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It was our fourth day in Mexico, and we had decided to explore what the map described as a graded dirt road that appeared to head east along the coast from San Jose Del Cabo, at the foot of the Baja. There were no roadsigns, so we had to hunt around a little, but soon found a road that seemed to head in the right direction, and we were on our way.
But the road soon became pretty rough, full of holes and riddled with washboard, and after quite a few miles of shaking and shuddering and bouncing along, we didn't seem to be getting anyway near the coast. Below is a shot of the road snaking away through the cactus, seen through the windshield of the jeep.
The going was slow, and we weren't even sure we were on the right road, so I felt obligated to at least raise the possibility that we might be in over our heads, and should consider turning back. After all, we were not prepared for a lengthy sojourn in the "Death Valley" heat of the Baja desert. We only had a small amount of water with us. But the kids were in full adventure mode, so my trepidations were overruled, and we carried on. A few miles further, we were glad we did, because the road finally emerged from the desert, and there was the Baja coastline, virtually deserted and untouched, stretching off into the distance. It was, to put it mildly, quite a sight. Below is our trusty chauffeur, son Adam, beside the Mexican Skies rental jeep.
Immediately all three of us knew we had stumbled upon one of those most extraordinary places on our planet, and there was no more talk of turning back. We weren't sure exactly where we were going, but we were in the grip of the Baja, mesmerized by its power and its beauty. Mile after mile went by, and it just kept getting better and better. Words like awesome, and overwhelming, only touch the surface. In a way it reminded me of the wilds of B.C., the endless majesty of mother nature, as far as the eye can see. Only this was the wilds of the Baja, with forests of cactus, instead of pine trees.
But as amazing as it all was, my paternal instincts eventually clawed their way through to the surface of my psyche, and I found myself calculating when our point of no return would arrive. The latest time we could safely turn around. It was coming up fast, as our water was running out, and the merciless Baja Sun relentlessly beat down upon us. If only we could find a restaurant, or at least a place with some shade, and maybe some cold cervezas! But that was like hoping for a miracle. We were far away from any electricity, or phones, and aside from coming across the occasional unfriendly looking walled compound, there was virtually no sign of life. Then we met Geoff.
He was hitchhiking, in the middle of nowhere. When we picked him up he said his truck was broken down, and he needed to get to work at a restaurant ten minutes down the road.
A restaurant? Way out here? Really?
You bet, Dude. Even has satellite internet. Run by a cool lady from the States.
Does she have cold beer?
Sure. Good food, too.
Geoff, pictured below, was quite a free spirit, and more than generous with his supplies, his knowledge of local lore, and his opinions of George W. Bush.
And sure enough after about ten minutes, we came across a humble little sign we might not have even noticed if not for Geoff, and we turned in the driveway of the Crossroads Country Club, one of the hidden treasures of the Baja. Proprietress Joan Hafenecker was a charming lady, making us feel right at home, and before we knew it we were sitting down with three ice cold Pacificos in front of us. Her modest palapa, pictured below, sits on a small rise, overlooking the ocean, with sweeping vistas of the surf rolling in over miles of white sand beaches on either side. A surfer's paradise.
And the food was some of the best food I had eaten in Mexico, at some of the best prices. It was so good and affordable we ordered seconds. Turns out Joan's place is more than just a restaurant and bar for hungry and thirsty adventurers. It's a meeting place, a home away from home for the scattered residents, Mexican and gringo, who live (on and off) in the area. Along with satellite internet service, there is a book exchange - a little library, so to speak, out in the wilds of the Baja.
The Grateful Dead were playing in the background, the view was outrageous, the breeze was soft and cool, the company was outstanding, and the beer was ice cold. The three of us agreed there was only one word that properly described it, and that word was perfect.
Oh, I suppose it's not for everyone. If you're looking for air conditioning, carpeting, American cuisine, Lawrence Welk, and pictures of Ronald Reagan on the wall, then it might not be for you. But for three vagabonds from the Great White North, it couldn't have been more perfect. We spent most of the afternoon there, soaking up the ambience and the beer, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves, as you can see in the photo below of your humble author and daughter Melissa.
