On our first two trips to Mexico, we took the bus and left the driving to them. After all, the native drivers knew the way to San Jose, had experience dealing with sheep in the roadways and had lived through many bouts with the dreaded eight-lane traffic circles called circulacions. The best thing I can say about the experience is that we survived despite taking several mountain curves on three wheels and being pummeled by free-ranging goats and chickens who refused to stay in their seats. Mexican bus drivers have no fear of death by rapid descent and few limits on livestock. They will also stop along the way to discuss world affairs with passing compadres. I decided to put my faith in Jesus and give Mexico driving a try.
On my first trip solo, I opted to rent a vehicle from Nacional. A six-cylinder car, at least, so I could make it across the mountains from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta. “We only have small cars, Senor, but you can drive to Vallarta no problem. My sister does it all the time.” Well, then. I can do anything your sister can do.
Remember the story of Little Black Sambo, where a quartet of vain tigers chase one another around a tree until they turn to butter? That’s what it feels like to be on a Guadalajara circulacion. You will never get off until, after forty or so rotations, you scream Banzai! and cut across seven lanes of traffic to the first outlet you see. It’s like being inside a drier at the lavenderia and hoping your owner will rush in and rescue you.
Once free of the city, the drive to the coast is very pleasant. At least until your tiny car overheats and leaves you stranded in the middle of nowhere. This was in the pre-cell phone era, so nobody was being summoned to the rescue. Less than three minutes after catastrophe struck, however, a carload of Mexican revelers came wheeling around the turn and noticed my dilemma. There were no gangs kidnapping gringos in those days but I still didn’t know what to expect.
“Ah, you have a broken fanbelt, Senor, is what I think,” said the first rescuer jumping off the running board. Apparently, this is an ongoing local issue because when the driver opened his trunk there were several fanbelts of every dimension in there. They put one on, poured in some radiator water from a gigantic jug and waved adios. Things couldn’t have gone any better if the Cisco Kid and Pancho had pulled up. A few hours later, I saw the same crew in a rowdy Vallarta bar and bought them a round of beers. In gratitude, the leader of the band went out to his trunk and brought me back another fanbelt “por si acaso.” I kept it in my suitcase for the next ten years. You never know.
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| Plaza of the Mariachis, Guadalajara |
On The Road Again
Born to be wild, Harolyn and I drove all over Mexico on subsequent journeys, navigating the big cities and tiny towns alike, avoiding travel after dark following our first experience with a meandering herd of goats out for a twilight stroll. Then one day, a fellow named Rick Nihlen, who owned a head shop in Tallahassee, suggested we rent a van, travel to several towns on their respective market days and haul the resulting load back to the States. Sure! What could go wrong with that plan?
Like Hank Snow, we’ve been everywhere, man. To Oaxaca and San Juan de los Lagos for blosas, to Taxco for silver, to Puebla for onyx, to Patzcuaro for little painted boxes and to Guadalajara for high-quality, low-priced leather jackets which sold like chimichangas to the Gatornationals crowd. We swam in dangerous currents in Acapulco, haunted the fabulous shops and antique dealers of Tlaquepaque, got sick from bar ice cubes in Vallarta and slept in a straw hut in Yelapa. And then there was the bridge on the river Moctezuma in the small town of Tamazunchale.
Finished our buying extravaganza and on the way north to the border, we reached a narrow bridge which featured the sign, “Un solo carril,” meaning the width of the span could tolerate only one vehicle at a time. In the distance, barreling down the road from the opposite direction, was a determined, beat-up dumptruck the size of the Titanic returning to the local quarry for another load. Despite being further from the bridge than us, the driver flashed his lights, which apparently means “I got dibs!” in Mexican driving etiquette.
Rick Nihlen ignored him and proceeded onto the bridge, which was habitated by sightseers and a lone fruit dealer with his cart of offerings. Outraged at our lack of manners, the dumptruck roared onto the bridge and right at us. “Move over as far as you can,” I warned Rick, “he’s going to hit us.” Harolyn asked “Is it time to scream ‘Eeek! yet?”
