“And now as I wander, my thoughts ever stray
south of the border---down Mexico way.”---Kennedy & Carr
In days of yore, Mexico was a charming oasis to retreat to when lightning struck and thunder rolled, when the train went off the tracks of your Life Path, when Romance wilted or Old Shep died or you looked out the window one morning and discovered that unknown critters had stolen all the treasures from your garden.
In the middle of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, everyone in Austin was looking for a fallout shelter. Tony Bell thought he’d be heading for the hills of northern Mexico, where he’d earlier discovered a strange enclave of beautiful blonde women. A few people scratched their heads but nobody wanted to contradict the well-traveled Tony Bell. Hell, most of us wanted to go along with him.
Romantic tales of the land South of the Border are many and varied. The landscape, the easy days and warmish nights lend themselves to the mystique. Would-be escapees from the American dream--or the American prison system--are often portrayed as heading for a lonely beach in Mexico. In The Shawshank Redemption, the wrongly-convicted Andy Dufresne dreamed of seeing out his days on the shores of Zihuatanejo. Louise told Thelma she was heading for Mexico before the two were so rudely interrupted. Even the impossible-to-please Robert Simmons, alias the famous Doctor Buzzkill, found pleasure roaming the charming streets of San Miguel de Allende.
Mexico was an idea, not just a country. Unknown treasures rested in the bowels of the place. The rules were soft, their enforcement lazy and land was cheap. A citizen with little money could still buy fish-on-a-stick on the beach at Puerto Vallarta. A pauper could climb the Mayan pyramids at Uxmal and Chichen itza. A peasant could marvel at the curious flying fish as he crossed the Gulf of California between La Paz and Mazatlan.
Mexico is different now, but that’s for others to dwell on. We live in the past where peace reigned, marijuana was just coming of age and Acapulco was still a shining jewel. Return with us now to those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. Fred Foy said that.
Getting There Is Half The Fun. Or Maybe One-Sixteenth.
“Mention my name in Patamban. It’s the greatest little town in the world.”---Beatrice Kay
If an acquisitive traveler were to espy one of the spectacular ceramic pineapples proudly displayed in prominent Mexico City museums, he would immediately want one. The pineapple, of course, is a symbol of friendship and hospitality dating to the 1500s. It goes without saying, however, that few connoisseurs would want to pay the museum’s hair-raising asking price.
“I will go to the source of the pineapples,” the traveler slyly decides, “where the craftsmen are poor and the prices are cheap.” And he sets forth into the hinterlands of Mexico to find his treasure, to plunder the native villages as have explorers before him. His wits are his machete, his pocketbook his sword.
Not so fast, my friend. What if the road is steep, the jungles dense, the pathways invisible? That’s what the Subterranean Circus search party of Bill, Harolyn and Rick Nihlen pondered when they reached Paracho, the nearest civilized town to the source of the pineapples, a remote village in Michoacan state called Patamban, which in Spanish means “where nobody speaks English.” Well, almost nobody. The villagers rushed off to fetch the single exception.
Ten minutes went by, fifteen, and we waited. After a half-hour we could see in the distance a little dust cloud appearing on the horizon. It was Juan, the famed speaker of alien languages, surrounded by his admiring acolytes who were pleased as punch to be part of something big. Juan marched into town shoulders back, his stout belly leading the way, a wry smile of importance on his countenance. The big man stuck out his hand and said, “Many years ago, I work in the steel mills of Pittsburgh!”
“Ah, yes,” we replied, looking at the natives. “The famous city of three rivers.” Juan smiled his enormous smile and translated liberally to the crowd, which was duly impressed. Then we got down to business; how does one proceed through the mists to Patamban? Juan reached for his chin, deep in thought. The best way to get there was the local contraption which served as a taxi, but there were problems. The cab driver was escorted in to explain.
“How many hours do you have for this journey, my friends?” Juan relayed from the cabbie. “Well, it’s eight miles, right? How long could that take?”
“Three and one half hours, amigos. The road is very bad with many holes.” Hell, we could walk there and back in seven hours, but not carrying giant pineapples. “How do the Patambans get their work to Paracho?” I asked. “Ah, many burros,” he smiled. “But we have no burros in Paracho.”