Eventually we forced ourselves to leave this wonderful establishment, and headed a couple of miles down the road where we enjoyed some of the best body surfing waves I've ever seen. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. And yes, we managed to make it back once more two days later. And that day seemed to be even more perfect than the first. The extremely talented Jeremy was good enough to play us some tunes on his guitar, and we got to know the very lovely and delightful Summer, pictured below. The next day we were on a plane heading home to Canada, just like that. But you can rest assured we'll be back.
There are rare, elusive moments/places in the time/space continuum that are full of magic, and soul. The Crossroads Country Club is such a place.
And you'll notice that although I've given you more than enough clues, I have not actually told you its exact location.
Think of it as a treasure hunt. If you are meant to find it, you will.
The Spanish language is a beautiful thing. An old compadre, Nacho, once described it as muy fluencia (very flowing). It has a natural, musical flow to it that makes it easy to listen to, and easy to learn. The kids had learned some while backpacking in Spain, and I'd picked up some on previous trips to Mexico, so between us we knew a few dozen words and phrases that allowed us to get by pretty well. It was an ongoing process, of course. Our dictionary was never far away, and our vocabulary was growing fast. We were throwing out the hola's right left and centre, ordering beer like there was no tomorrow, and we could ask where the bathroom was standing on our heads.
So, in true primate fashion, we were feeling pretty cocky about our communication skills when we rolled into Todo Santos on Thursday morning. We were hungry and thirsty, and if you can believe it - actually cold - from the breezy early morning drive up the misty pacific coast highway in the open jeep. So we pulled into the warm, friendly confines of restaurant/bar Las Fuentes (the fountains), pictured below.
We sat down at a table outside where the sun could warm us up, and when the waitress came over we took menus and ordered cafe just like we knew what we were doing. Buenos dias, por favor, gracias... it was all rolling off our tongues like we'd been saying it all our lives. When the waitress came back, we rattled off our orders like experts. Our waitress - a very lovely, friendly lady who knew no English - copied our orders down, understanding us perfectly, saying Si, si... and nodding her head as she wrote. And then she looked at us and rattled off a question, and none of us had any idea what she said.
Mande? (pardon?)
Again the question, seemingly babbled at supersonic speed, this time with a short list recited at the end, but I didn't recognise one word. The kids and I looked at each other like idiots, and she repeated the question one more time.
"Did she say gomez at the end there?"
"Yeah, it sounded like gomez."
So I looked up at her and asked, "gomez?"
Now it was her turn to look confused, poor lady, and she repeated, "gomez?" But when all I could do was offer her a blank look and a meek no entiendo (I don't understand), she waved her hand as if to signify that it wasn't important anyway, and walked off to place our orders.
And that's where we should have left it, and everything would have been fine. We should have filed it away as just another one of life's little mysteries, and moved on. But oh no, not us. We had to know. We looked up gomez in the dictionary, but there was nothing even close. We discussed, we conjectured, we made wild guesses. Every time the conversation drifted into more rational waters, one of us would invariably say something like, "Do you think she was asking us to vote for someone named Gomez?" It was slowly but surely driving us insane.
When our ever gracious waitress came with our food, we tortured her by giving her the dictionary, and trying to get her to show us gomez. She leafed through a few pages, with no idea what we wanted from her, a look of complete panic on her face. Finally, looking like she was about to burst into tears, she fled the table, making motions like she was going to get someone. Now we'd done it, we thought, she's going for the police.
A few moments later, a man walked up with a concerned look and said in perfect English, "Excuse me, I'm the owner. Is everything all right?" We assured him everything was excellent, the food, service, everything... we were just curious what gomez meant. We thought the waitress had asked us something about gomez, and we didn't know what it meant.
"Gomez?" he said. "Gomez doesn't mean anything. Gomez is a person's name. Let me go talk to your waitress again."
When he came back he was laughing. "She was just asking you what more you wanted. She wasn't saying gomez, she was saying que mas? - what more?"
Now we were all laughing. We couldn't believe it. Que mas! Of course! It made perfect sense. How could we have missed it? Were we deranged? Or was this yet more evidence for the controversial multiple universes theory of reality?
When the waitress came to clear the table we apologized profusely, calling ourselves stupido gringos which made her laugh and say, No, no... but after what we put the poor woman through, we felt it only fitting to leave her an obscenely large tip.
