I Bought A Donkey On Spring Break In Mexico

“Two Tickets to Guadalajara, please.” I placed thirty-two American dollars on the ticket counter and took a deep breath. “Wow. Are we really doing this?”

My friend shifted her backpack on her shoulder and grabbed the tickets off the counter. “Why the hell not?” Carrie shrugged.

It was Spring Break in Texas after all, and we weren’t the kind of girls to follow the crowds. Instead of caravanning to Port Aransas or Galveston like everyone else we knew, we decided to choose our own adventure and take a train through the interior of Mexico. Maybe hit the beaches in Puerto Vallarta — if we made it that far.

We stood on the platform with a handful of other people waiting to board. Ten nuns got seated first. Some guy with a caged chicken went next. A drifter in flip flops made of tire rubber and rope climbed aboard. Then it was our turn. I picked two seats in the back, away from everyone else, and spread out. It was supposed to be a day’s worth of travel with a couple of stops along the way.

The Mexican border is a two-hour drive from my hometown. We didn’t actually speak the language, but we knew enough Spanish to order our favorite foods and find the bano. Despite reports of narco murders, we’d often paid our fifty cents to cross the border to go shopping in the markets in Nuevo Laredo and drink margaritas at the famous Cadillac Bar. Naively, we’d never felt even a little unsafe, which is why we must have thought it would be no big deal for two twenty-something girls to travel alone through the interior of Mexico.

My friend and travel companion was a care-free spirit who had dropped out of high school her sophomore year. Even though she was barely five feet tall and weighed around a hundred pounds in her shoes, she wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. She worked at the same diner I did. When she wasn’t working, Carrie spent her free time lost in fantasy fiction novels and daydreaming about traveling the world. And drinking.

Carrie and I were exact opposites. She lived her life without a plan, but I always had every detail buttoned down. She didn’t sweat the little things (or the big things), but I did. I’d saved up a little over five hundred dollars for our Spring Break misadventure and planned the vacation out to the minute. I’m not exactly sure how much money Carrie had on her, and I felt certain all she'd put in her travel pack was a bikini and some weed.

We were half-way into our trip when the train’s engine started having trouble. It was still moving forward but at a snail’s pace. To pass the time, the nuns had started singing hymns an hour into the ride, and they hadn’t stopped. It was charming — at first. Carrie comically joined them for a couple of songs, even though she didn’t know Spanish and she couldn't hold a tune. The air conditioning never kicked on, so it was hot as hell in our train car. Carrie had given me grief about packing so much food, but now she was eying my stash of stale bagels.

The trip wasn’t off to a great start. I spent most of my time watching cactus go by from the back of the train car where it was cooler, while Carrie smoked the cigarettes she bummed off the drifter and drank out of a bottle she had stashed in her bag.

Two days later, at nightfall, we arrived in Guadalajara. The city is home to five million people and spread out in all directions for miles - just a sea of white and blue lights as far as you could see. I don’t know if it was the boredom of the train ride or the excitement of being in such a huge city, but I felt energized and ready to have a little fun.

We booked a room in a rundown hotel near the train depot and dropped our bags on the bed. Carrie and I wandered the streets until we found a nightspot that looked interesting to us. We passed an old man in a sombrero sitting by the door with a donkey on a leash on our way in. I gave the donkey’s head a pat and tossed a “see ya fella” his way, and followed the music inside.

This wasn’t some tourist spot. It was where the locals came to party. We stuck out immediately, mostly because we were young American white girls but also because we looked lost. Carrie quickly ordered us two tequila shots and we tried to blend in.

Before long, we found some dance partners. And more tequila. And more dancing. Then someone invited us to dance on top of the bar. Carrie didn’t really need an invitation and hoped right up, but I took some begging. Once I finally agreed, it felt amazing to be that carefree. If you've never danced on top of a bar, you should try it. It's pretty damn fun. They even played the “Macarena” for us - the whole place dancing right along with me and Carrie.

The old Mexican man that had been sitting by the front door wandered in with his donkey and ordered a beer. Maybe it was the tequila talking or just a desire to shed twenty years of introverted living, but I jumped down from my dancing spot and offered him ten dollars for a ride around the bar on his donkey.

And just like that, I was astride the animal and taking it for a spin around the bar. Together, we bumped into tables and knocked over drinks. The patrons must have been used to these kinds of shenanigans because they didn’t seem bothered at all. In fact, they were enjoying it. For another ten bucks, I bought the sombrero right off the old man’s head. He seemed to think it was hilarious and laughed at me through missing teeth.

That’s when I fell off the donkey.

My memory is super spotty after that. I woke up the next day with a huge hangover. But not Carrie. True to form, she was perfectly fine. There she was sitting on the edge of the bed in her bikini and cut-off jean shorts, wearing a beat-up sombrero.

She handed me a couple of aspirin and said, “Shake it off, sister. We’re going to miss our bus.”

Looking like hell, I managed to make it down to the street with all my stuff. We'd just turned the corner when we heard shouts from the hotel clerk running up behind us with a donkey trotting behind him.

“Senora! Senora! Your burro!” he said, handing me the leash.

"What?" And then a fuzzy memory rose to the surface - me asking that old man if I could buy his donkey. “Will $500 bucks do it? Do you take traveler’s checks?” Then we shook on it.

I owned a donkey!

Carrie just laughed, and without missing a beat, she climbed up on our new pet and asked for directions to the nearest Western Union office.

We made it down to Puerto Vallarta that trip and had a blast thanks to a relative's timely wire transfer. We traded Bruno The Donkey for a couple of brand-new ponchos on our way out of town. It was a wild trip, and I’m glad we didn’t get murdered, but I probably wouldn’t do it again.

But when I think of those two stupid young girls, without a care in the world, riding that donkey down the streets of Guadalajara so long ago, I really can’t help but smile.