Sadder but wiser, we accepted our gloomy fate, but it was a crushing blow for the taxi man who saw his best shot at a rare fare disintegrate in seconds. Juan was left to console him and explain the unfortunate circumstances to the locals. The misery was too much to countenance. We turned around and dispensed a few American dollars all around as sudden ecstasy reigned. Almost instantly, the town was reinvigorated.
Then, like the Lone Ranger, we quietly took our leave while nobody noticed. We like to think that someday Juan and the boys will be sitting out under some trees in the zocalo regaling their awestruck children about the day the famous Tres Gringos came and brought them treasures. The kids will smile, jump up and down and applaud. “Show it to us again, Papa,” they will beg. And then Juan will smile, reach in his pocket and raise the silver bullet up into the sunlight. (Cue the music, Fred.)
Yelapa
“Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.”---Aesop’s Fables
Now, if there is one place in Mexico that makes our eyes light up, our lips curl into a satisfied smile and the A-list reel of memories start spinning in our hippocampus, it must be Puerto Vallarta, the diamond in the crown of Banderas Bay. The light is different there, the beaches inviting, the low hum of the busy town an inspiration to get up and go. English is readily spoken. These days, people complain about the excess of tourists but tourists travel to places because they are beautiful or interesting or exciting, because they feel good there, because on arriving their spirits take an elevator ride to the 35th floor. Admittedly, in our Mexican days, the tourists were probably fewer and more genteel.
We liked to tend to business in Guadalajara, then drive through the mountains to the coast and eventually Puerto Vallarta. It is not a terribly long trip but the mountains exact their taxes and some of the vehicles owned by National Car Rental were probably old-timers retired long ago from the fleets at El Paso, San Diego and Tombstone. Driving alone through the hills one day, my fanbelt gave up the ghost many miles from anywhere, rendering me parked at the side of the road. You can’t just call Triple-A in the mountain mists of Mexico.
But no matter. Within minutes, a carload of hombres felices came whipping around the curve and pulled over. “Fanbelt no good?” the experienced hill driver asked. I nodded, expecting a ride to town or perhaps the fellow driving on and sending back help. Instead, he opened the trunk of his car where resided at least three dozen fanbelts of all descriptions. Repairs were made in minutes and the man wouldn’t take a nickel. Things like that happened all the time in Mexico in those days.
Despite the many glories of Puerto Vallarta, people there spoke often of the simple pleasures of Yelapa, a native village across the bay accessible only by boat. The tales of such places are legion, the experience of living on a sterling beach in a simple thatched hut magnified in our imagination by businessmen who make these idle dreams come true. The siren song calls and you can almost hear the ukuleles.
Harolyn was thrilled when I announced plans for such a trip. Among other things, there were horses for rent in Yelapa and you could ride the length of a lovely river in solitude before returning to your romantic quarters for the night. Not completely oblivious to the possibilities of adversity while traveling with a beautiful woman, I smuggled in a small two-shot Derringer and took it along for the ride. Everything went swimmingly, however, and we returned for dinner before dark. Neither one of us, alas, were people who enjoyed excess time sitting in a lounge chair watching the boats sail by.
“What do you want to do now,” the wife asked shortly after dinner. “I don’t know, Marty, what do YOU want to do?” I don’t think she saw the movie. Entertainment venues were few, we had the sand and the sea, that was it. No newspaper, no television, no radio, no visual cell phone treats. Not even one of those complicated jigsaw puzzles your grandmother used to fuss over when she was bored out of her mind. Nuthin’. I know some of you may think we were unappreciative and calloused dullards not held in sway by the natural beauties of our simple Earth, but that’s the facts, Jack. I began to worry that the morning pickup boat might forget us, that we’d be doomed to eternal exile on this supposedly beautiful eden.
By morning, I was standing at the water’s edge with binoculars tuned to the horizon. When the first vestiges of a ship appeared I was overjoyed. Salvation was at hand, rescue was imminent. Despite the charms of the brilliant evening stars, the soft lapping of the waves on the shoreline and the happy flushing of the toilet with a bucket of water now and then, we would gladly cede our romantic isle to the next misguided customer. Once again, Aesop was right. Be careful what you wish for---you just might get it.