Humans are so limited. We can travel through space, but not very far. We can move around our puny little planet, and just barely dip our toes into the shallows at the very edge of the immense depths of the Universe. A couple of dozen brave souls have managed to venture as far as the Moon, about 200,000 miles, but that's the best we've been able to do so far. Of course, like tiny fleas on the back of a dog, we are carried along by our Mother Earth millions of miles through space, but 99.9 % of us are completely unaware of this. Only a handful of astronomers who measure such things have any real perception of the grand trek we are taking through the vastness of the cosmos.
But when it comes to traveling through time, we are even more limited. Our primitive perception is of a one-way trip at a constant speed over which we have no control. We go doggedly forward, whether we like it or not. There just doesn't seem to be any way to go back - but that certainly doesn't stop us from trying.
These are my thoughts as I sit on a beach in Mexico, occupying the exact same position in space that I did 30 years ago, but nowhere near the same position in time. I knew I couldn't go back, but I tried anyway.
And perhaps I succeeded more than I think. Thirty years ago I spent three months in the Garden of Eden, otherwise known as the tiny fishing village of Puerto Escondido. The village surrounded a small bay where a dozen or so 12 foot long fishing boats anchored. Beyond the bay stretched three miles of truly virgin white sand beach. No people, no cigarette butts, no houses, no lights, no footprints except your own, and only the sound of birds, and the muted thunder of mighty rollers crashing on the shore after their long journey from the heart of the Pacific Ocean.
At the far end of that deserted beach was a point of rocks that jutted out into the ocean. Nestled in the corner by the rocks was a small grove of mango trees, and it was there I hung my hammock, and did my yoga, and read, and wrote, and contemplated such trivialities as the meaning of life, and how to extract a sea urchin spine from the bottom of my big toe.
One day I spotted something in the distance coming down the beach in my direction. To my amazement, it turned out to be a little Volkswagon Bug - miles from any road - racing along the hardpacked sand at the water's edge, with a couple of surfboards strapped to the roof. And for the next few days I was a shark spotter. A family of three hammerheads would visit two or three times a day, and when I saw their huge dorsal fins slicing through the water I would signal the surfers to head for shore. I never enjoyed a job so much. Watching those wave-masters flirting with the power of those giant waves was a huge thrill for me, and I remember thinking how much I would like to learn to do that someday. But alas, the necessities of life took me in other directions.
Now, thirty years later, Puerto Escondido is a city. A bustling metropolis that extends for miles in all directions, and has become world reknown for some of the best surfing on the planet. The grove of trees where I hung my hammock is gone. There are half a dozen houses there now. The beach is full of footprints and other marks of Man, and small thatched roof restaurants and low-rise hotels line almost half the beach.
Yes, I moved quite a distance through space to get here all the way from The Great White North, but unfortunately I wasn't able to move back through time.
Or was I? The sunsets are certainly just as breathtaking as they were 30 years ago. The papaya liquados are just as smooth and delicious. And sometimes, as I sit in the shade and watch those big Pacific rollers smashing themselves on the beach, and the scent of the tropical breeze fills my nose, I suddenly find myself experiencing hauntingly familiar sensations, and by God, if I close my eyes, I do seem to be momentarily transported 30 years back in time.
And maybe that's what it's all about. Since our personal reality is nothing more than our personal perceptions, and since perceptions are nothing more than sensations and thoughts... maybe I have travelled back in time after all, at least a little bit.
And oh yes, tomorrow morning at 9:00 - at the ripe old age of 53 - I go out for my first surfing lesson. Wish me luck.
The day of my first surfing lesson I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. My lifelong dream of learning to surf was finally going to come true. I arrived at the surf shop at 9:00 AM full of puppydog excitement, only to be crushed by the sight of the instructor, Dave, shaking his head and saying, "Sorry, Dude, I can't take you out today."
It turned out the big sets had started rolling in just that morning, and although the pros were stoked, and eagerly waxing up their boards, it was no place for a beginner. So I had to resign myself to the role of observer for the next few days, and that was okay. I've always enjoyed watching good surfers do their stuff. And as the days passed, and I watched these young athletic kids getting beat up by those huge waves, and have several tons of water crash down on top of them, I started to think maybe it was all for the better. What was I thinking, anyway? I'm too old and brittle to take that kind of punishment. Maybe next lifetime, I'll start a little younger. In the meantime... I'll just have to be satisfied with watching. Life could be a lot worse.
And I became good friends with the instructor, Dave. He was a fellow Canadian, from Toronto, but he had grown up in Barbados and been surfing all his life. On my second to last day here, when I stopped at his shop to say Hi, he had a big grin on his face, and he said, "I don't know why, Dude, but for some reason the big sets are holding off today. If you're still into it, we could go out right now." Well, he didn't have to tell me twice. In about half a second all my geezer caution was thrown to the wind, and I was on the beach with a nine and a half foot beginner surf board under my arm.
The first 20 minutes of the lesson was on dry land, going over safety issues and learning the basic theory of it all. Then he lays down on his stomach on the sand, and says as soon as you feel the wave grab you, get up on your feet like this - and in about a billionth of a second he had leaped to his feet, into a perfect surfing crouch, feet shoulder width apart, parallel to each other and sideways to the board. Then he said, "You try it."
So I lay down on my stomach, got my hands in the pushing position, he counted to three and said, "Now!" and I leaped to my feet about as quickly and smoothly as a... well let's just say there was nothing quick or smooth about it. And of course I immediately fell over. I suddenly began to feel very much like a geezer again. But good old Dave was very patient and encouraging, and after about a dozen tries, I was starting to definitely become ever so slightly less clumsy and goofy about the whole thing, and it was time to get into the water.
On the first lesson, you don't try to catch a real wave, so you don't have to worry about the wave crashing down on you. You wait for the wave to break, and you try to catch the bubbling foamy secondary wave in the shallower water closer to shore. Standing in about chest deep water, Dave would have me crawl up onto the board, get me all lined up, and tell me when to start paddelling. I would feel the wave pick up the back of the board, Dave would shout, "Now!" and I would try and struggle to my feet, but before I could even get one foot underneath me, I would just slide off the board into the water. I never felt so awkward and old in my life. But I was nothing if not determined, and Dave was extremely helpful and encouraging, so I kept trying.
After about a dozen of these pathetic efforts, it finally happened. I actually somehow got my feet underneath me - still bent over and hanging onto the sides of the board with my hands - and the wave kept going, and the board kept going, so I let go with one hand, and then the other, and slowly but surely I struggled up into the crouch, and I was standing. I was SURFING! It only lasted about two seconds, but let me tell you, those were two of the most satisfying and exciting seconds of my life.
We kept at it for about an hour, and I managed to make it to my feet three or four more times, until my arms became so weak there was just no way I could push myself up anymore. That was the biggest surprise of the whole thing to me. I had no idea how much upper body strength it takes to try and instantly push yourself up from a prone position, especially on a wiggly wobbly surf board. I thought I was in pretty good shape, but I was definitely humbled. After the session, I could barely lift my arm high enough to shake Dave's hand.
But I had done it. I had surfed! I had actually really surfed! After thinking about it and dreaming about it for so many years, I had finally done it. I may never do it again - although I hope I do - but just doing it once was unspeakably thrilling. And as we were walking back to the shop, Dave says, "Not only did you surf, Dude, you surfed Zicatela, the Mexican Pipeline. Every place has its pipeline. In Hawaii it's the north shore of Oahu..." and then he rattled off the names of a few more places, "and in Mexico, this is it right here, Zicatela, and you surfed it, Dude!"
He also said that I knew enough now to rent (or buy) a board and find a mellow place, and go and practice by myself, and slowly but surely get better, and then try to turn sideways to the wave, and then move out of the white water into the real waves. Now wouldn't that be something! It makes a guy feel like getting down and doing some pushups right now, and get those arm muscles buffed up a bit. And oh yes, the big monster sets were back the very next day. So for some reason it seems the gods had smiled upon me, and given me my one day. Now isn't that something? Sort of makes one very humble, and very grateful.
On July 4, Pedro, the official Cariboo Skies surf buggy (an '86 Nissan four wheel drive pickup with canopy), and Yours Truly started heading south. Two thousand, five hundred miles later the two of us arrived at our destination deep in the south of Mexico - a little village called Santa Elena, 25 minutes south of the Mexican Pipeline at Puerto Escondido, which is about 250 miles south of Acapulco.
The trip ended well, but was not without incident. Having previously explored the west coast of the U.S. in the distant past, I decided to see what the interior route was like, and planned a path through eastern Washington, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. Eastern Washington was beautiful, and so was northern Idaho. But by the time I hit Boise, the temperature was over 100 degrees. Just my luck to be driving a non air-conditioned truck during a heat wave. Up in the high desert of Nevada, things got worse. Local radio stations were reporting temperatures of 116 degrees, and telling people not to go outdoors. I had a cooler full of ice water on the floor beside me, and every few minutes would pour some over my head as I was driving... and I still got a bad case of heat stroke. I felt terrible, but figured if I could just make it to Vegas, I would pull into the first motel I saw and jump into their pool, and just stay there until I felt better. I was sure there must be a million motels on the outskirts of Vegas, and they would all, naturally, have pools. Well, believe it or not, I did not see one motel (with or without a pool), and before I knew it, I was in downtown Las Vegas, stuck in bumber to bumber gridlock traffic, and the temperature was 120 degrees in the shade.
I felt like I was in Dante's Inferno. I was almost out of ice water and felt like I was on the verge of losing consciousness. I just wanted to get the hell away from there, and followed any sign that pointed south. If I was able to find my way out of town there was sure to be some motels, and I would finally be able to jump in a pool. Finally, after miles and miles and miles of freeways, overpasses, underpasses, on-ramps and off-ramps, there it was! A motel! I pull in, stagger into the lobby, and asked where the pool was, only to be told their pool was closed for maintenance, and no, they didn't know of any other pools nearby. I couldn't believe it! But at least they were able to replenish my supply of ice.
I was all the way into Arizona before I found a motel with a pool, on one of the last remaining original pieces of the famous route 66, not that I was in any shape to enjoy the historical perspective of the moment. The next day was just as bad. The air was so hot I couldn't keep my driver's side window open, because it was like a blast furnace blowing right in my face. What an ordeal! Finally I reach the Mexico border at Nogales, and as soon as I crossed into Mexico, the temperature seemed to drop 20 degrees. Don't ask me why. Maybe there is a God, after all, and He lives in Mexico.
A couple of hours into Mexico, and it was starting to get dark. I was exhausted, and found a wide pull-out area beside the road, and climbed into the back of the truck to try and get some sleep. No sooner had I closed the back of the canopy then the most horrendous thunder and lightning storm I've ever seen descended on me. The rain pounding on the roof of the truck was so intense it was almost louder than the thunder, which literally shook the ground. The wind was so strong I could feel it lifting the truck, and a couple of times it felt like it was going to blow the truck right over. There were lightning strikes that cracked so close and so loud they deafened me for seconds afterward, and I was glad to be in a truck with rubber tires. It was, in a word, terrifying. But I was so completely spent from the heat of the last two days, that even right in the middle of all the deafening noise and mayhem, I somehow managed to start to fall asleep.
Then, just as I felt the comforting arms of slumber embracing me, something, or somebody hit the side of the truck - hard - right beside my head! I immediately sat up, and saw a pair of bright headlights shining in the windows, and the shadow of a man walk past the side of the canopy. Without even thinking, I shouted "Hey!" in my most manly and intimidating voice, and popped open the back of the canopy. And standing there, with the rain pouring down on him, the wind howling and the thunder and lightning crashing all around him, was the biggest, nastiest Mexican I have ever seen. And in his hands was one of the biggest, nastiest shotguns I had ever seen! It wasn't pointed directly at me, it was angled slightly towards the ground, but I swear his finger was on the trigger, and he looked ready to use it at a moment's notice. We stared at each other for a second, and out of the corners of my eyes I could see the forms of three or four others moving around the truck in the darkness. Then he screamed something in Spanish that sounded a lot like "What the hell are you doing here?" There was no sign of any uniforms or badges. Squinting in the glare of the headlights and trying not to look at the shotgun, I blurted out that I was just sleeping. He moved forward, poked his head inside the canopy, glanced around for a couple of seconds and then he smiled at me, and in perfect English, said, "Okay, my friend, no problem." Then he and his cohorts piled back into their vehicle and sped off as if they were being chased by the hounds of hell. Or perhaps they were the hounds of hell. Needless to say, I didn't get much more sleep that night, and as soon as it was light enough to see, I got away from there as quickly as possible.
