Mexico Stories: Cuernavaca: Baffling and Beautiful, part 1

It’s hard to write about Cuernavaca. It feels like writing about someone you know is a nice person but who seems to be a bit down on their luck. You want to write about their brilliance and inner spark but you keep noticing that their shoes are untied and it’s been awhile since they combed their hair.

Cuernavaca, the city of eternal spring, was to be my home for two weeks while I immersed myself in a Spanish language course focused on women’s issues in Mexico. With some trepidation, I had even signed up to do a home-stay with a Mexican family. My introvert self was nervous about constantly being in the midst of people.

As often happens when we travel, little turned out the way I expected. Pesky expectations.

Arrival: the hopeful-but-uncertain stage

My instructions were to find the bus station to Cuernavaca in the Mexico City airport. It sounded easy enough, so I collected my bags after the short flight from Guadalajara and set out. There were glimpses of signs, however after walking for a while, I began to doubt my progress and found a friendly face to ask. I had carefully crafted the words in my mind and was pointed up a flight of stairs, where there was another glimpse that I might be heading in the right direction.

I’ve passed the "complete absence of Spanish” stage and arrived in the “wandering in the weeds” stage. I can ask a few questions and, sometimes, understand the answers when accompanied by sufficient hand gestures. This tends to leave me in a hopeful-but-uncertain state most of the time while I’m traveling.

After several short hops between questioning friendly strangers, I did indeed wind up in a queue which pointed toward Queretaro although the woman who seemed to be in charge said it was the Cuernavaca line. Everyone else in the line seemed to think they were going to Cuernavaca, so I waited, and we did wind up on a bus and it did arrive in Cuernavaca. One is never quite certain.

From the Cuernavaca bus station a taxi proceeded to wind through streets that made me wonder about this whole enterprise. Not exactly ugly, but not as beautiful as my mental images. Finally, we stopped on a busy street, in front of a broken gate, in an anything-but-residential-looking area. Uneasiness grew.

Neither the taxi driver nor I were quite certain this was the right place. But, I got out and he drove away while I knocked on two doors, not knowing which was the right one, and waited. Finally, a woman answered one of the doors and, with a smile, invited me in. Hesitantly, I entered a garage and followed her around a corner into … paradise. Remember in the Wizard of Oz when the movie shifts from black-and-white to Technicolor? Exactly!

Paradise found

My home-stay paradise

My body was like a tightly inflated balloon that suddenly released all the tension I didn’t even know I was holding. Whatever else happened, I was safe in this beautiful garden with my own apartment looking out over a pool and surrounded by big trees.

In the days that followed, I would discover many things … about Cuernavaca … about my adopted family … about myself.

Here are more pictures of the art-and-kindness filled paradise of the family abode they call La Morada: