backpack I had asked for along with our passports, etc, so this was our main source of contact with the outside world. Though with being stuck in one spot for 48 hours with a police guard sitting outside our door to ensure Eric did not leave, it would have been nice to have our computer or tablet to be able to blog with or watch movies on. Somehow, we got through it with Spanish TV and the free wifi provided by the hospital.
At some point, the orthopedist finally came in to verify that Eric didn't need surgery on his leg and put a cast on for him. Eric had already spoken to a few friends back home in the ortho field who confirmed that surgery was almost absolutely necessary after seeing his x-rays. This is the point where we decided we would definitely be going back home. The day after the accident, Robert mentioned that it would be a good idea to hire a lawyer to represent us specifically and brought a partner of theh group that he normally works with in with him. He took our case and the same day had a meeting with the lawyer from the public minsitry to trade information right in our room. We sat and watched as the lawyers did their thing. Marcos, the lawyer, also took down a specific list of our personal belongings so that we could claim them in the insurance dispute if anything was broken or went missing.
We made the local paper. At least now we can say we were famous for a day? I'd rather not be famous.
We arrived to the hospital on Saturday evening and were finally discharged after some confusion on Monday around 2 pm. Marcos came by to fill us in on the current events of the situation and told us that though we were being discharged, we wouldn't be able to get our personal belongings back until the next day. This is when we also informed us that the driver of the accident was found guilty, but was not insured and the company he worked for was not insured either. In order to stay out of jail, the driver of the accident offered us 2,400 USD of his own money to cover costs. Our lawyer made the decision that this was not enough and that the driver would be going to jail until further notice or more money was offered.
Robert was adamant about us staying with him until we figured things out and wouldn't take no for an answer. He brought us to his condo, a beautiful place in the tourist area of Cancun and set us up in one of his guest bedrooms overlooking the lagoon.
As promised, Marcos picked us up the following day to bring us to where our personal belongings were stored. Marcos asked for gas money to bring us there even though we already paid him for his lawyer fees (getting us out of the hospital and the bike released from police custody along with our belongings) but this wasn't a big deal as he was nice enough to take us there himself. He told us the distance was pretty far, otherwise it wouldn't have been a big deal. Pulling into the gas station Marcos didn't tell us how much he wanted for gas and so I pulled out a 500 peso (about 40 bucks) and he confirmed that was enough.
We arrived at a salvage yard/mechanic shop where our personal items were held along with the bike. While Marcos told us that the federal police had all of our items in a storage unit at the police station, they were actually sitting under an awning next to the bike at the salvage yard. This was the first time we were able to see what the bike looked like, and boy was it a sore sight. The police had called the bike a total loss at $5000 worth of damage, but we couldn't tell if it could be fixed or not. Looking at our stuff I immediately noticed that my jacket was missing, and both mine and Eric's gloves we not in plain sight either. We took some pictures and said goodbye to our bike as the police still hadn't released it, only our personal belongings, and pulled our items into the office. While we waited for Marcos to give our approval to go (apparently there were some issues between the federal police and the local police: the federal police approved our luggage to be released but the local did not) I rummaged through our Pelican cases and clothing bags to see if everything was accounted for. The pelican cases were only locked on one side so I shoved my through the unlocked side to feel around for our items. It turns out that someone else, or many other people, had already done the same thing as a few of our items we missing including our tablet, key board for the tablet, our Kindle, a whole bag of various cords and chargers for our computer, tablet, cameras, etc, our speaker for our mp3 player, and some other misc. items. This really set me over the top. I could deal with the accident, the 48 hours custody, the fact that the police still wouldn't release our bike, and Eric's broken leg, but when I saw our stuff was stolen by God only knows who, I lost it. This is where my anger really set in. Finally, our lawyer worked out a deal with the local police and we headed back home. Another angering surprise; Marcos decided to take the shortcut home this time and the "very long drive" he mentioned before which he needed gas money for turned into a 10-15 minute drive up the road back to Robert's place. Thanks, Marcos.
Since we had our stuff back and we had no idea when the bike would be released anyway, we booked a flight out of Cancun the following morning. Thankfully, we were able to use our sky miles which helped the price of the last minute booking a bit. We stayed one last night in the generous hospitality of Robert, who was just as pissed off as we were with the series of unfortunate events including how much of a snake Marcos was turning out to be, and just tried to look forward to being home planning our next move. Robert took us out for a nice Italian meal at a local tourist restaurant and we paid in order to try but in no way be able to make up for the generosity he didn't have to bestow on us the last few days, though not before dropping by a local ER in order to saw Eric's cast open to prevent too much swelling on the flight the next day. We caught our flight at 8 something the next morning, and had a relatively painless adventure home considering Eric's current condition.