Two days and many miles later, I woke up in the back of my truck on a bright sunny morning way up in the mountains looking down at the ocean hundreds of feet below. I was hungry, and determined to stop at the first decent looking place and eat a huge breakfast. But I was out in the middle of nowhere, and there were no restaurants in sight. Still, it was incredibly beautiful, winding my way through the mountains looking down on the surf way below. I was groovin' to the tunes, and really starting to enjoy myself - when my transmission blew up. It happened just as I was passing through a little hillside village, population maybe a couple of hundred souls, and not one of them spoke a word of English.
But that's when the spirit of the Mexican people really shone through. Everybody in the village tried to help me. I finally ended up getting into the only vehicle in town, an ancient pickup that just barely ran. No seatbelts, and the doors were held closed with rope. A very nice man named Pedro drove me about twenty minutes to a slightly larger mountain village where there was a mechanic. He couldn't help me, but managed to phone a tow truck driver from still another little place, and we drove back to my broken vehicle to wait for the tow. On the way Pedro pulled a tattered business card out of his pocket that said he was a Mariachi player. So while we waited for the tow truck to show up (about two hours) we took turns playing each other songs on my guitar.
It seemed half the village was keeping me company by the side of the road, not wanting to leave until they knew I was safely on my way. It had been a long morning without food, and Pedro invited me back to his place for a meal. But I didn't want to chance missing the tow truck, so I was forced to politely decline. The next thing I knew this little girl about five years old shows up carefully balancing a bowl of soup on top of a stack of tortillas, just for me. She was very cute, and I was touched and grateful. I gave Pedro a few hundred pesos ($40) for his gas, time, and kindness, and handed out some cervesas from my cooler (which were a big hit) and finally the tow truck arrived.
It was the biggest, loudest, scariest tow truck I had ever seen, and the wild drive along that narrow mountain road had both me and my truck hanging on for dear life. After an hour or so we made it to a big town called Lazaro, where a very busy mechanic working on about six other cars dropped everything to help me after I told him I was a musician who was supposed to play a concert in Puerto Escondido in three days. I figured a little white fib was in order, or I could have been waiting forever. As it turned out, two days later I had a completely rebuilt transmission for $250, a hell of a lot less than it would cost back in the U.S. or Canada. Even the tow only cost $70, and it was a very long way. And I got to spend two relaxing days in a high class hotel with bellboys and everything, including wireless internet for $48 a night. So what could have been a disaster, turned into a great Mexican adventure.
It took me nine days and two transmissions, but I finally made it to my destination. And the property I had scouted out last year as a potential new home for the Cariboo Skies Observatory was even more perfect than I remembered. Out in the country where the skies are dark, and a man can study the stars all night long without freezing the brass off his monkey. And when work is over, it's surf time. The following photo is NOT me, on the beach right in front of the new observatory site.
When you buy property in the sub-tropical part of Mexico, you're going to have some jungle to deal with. But no problem, I brought my chain saw with me and all my work clothes. I've cleared land before. I know what I'm doing. Of course, this is a little different. This is jungle. Nevertheless, I was prepared to take it on. I even bought a machete for chopping down the smaller stuff.
Then the suggestion came up that I should hire some Mexicans to do the clearing for me. They're experts at jungle clearing, I was told. They know how to look out for snakes, and wasp nests, and other nasty things, and they only charge 150 pesos ($15) an hour. It was further suggested that you'd have to be nuts to try and do it yourself. So, only being half nuts, (as well as on a tight budget), I decided to go ahead and hire some Mexicans, but also work alongside them with my chainsaw.
The next morning at 8:00 am, four Mexicans show up armed with freshly sharpened machetes, a big jug of water and bag of tortillas, and wearing only short sleeved cotton shirts, light calf length pants, no gloves, and only sandles on their bare feet. I, on the other hand, was armed with a big, noisy chainsaw, and was dressed in a heavy long sleeved work shirt, jeans, thick leather gloves, and big heavy work boots. After all, this was the jungle - full of biting, stinging insects, big nasty thorns and spines all over the place, huge ugly spiders, and of course, snakes. And I hate snakes more than anything in the world. I was assured snakes were rare in the area, but they were occasionally there, and at least one species was venomous. So I wasn't taking any chances.
