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no one said it would be easy

We finally left our little patch of paradise and our nueva familia with a little sadness, but I was pretty excited as the looming rendezvous at the Central Post Office on 15th January was something I had been hanging out for … with all the expectations of the besotted. So we moved back to the barren camp in Mexico City, dropping the carburettor needles a notch to lean the engines off a little so as to run a bit better at altitude.

It was a shattering disappointment to find no welcoming arms on the 15th , nor any mail. A few days later I write home recording ‘We haven’t found Anne and don’t know where Steph is or when she is coming. Learnt yesterday that she’s in Saudi Arabia … so she’s on the way, but we have no address for her. Mo has gone to Canada for three weeks so we can’t ring her to find out. Isn’t life complicated?’ Meanwhile, we had been struck down by our first bout of ‘Montezuma's revenge'. Lawrie had both ends going … the full-Monty, so to speak, whilst I was spared the vomiting. Roly seems unscathed and a little bemused by it all. In the camp, we've been doing a lot of communal cooking with other campers and we'll take liberties and blame some Aussies for our temporary demise. We've been pretty productive and got the requisite jabs for the areas we are heading, and also procured malaria pills. We've decided to head off to the Gulf of Mexico to find a beach to lie about on, while we wait for news of Steph.

Meanwhile, an ocean or two away Steph has got her visa and made it to Saudi Arabia. In a letter to my parents on the 14th Jan, she pours her heart out –

‘Tomorrow is Jan 15, the day I was originally due to meet Des in Mexico City but I am just hoping he has received at least some of my mail saying it would now be the 30th. In his letter which I got just before Xmas, he said not to worry about getting there by then as he did not think that he would manage it. I had letters yesterday from my Annabel and from Mo. The latter had received one from Lawrie (dated Dec 22nd) and they were in New Orleans awaiting the arrival of the two Panthers. Bessie had already got there and they were well. Naturally I am panicking a trifle in case Des has not received any of my mail and gives me up as a bad job or else breaks his neck and everybody else's trying to reach Mexico City by 15th and I cannot imagine the Bionic Woman (alias Ann Betts) wanting to wait two weeks for a short fat girl she does not know – and probably does not want to know. So I worry myself to sleep each night wondering if they are all right as it is so horrible not knowing. However, I have great faith in Desmond Joseph and although it gets shaken from time to time, I know he will