Way too hot, belly issues, sauna bathroom = cant wait to get to Cozumel!
By the time we made it back out to the main highway I decided it was time to gear back up. I zipped up my jacket, and put my gloves back on. Though it was upper 80's to lower 90's outside and extremely humid the 50 mile and hour wind eventually helped enough to where it felt comfortable to pull my visor down. Eric and I started getting into a heavy debate as to whether or not we should get a GoPro when Eric interrupted me saying:
"What is that truck doing?"
Me: I think he is yielding
Eric: Oh my God he is pulling out (slamming on his breaks)
Me: silence
Eric: We're gonna hit, I'll need to lay the bike down!
I felt a sudden tightness in the bottom of my stomach. We were gonna hit. We were traveling 50-60 miles per hour when we saw the dump truck pull out 100 feet in front of us from a right side road and stop in the middle of the highway so he could yield for traffic the opposite way before making a left turn. We were the only vehicle around at the time. He must have just not seen us, either that or he didn't care thinking we would stop in time. We soon discovered that on a motorcycle, its pretty hard to go from 50+ to 0 in just 100 feet. That tightness in my stomach was suddenly replaced by blackness, the blackness replaced by pain everywhere, and the next thing I remember was hitting the ground with the wind knocked out of me struggling to breathe. Realizing I was conscious I immediately tried to get up to see if Eric was all right as I was facing the opposite direction of the accident but soon realized I couldn't move. My body was in a sort of fetal position, and I found myself hyperventilating and waiting for my breathing to calm down before I could make my next move. I'm not sure how long it took for that to happen, but once it did, I was able to sit up and turn around to witness the mess we had caused. We struck the truck hitting the gas tank right below the drivers door. I was facing the front of the bike, and saw it took a hard hit as the front was completely smashed in. There were people everywhere, including the federal police. I looked down to see what used to be in the milk crate on the back of the bike was now scattered all over the pavement surrounding the bike. What I couldn't see was Eric. A man ran over to make sure I was alright. I tried to get up, but he wouldn't let me. "You need to stay down" he said in English. He was Mexican. "Mi Esposo?" (my husband?) I asked him. The man looked over at where Eric was laying and made a face as if to say "oh God how do I tell her". I tried getting up again but he wouldn't let me. Before I had a chance to get too worried I saw Eric rise from the ground and start to play with his glasses. He had obviously been unconscious and was now acting wacky. I noticed some people were trying to talk to him but he was too fixated on his glasses to respond to them. The man that was previously helping me handed me a water bottle that had fallen out of our milk crate. "Esta gasolina" I said to him. It was a denatured alcohol bottle we had used for our alcohol stove all week. The people helping us appeared to be bystanders, I realized. Though the federal police were standing by, they were just standing around with their arms crossed seemingly unconcerned with the entire situation. Eric finally made eye contact with me and I mouthed to him WTF!? and he replied a long exaggerated f*ck. Good. At that point I knew he was ok.
By this time the ambulance had arrived and asked how I was doing. They spoke in broken English. As they were assessing my body, I told them I had pain in my ankle and rib cage. I also had some road rash on my hip which was bothering me. I realized then that I was missing one boot, no doubt because I didn't zip them up this morning. I always remember to zip up my boots right before getting on the bike. Guess I was still foggy-headed from the food poisoning. That explains the ankle pain. Thank God I zipped my jacket up and put my gloves back on. The EMTs took my jacket off me and strapped me down on the backboard and as I looked over at Eric I saw the same thing was happening to him. Eric was bleeding from his face, and I later found out it was because he left his visor up before the accident so the bleeding would have been caused by his glasses shoved up onto his forehead.
I realized then and there that all of our money, passports, and expensive electronics on top of everything else would be left behind. I asked one of the EMTs to grab me my bag. "No", she said, "its not possible, we need to bring you to the hospital". I then told her my insurance cards and ID were in the bag and she quickly ran over to get it for me. This bag held our money, passports, ID's and my phone, but that was about it. I asked her if she could bring me our tank bag since all of our camera equipment was in there, but I told her more of our insurance cards were in it so she would bring it to me. I looked at everything else we owned sprawled out over the ground. As we loaded up and drove to the hospital I wasn't sure what would happen to the rest of our stuff or the bike, but at least I had Eric and we were alive and relatively OK, so at that time that was all that mattered.