The Mexicans start hacking away with their machetes, and I fire up the chainsaw, and we attack the jungle. Before long I noticed the Mexicans were making good headway, despite their limited protective clothing and weaponry. I was struggling, and beginning to wonder if a chainsaw was the best tool for this particular job. And as the sun rose higher in the sky, I quickly became extremely hot inside all those clothes I was wearing. After half an hour I was wheezing and puffing, and sweating profusely. After an hour I was completely soaked with my own sweat. My clothes were so wet they stuck to my skin and made it hard to move. I could only work for a couple of minutes before I had to stop, guzzle some water, and towel off the sweat pouring into my eyes.
By 9:30 I was finished. I was so exhausted I thought I might faint. I really wanted to show these Mexicans that I could work right alongside them, but in the end I had to admit defeat. They didn't look even the slightest bit fatigued, and when I told them we were "finito" for the day, they looked at me with bewilderment. I tried to explain, "muy, muy color!" (very very hot!) They tried to tell me that I could go, and they'd be quite happy to continue working by themselves. I thought sure, as soon as I'm out of sight, they'll all sit down for a siesta on my money. So I sent them all home, saying we'll try to work a little longer tomorrow, and they left shaking their heads, and muttering about crazy old gringos.
A little while later I saw Aseidro (a-SEE-droe), Bill's Mexican handyman, and he asked me where my workers were. When I told him I had sent them home because it was too hot, he looked amazed, and he too, walked away shaking his head. I was beginning to feel I had done something wrong, but I wasn't about to pay four guys $15 an hour to work unsupervised. It could end up costing me a fortune. So what if we only work a few hours at a time! What was the big deal?
Then Bill comes by and asks how the boys were doing, and when I said I sent them home, he said, "Why the hell did you do that?" Slightly offended at his tone, I said, "Because I was almost fainting from the heat, and for $15 an hour I wasn't about to let them work on their own!"
Bill started laughing. "It's not $15 an hour," he said, "it's $15 a DAY! You don't hire Mexicans by the hour, you hire them by the day, and they work a full 8 hours. And since you sent them home early, you still have to pay them for a full day. Sorry, my friend, but it looks like the joke's on you today. You just made four Mexicans very happy."
Somehow, when I had been told 150 pesos para dia (per day), my preconditioned old thought patterns refused to accept such a paltry wage, and unconsciously translated it into 150 pesos para hora (per hour). I never felt like such a goof in my life. I had Bill explain to Aseidro my mistake, and ask him to explain it to the workers.
The next morning at 8:00 am when they arrived, I walked up to them, and I must have had a pretty sheepish look on my face, because all I said was, "Amigos, ahhh... ayar(yesterday)..." and they all immediately exploded in laughter. I called myself "stupido" and they laughed even louder. And I laughed with them. It was, after all, pretty hilarious. And how could I be upset, when I was going to be getting so much hard work done, for such a small amount of money.
I put my chain saw away, and turned them loose, and in three days they had cleared over two acres of jungle. Here's a couple of before and after photos of the building site.
The day they finished I brought them all a cooler full of drinks and snacks, and we had a little fiesta. And as with all Gomez Incidents, it was only fitting to give them an obscenely large tip.
Bill, whose trailer I was renting, has a "man friday" who lives in a little cabana on the property, and takes care of all the gardens and trees and all the other numerous daily chores on the estate. His name is Isidro, and he's a short little Indian man (indigenous Mexican) who always seems to have a big grin on his face, and is always ready with a robust, friendly greeting. He has the Mexican's dream job. He gets paid 3000 pesos a month (300 dollars - a small fortune around here) and he is supplied with his own little house (luxurious by local standards). He could really get somewhere making that kind of money- buy a truck etc. - but apparently every payday he goes on a bender, spends all his money on booze for himself and his friends, comes walking back down the road Monday morning with that same big grin on his face, happy as can be to start the same cycle all over again.
