We left Taxco and drove to the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa National Park—a bunch of really big caves. One of the largest cave systems in the world according to the literature. Every hour a guide takes a bunch of people for a stroll along a path through the caves that a full-size SUV could easily drive down the middle of. It was all in Spanish, so I missed some of it, but for the most part the tour consisted of him shining his flashlight at different spots and saying, “This is a turtle. This is Santa Claus. This is a bear.” And he wasn’t kidding, these stalactites and stalagmites did indeed look like these things. It was about as interesting as having someone tell you about the dream they had last night.

However, after drifting well to the back of the group, we were able to admire the cave for itself. And it really was incredible. For well over a mile we wandered through salon (room) after salon, most of which had ceiling over two-hundred feet high, and walls a hundred feet apart. It was huge—unlike any cave we’ve ever been in, and we’ve been to quite a few. I remember growing up and going on school field trips to a place called Crystal Caves—somehow those trips did not inspire the same awe. A place like this can make you realize that your entire life amounts to nothing more than a drop of water on the cave floor.

This little man conked out for the entire walk back out. By the time we reached the entrance of the hot and humid cave we were both soaked all the way through with sweat.

We spent another night in Cuernavaca and drove out early the next morning for Tepoztlán, a small town nearby which is famous for the ruins of a temple way up the mountain it sits at the base of. We loaded up a bag with about fifty pounds of kid snacks and water and hit the trail. It wasn’t an easy hike—it was basically straight up for two kilometers, but was a stone path the whole way which made things considerably easier.

At the top we dutifully climbed all over the temple and then fought off the coatis—the animals similar to raccoons who have made this place their home and who have learned to sneak around and snatch anything that a tourist isn’t paying attention to.

About halfway down again Ouest realized that she had forgotten to take a picture with her camera. She cried and cried over this. Three quarters of the way down, and an hour climb from the top she was still sniffling.