Ahead of us on the bridge, chaos reigned as bystanders fled and the fruit vendor dived into the river. The hills were alive with the sounds of pineapples and watermelon flying through the air, a substantial amount of it covering our windshield. Needless to say, the vendor’s cart was transformed into smithereens and the back of our VW bus took a serious glancing blow. Excited (sometimes angry) little Mexicans were running everywhere, stirred up by this unusual catastrophe. Thankfully, the fruit man slogged out of the river in reasonable condition. What a mess! And where was John Morgan when you really needed him?
Back Home Again In Tamazunchale
There were but two cops in Tamazunchale, neither of which spoke English. Unaware of the flashing lights rule, we were furious with the idiocy of the truck driver, who was just as mad at us. The police chief bade us all come down to the station to straighten this mess out and separated us from the trucker once there. Sitting atop a desk at the station was a local nino about ten years old who had learned English at a mission school and would serve as translator. I delivered my diatribe and the chief replied. “Chief says you will have to wait a few days until the circuit judge gets here,” advised the boy.
“WHAT? I don’t think so,” I told the lad. “We’re waiting for a substitute rental and we’re getting out of here.” This bad news did not meet with the chief’s approval and he waved his arms and danced around a lot. “Chief says if you don’t stop yelling at him he put you in jail right now.”
Oh.
Well, I certainly didn’t want to be in there with mother rapers and father stabbers, like Arlo. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor, as it almost always is. The traveling judge, it turns out, would take three days to get to town, enough time to learn more than we ever wanted to know about the charming municipality of Tamazunchale.
The first thing we discovered is that our hotel had no air-conditioning despite the town’s average July afternoon temperature of 96. Orchids hold conventions there and thousands of exotic butterflies show up for Spring break, so it’s hot. Not hot enough, though, to stop the net-carrying lepidopterists from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. The streets were full of them, bobbing and weaving as they chased the nimble butterflies hither and yon with only occasional success.
There was, you’ll be happy to know, one movie theater in town. Appropriately enough, El Fantastico Mundo de los Jipis was playing that weekend. That would be The Fantastic World of the Hippies at the Royal Park Cinema in Gainesville if they ever had the savoir-faire to show such art films. I looked “jipis” up in the San Luis Potosí phone book and it defined the word as “scroungy, dead-broke American kids looking for mushrooms.” That would be about right.
Otherwise, we slept, ate and complained. Our hotel owner, a gracious American who had fallen on bad times and wound up with the hostelry, took us on a tour of the town. We learned that Tamazunchale, which sat at the convergence of the Amajac and Moctezuma rivers, consisted of 354 square kilometers and the population inside the city limits was roughly 24,000 people and six vehicles. The name of the town comes from the Huastec language and means “place of government.” T-town was the Huastec capital in the 15th century, but in 1522 that rude Hernan Cortez busted up the party with his troops and Indian allies headed by a nephew of Cuauhtemoc, last ruler of the Aztecs. Don’t say you never learn anything about the state of San Luis Potosi when you read The Flying Pie.
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| Metropolitan Tamazunchale |
Here Come De Judge!
Just when we were about to jump off the Tamazunchale Bridge in a fit of boredom, the face of justice arrived in town. It was only three days but it seemed like a butterfly’s lifetime and probably the sole occasion we ever looked forward to appearing in court. There were no quibbling lawyers, no yawning juries, just us and the truck driver there to tell our stories. And justice was served. The judge, in a fit of enlightenment, ruled that both drivers were at fault and neither owed the other a single peso. Both, however, had deprived the fruit vendor of his means to a living and each miscreant would contribute an equal amount to the reconstruction of the fruit cart and replacement of inventory. Nobody complained and the fruit man danced a merry jig out onto the street.
The smiling police chief came over and shook hands with everyone, twice with Harolyn, who he was convinced was an unannounced American movie star. The fruit peddler blessed us with the pineapple of friendship. The American hotel owner delivered a large case of water. The smiling and nattily-attired representative of the car rental company brought forth a shiny new bus. The kid from the mission school was a temporary stowaway, but we dumped him off at the next pueblo. Harolyn felt so bad about it, she opened her blouse and flashed him on the way out of town. “Always leave them smiling,” she said.
That’s all, amigos y amigas….
