San Cristobal the savior – tamer of hardware

September 20th, 2007

San Cristobal, you are a saint! Yes, yes, I know San Cristobal is a saint, but I’m talking about the amazing town of San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico where we came back after almost a month journey in the Yucatan Peninsula and entered a magical zone where not only souls find peace and are able to unwind and relax, but harddrives as well succumb to the tranquil energy, stop giving error massages, and liberate, from their deathly digital grip, photos of Bassiliscus Vittatus that we have already considered dead and buried.

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Shurik came into the common area of Tata Inti hostel, where I was chatting up some Brits, with a victorious sparkle in his eyes. He took the computer from my lap and plugged in the card reader. “You…?!” I almost fell off the couch, but Shurik raised his hand in the air calling for complete silence and we held our breath as one by one the lost photos from Reserva Pantanos de Centla appeared unharmed on the screen.

Half an hour later I was done telling everybody and anybody in the hostel, who wouldn’t mind hearing, how much I love my husband and the genius man that he is. I came back to Shurik and demanded an explanation. After all, just an hour ago we were talking about how it sucked to lose these pictures, but sending the memory-card drive for recovery would cost thousands of dollars and was simply not an option.

-”I hit it,” said Shurik calmly
-”You did what?!”
-”I plugged it in, and when it started clicking again I just hit it until it stopped.”

And so, without further ado, the return of Uxmal and Reserva Pantanos de Centla which without these great visual aids, (this is me stroking my camera hand), would be unjustly unappreciated as I was lost in grief, and lost for words, in the time of their untimely death and implausible resurrection.

Toloque (Bassiliscus Vittatus).
A relative of a Parasaurolophus or a Charonosaurus perhaps?

Masks of the god Chac-Mol

Tip: if you go to Uxmal, buy bug repellent by the gallon and swim in it before the visit. Why? Well let’s just say that when I expressed to Shurik how I would like to take a photo of one of the suckers that were feeding on us, he said in all seriousness: “No problem, I’ll just step on its foot.”