Making good on a promise.

If you have ever met my Dad you know what a cool guy he is. Well recently went on a pretty amazing adventure. See I my cousin Roman has MDS. A while back my Uncle (Roman's Dad) made a promise to a saint. He promised that if this saint allowed my cousin to live to be 19 years old he would make a pilgrimage to Mexico to Talpa and make the 100 mile journey on foot as a thank you. We call this a "manda". Well my Dad is Roman's god-father and now that my cousin is 20 years old it was time to make good on the promise he went with my uncle. They walked over 100 miles for days. Here is a recap from my Dad.




We started on Saturday March 10Th at 5:00 AM. stop for lunch at 11:00 AM and did not stop until we got to the town of Tonaya, man were my legs sore.A friend of Nicho's welcome us to stay at his Mom's house for the night. After some tortas and tequila, that was made in that town we went to sleep. At 3:00 AM we left the next morning with a horse that was lent to Nicho, there was five of us making the trip and a guide that drove the truck and kept ahead of us with our sleeping bags and other items that we were using on our trip.The second day was more of the same lots of mountains, creeks to cross, small towns to see and people walking to Talpa.We stop to sleep in the town of Los Pinuelos were a man let us stay in his horse stables, that night was very cold.The next morning we got up at 6:00 AM, late start, we started out by walking the horses up a very steep mountain that took us about one hour to get to the top of the mountain were we mounted the horses and rode through the most beautiful valley with rolling hills and pine trees.That night we camp out at Tierras Blancas, which is a mountain range in Jalisco.We left the camp site at 3:00 Am the next morning walking and riding the horses. The horse I was riding was all cut up from this hoofs and very exhausted and could not continue, we left him in the town of Ayutla, with a friend of Nichos. We switch off walking ever two hours now that we had one less horse. we arrived at Talpa that evening around 8:00 PM, found a place for the horses to stay, then we continue to the church where we gave thanks to the virgin of Talpa for taking care of us on the road and making it safely to Talpa. We got two rooms in town took our first shower since we left Ciudad Guzman, your tio and the guide and I went out for some beer then went back to the room for a rest and sleep well deserved. Next morning we went to church then to breakfast some shopping. That afternoon we got the horses and took them to the area were they were loaded onto a truck and taken home back to Ciudad Guzman. The horse that we left behind is doing fine and will be brought home on the 24th of this month. We all had a good time one of the best experiences of my life