The Evil Eye
If you travel to Guadalajara, there are two things you must do. The first is to visit nearby Tlaquepaque, an adjacent village of artists, artisans and antiques, where you can buy a brilliant piece right out of a sculptor’s home or an ancient 20-foot high wooden garden gate right off its hinges. The 16-piece Silver City fountain came from there, assembled by a man named Juan Palacios Norman….and why can’t I have a middle name like Palacios?
The second thing every Guadalajaran visitor should do is visit the Plaza of the Mariachis, a spectacular spot where guests sit down, sample a brew and are surrounded by roving bands of musicians who will sing you a song---any song---for a dollar. If the song you choose sounds amazingly like Cielito Lindo, be polite. It’s possible that Guadalajarans aren’t all that familiar with Who Let The Dogs Out. Oh, and the prices might have risen slightly since 1975.
Sometimes the thrall of the mariachis causes a visitor to sit a little too long and drink a bit much. Seated at a table about twenty feet from that of Rick Nihlen, Harolyn and I was a quartet of Mexican college students, one of whom was fixated on my wife. Although this was not an unusual occurrence since Harolyn looked the way she did, this character was pushing the limits of acceptable gaping. I looked back at him for several seconds, which unnerved the man. Finally, he could stand the gaze no longer and he got up and weaved angrily toward our table, stopping only when his three amigos jumped up and grabbed him. By then he was waving his arms and spewing venom in my direction. “Sorry sir, our friend has had too much to drink. He says you are giving him the Evil Eye.”
The Evil Eye? Who knew? I wasn’t even trying. I wondered how powerful I might be if I focused all my ocular energy into the practice. If you see me coming, better look aside. A lot of men didn’t and a lot of men died. If I was arrested, what would the charges be? Assault with a retina? What’s going on here?
Mal de Oro, it turns out, goes all the way back to Greek Classical antiquity. Plutarch stated that the eyes were the chief---if not sole---source of deadly rays that spung up like poisoned darts from the recesses of a person possessing the Evil Eye. He regarded the phenomenon as something inexplicable, a source of wonder and cause of incredulity. Pliny the Elder described the ability of certain African enchanters to have “the power of fascination with the eyes and even kill those on whom they fix their gaze.” I am currently working with staring coaches to create rays which will have a capacity to cause delayed destruction. That way I’ll be miles away when the victim collapses and police investigators will never figure out who the culprit is. Don’t mess with Bill.
I had almost forgotten this untoward episode a couple of years later when a similar experience occurred during the famous Incident at Tamazunchale, described in an earlier Pie. With our leased Volkswagen bus rendered useless after a collision on a skinny Mexican bridge, a representative of National Car Rental came to town to deliver a back-up vehicle. He was nattily attired, suit and tie, might have just graduated from the Mexican equivalent of Yale if there was one. We sat down to dinner at a local hotel and signed all the papers. Personable as he was, the man seemed a little nervous. Finally, he could stand the pressure no longer. He leapt angrily from his chair and pointed at my head.
“Sirs,” he said politely, “I can no longer work under these conditions!” He scooped up his attache case and walked to the other side of the room. The unthreatening Harolyn followed him and asked what was wrong. It was that god damn Evil Eye again. No matter the job or level of education, the Eye frightened all. I thought about getting a job as a collection agent or in bank security where I’d be in great demand but nobody likes a bully. Harolyn signed the papers and we were on our way. The car-rental man looked down at the floor as he trudged back to his car, relieved to have escaped with his life.
Harolyn, who didn’t mind a good fracas, was very envious of my new talent. “You’re going to have to teach me your eye trick,” she said. “The other day, a cab driver tried to kidnap me and I had to jump out at a stoplight. If I had the Mal de Oro in my repertoire, I could have reduced him to a weeping little chiquita in seconds.”
Ah, but I am an admirer of the wise John-Dalberg Acton, who famously told us “Power tends to corrupt and great power corrupts absolutely.” Like Superman, I must use my gift only for good, with just an occasional exception. Like anyone, I don’t like to wait in line too long, so the other day I thought I’d work my magic on a Neanderthal who was holding up the works at the supermarket. “What are YOU staring at, buddy?” he rudely snapped.
I’m thinking about moving to Mexico.
That's all, folks....
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