Now, one of the things Bill liked about the location of his property was that were no Mexican families really close, because it seems all Mexican families have chickens and roosters, and roosters - contrary to popular myth - do not crow at the break of dawn. They crow all night long. It's just part of Mexico, hearing roosters crowing all through the night. But they're usually off in the distance, and after a while you get used to it.
Well, a couple of months ago, much to Bill's chagrin, Isidro decides there is something missing in his life, and comes home with a chicken and a rooster. A Mexican home just isn't complete without at least one chicken and rooster, it seems. The rooster quickly took over the yard, and although he never actually attacked anyone, you got the idea it wasn't a really good idea to turn your back on him. He just had that "look" in his eye. And of course, he crowed all night long.
And he wasn't off in the distance; he was right up close, and he was LOUD! He woke me up a lot, crowing right outside the trailer in the middle of the night. When I mentioned it to Bill, he apologized, and said he didn't like the f...ing thing either, but since it seemed to be so important to Isidro, he constrained himself to the occasional comment or joke about it.
Then, this morning he comes by my little trailer laughing, and said that we might not have to put up with that noisy bird much longer. In his usual morning meeting with Isidro, discussing the day's chores, Isidro had been all bleary eyed, and complaining about the rooster crowing right outside his door all night long, and keeping him awake. Sure enough, you could soon hear Isidro sharpening his machete, and a little later when you looked around, there was no sign of the rooster. He had very quietly disappeared.
Tonight is Saturday night, and word is there's going to be a little fiesta at Isidro's place, with a big feast, in which the main ingredient will be one cocky rooster who pushed his luck a little too far.
It was completely my fault. I started the whole thing. I admit it. Because it turns out that you do not get smarter as you get older. This is a myth perpetuated by old people, because sometimes it gains them a little respect. And God knows they deserve respect - not because they're smart, but for all the crap they've had to put up with over the years. The older you are, the more crap you've had to put up with, and the more respect you deserve, especially from the whippersnappers who have no idea the cruel games life has in store for them, the poor slobs.
No, the sad truth is that you actually get dumber as you get older. Sometimes it seems that my entire existence is dedicated to proving that fact. Like the time I read or heard somewhere the Spanish word "te" (tay) used to denote the pronoun "you". For some reason this made me think of "Como se llama" (komo say yama), the Spanish way to ask someone their name, literally meaning how are you called. What an idiot I'd been, I thought, saying it wrong all these years. Obviously, it should be "como te llama". Well, at least I could finally stop embarrassing myself and start saying it properly.
It never occurred to me to get a second opinion, or to suppose there may be more than one way to say "you" in Spanish. That was dumb. But I was so proud of my linguistic epiphany, I immediately shared it with my son, Adam. That was even dumber. Because the great god of irony stepped in right on cue and made it one of those special moments in time when a son actually listens to his father - and inevitably lives to regret it.
That evening, at a local bar, the mezcal is flowing, Adam and his lovely fiance Sandra are starting to get a glow on, and practicing their Spanish with the locals. Adam is getting chummy with the bartender, who is bilingual. They're hitting it off pretty good, and he realizes he doesn't know the chap's name, but that's okay, his dad just taught him the proper Spanish way to ask. But in a mezcal haze he forgets the "como" completely, remembers the incorrect "te" perfectly, and manages to come up with only half the "llama", blurting out something that sounded like "Te ama." And he accompanies this statement with the kind of deep, soulfully friendly look found only in places like the bottom of a mezcal bottle.
A look of surprise comes over the bartender's face, he throws his hands up in the air, mutters "No!" and walks away. Adam is stupified. He sits there for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened, when the bartender suddenly returns, lunges over the bar at Adam, gives him a big hug, and says, "I love you too, man."
Poor Adam has no idea what's going on. The bartender releases him and says, "You were trying to ask me my name, weren't you?"
"Wasn't I?"
"No. You said 'Te amo,' which means 'I love you!'"
"Ohhh... no... oops." Half the bar was laughing now.
"What you wanted to say was 'Como se llama.'"
"Como se llama?"
"Como se llama."
"Not 'Te amo?'"
That got the other half of the bar laughing, including Adam, who was naturally a good sport about the whole thing, never once chastising his poor deranged father for leading him astray, and in true Gomez Incident tradition, leaving the bartender an obscenely large tip.
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