We were taken to Victoria Medical Center, a small private hospital in downtown Cancun. It took us about 20 minutes to get there from the scene of the accident. On the drive there, Eric was talking nonsensically with the EMT about how she was doing and her education training and other sorts of rubbish but was coherent enough to realize that he had a broken leg and able to deny IV drips and medications. Leave it to Eric to maintain a social conversation in the mist of this sort of accident. The EMS worker asked me why I wasn't talking to her, and I realized then that shock and anger was setting in. At the hospital, they took Eric in to get x-rays first and then me shortly after as he appeared to be in more pain. They found Eric had a tibial plateau fracture and an avulsion of the fibula at the time of the ER visit. While I was waiting for my x-rays to be read I realized that I could not lift my left leg. While struggling with this, the ER doctor came in and asked Eric if I had had a history of scoliosis. I said no, but put the leg problem and the new found scoliosis together and start to lose composure. Thoughts of being paralyzed from the accident started running through my head and how I would spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. After I was done filling out paperwork Eric told me there were no broken bones and that everything appeared to be fine with my x-rays. Composure regained! As it turns out I pulled my groin muscle and was able to walk fine again a few hours later.
Eric's broken knee
Calling the Cozumel hotel to cancel our reservation. Really, who wants to do this immediately after the accident!? This is where it would have been nice to have family around.
The couple minutes where I thought I was going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life before Eric told me my x-rays were fine
Eric feeling very lucky to be alive when all was said and done
We waited around for five hours in the ER, waiting for the police to come and take a report and the orthopedist, but neither showed up. Finally, the next shift doctor came in and asked for a credit card deposit because they had not received authorization from our medical insurance companies yet. He also called the police five times, each time being told they were on their way only a few minutes more, but finally the doctor told us to just take a taxi to the public ministry a mile away. We took a taxi there and asked about our motorcycle but no one could help us. They seemed to think we were in the wrong place. Finally they realized we were in the accident with a truck, and someone came to help us. He explained that Eric would have to be detained for 48 hours until the fault of the accident could be determined. He even called the American Consulate to have them explain it to us. On the bright side, however, since he had a broken leg, he could spend the 48 hours back at the hospital.
By this point, I decided it would be a good idea to call someone who knows Mexico more than we do, so I called our friends Dan and Pam who we just spent a few days with in Puerto Aventuras, who called their close friend Robert to help us since he lives right there in Cancun. Robert is a complete stranger, but he immediately jumped in his car to come down to our rescue as he is a fellow motorcyclist. Robert's (Roberto's) English is fantastic, so once he arrived only 20 minutes later and we explained the situation to him he acted as our translator for the rest of the day. At least now we knew exactly what was going on. He spoke with the official filing the accident (I suppose this is mandatory in any automobile accident in Mexico that involve the federal police anyway) and found out that the guy driving the dump truck would most likely be guilty. Even so, we would have to spend 48 hours detained in the public ministry building in a holding cell, or since Eric had a broken leg we could stay in the hospital for 2 days instead. Of course we picked the hospital. As it turns out, only the drivers involved in the accident would have to spend the 48 hours in a holding cell which meant I would be able to wait in a hotel in the mean time. If Eric stayed in the hospital at least I could stay with him.
Robert drove us back to the hospital where we checked in upstairs and settled for the next 48 hours. The room was nice at least; it was almost like staying in a hotel room except with hospital staff coming and going as they please. It was a very large suite with an extra day bed for me to sleep on, a recliner chair, and a table to eat at. We had the room all to ourselves. Eric didn't want to be hooked up to IV fluids or any pain medication so the nurses really didn't have to come in too often. Once Eric was settled in I took a taxi to Walmart five minutes up the road to buy some essentials we were missing from the accident; soap, deodorant, make up (essentials!), flip flops and a change of clothes to at least sleep in. The EMTs took my other boot off at the accident and left it there, so I was walking around with just my socks on all day. Walking around Walmart in spandex shorts, a tank top, no shoes, greasy from the day and moving as slow as possible from the pain of the accident I was completely aware that I looked like a schizophrenic homeless person and the other vacationers in Walmart made sure I knew it; the looks I got were horrific. I had never been so jealous of vacationers with carts full of wine, meats and the aura of a good time to come as I was that day.
The next 48 hours consisted of us posting on Facebook about the accident and the phone calls received afterwards being our number one source of entertainment. Thankfully my phone was in the small backpack I had asked for along with our passports, etc, so this was our main source of contact with the outside world. Though with being stuck in one spot for 48 hours with a police guard sitting outside our door to ensure Eric did not leave, it would have been nice to have our computer or tablet to be able to blog with or watch movies on. Somehow, we got through it with Spanish TV and the free wifi provided by the hospital.
Our "holding cell"/hospital room for 48 hours. Much better than the jail cell I imagine!
A few more injuries
Road rash/ just a really hard fall?
Sprained ankle
At some point, the orthopedist finally came in to verify that Eric didn't need surgery on his leg and put a cast on for him. Eric had already spoken to a few friends back home in the ortho field who confirmed that surgery was almost absolutely necessary after seeing his x-rays. This is the point where we decided we would definitely be going back home. The day after the accident, Robert mentioned that it would be a good idea to hire a lawyer to represent us specifically and brought a partner of theh group that he normally works with in with him. He took our case and the same day had a meeting with the lawyer from the public minsitry to trade information right in our room. We sat and watched as the lawyers did their thing. Marcos, the lawyer, also took down a specific list of our personal belongings so that we could claim them in the insurance dispute if anything was broken or went missing.
Ortho doc wearing street clothes in for casting? Mexico!
Robert was adamant about us staying with him until we figured things out and wouldn't take no for an answer. He brought us to his condo, a beautiful place in the tourist area of Cancun and set us up in one of his guest bedrooms overlooking the lagoon.
As promised, Marcos picked us up the following day to bring us to where our personal belongings were stored. Marcos asked for gas money to bring us there even though we already paid him for his lawyer fees (getting us out of the hospital and the bike released from police custody along with our belongings) but this wasn't a big deal as he was nice enough to take us there himself. He told us the distance was pretty far, otherwise it wouldn't have been a big deal. Pulling into the gas station Marcos didn't tell us how much he wanted for gas and so I pulled out a 500 peso (about 40 bucks) and he confirmed that was enough.
We arrived at a salvage yard/mechanic shop where our personal items were held along with the bike. While Marcos told us that the federal police had all of our items in a storage unit at the police station, they were actually sitting under an awning next to the bike at the salvage yard. This was the first time we were able to see what the bike looked like, and boy was it a sore sight. The police had called the bike a total loss at $5000 worth of damage, but we couldn't tell if it could be fixed or not. Looking at our stuff I immediately noticed that my jacket was missing, and both mine and Eric's gloves we not in plain sight either. We took some pictures and said goodbye to our bike as the police still hadn't released it, only our personal belongings, and pulled our items into the office. While we waited for Marcos to give our approval to go (apparently there were some issues between the federal police and the local police: the federal police approved our luggage to be released but the local did not) I rummaged through our Pelican cases and clothing bags to see if everything was accounted for. The pelican cases were only locked on one side so I shoved my through the unlocked side to feel around for our items. It turns out that someone else, or many other people, had already done the same thing as a few of our items we missing including our tablet, key board for the tablet, our Kindle, a whole bag of various cords and chargers for our computer, tablet, cameras, etc, our speaker for our mp3 player, and some other misc. items. This really set me over the top. I could deal with the accident, the 48 hours custody, the fact that the police still wouldn't release our bike, and Eric's broken leg, but when I saw our stuff was stolen by God only knows who, I lost it. This is where my anger really set in. Finally, our lawyer worked out a deal with the local police and we headed back home. Another angering surprise; Marcos decided to take the shortcut home this time and the "very long drive" he mentioned before which he needed gas money for turned into a 10-15 minute drive up the road back to Robert's place. Thanks, Marcos.
Saying Goodbye
Since we had our stuff back and we had no idea when the bike would be released anyway, we booked a flight out of Cancun the following morning. Thankfully, we were able to use our sky miles which helped the price of the last minute booking a bit. We stayed one last night in the generous hospitality of Robert, who was just as pissed off as we were with the series of unfortunate events including how much of a snake Marcos was turning out to be, and just tried to look forward to being home planning our next move. Robert took us out for a nice Italian meal at a local tourist restaurant and we paid in order to try but in no way be able to make up for the generosity he didn't have to bestow on us the last few days, though not before dropping by a local ER in order to saw Eric's cast open to prevent too much swelling on the flight the next day. We caught our flight at 8 something the next morning, and had a relatively painless adventure home considering Eric's current condition.
Eric could tell the ER doctor was a bit nervous sawing the cast open himself, so Eric took control of the situation.
Robert, of saving grace!
