SUNDAY, JUNE 4
One bridge crosses the Rio Dulce. The river spreads out below the bridge into a twenty kilometre lake dotted with mangrove islands and indented with creeks and side rivers and streams that disapear into jungle. Below the lake, the river is squeezed into a narrow ravine. The vertical cliffs rise 300 feet and are cloaked in jungle. The ravine ends at the sea and at the small Carribean port of Livingston. No roads lead to Livingston. There is only the river and the sea.
Above the bridge is a short stretch of river which ends at the narrow entrance into Lago Izabal. At over fifty kilometres in length, Izabal is the largest lake in Guatemala and was the road of conquest for the Spaniards who built a fort to protect the approach to the lake from English pirates. Fronteras is the name of the town that has sprouted from the northen end of the bridge, Fronteras because the bridge marked the frontier to the little explored and scantily populated province of Peten.
I first visited Fronteras some fifteen years back. In those days Fronteras was a dump. It remains a dump, a very likeable dump (I have a soft spot for dumps). A few new buildings exist; banks have opened branch offices; tin shacks have grown concrete block walls and some have been freshly painted - as have the whores taking the sun outside the whore house. These look to be a little younger - true, my eyes have aged. Men on horseback were common back then; they are now a rarity. Common now are long-legged young women in short skirts astride motor scooters.
I have a travel piece on my web site that I wrote ten years ago which I could as easily write today: http://www.simongandolfi.com
The piece describes a trip up-river from Livingston and a meal Eugenio cooked from small fresh water clams we had dived for amongst the reeds fringing Lago Izabal.
Friday, June 09, 2006
WIND IN THE FRANGIPANI
SUNDAY, JUNE 4
Eugenio is driving us in his launch all the way downriver to Livingston: no willows, lots of mangrove. Monica sits in the back with Andresito on her knee. Slam into the wake from a
taxi launch, shrimp boat or motor yacht, Andresito never complains. I sit up front beside Eugenio with a nappy over my burns and Eugenio´s work hat at a rakish angle. I kind of fancy myself.
Monica and Eugenio suggest that I resemble an aged wreck.
I remind them that I was up guarding the house and livestock at 6 a.m. while they wasted hours in dalliance.
I plan visiting a school midway down the river. The school recruits bright kids of both sexes from the Maya villages and educates them to be leaders in their communities. The school is the brain child of a North American from the US. I must enquire as to his background.
Eugenio is driving us in his launch all the way downriver to Livingston: no willows, lots of mangrove. Monica sits in the back with Andresito on her knee. Slam into the wake from a
taxi launch, shrimp boat or motor yacht, Andresito never complains. I sit up front beside Eugenio with a nappy over my burns and Eugenio´s work hat at a rakish angle. I kind of fancy myself.
Monica and Eugenio suggest that I resemble an aged wreck.
I remind them that I was up guarding the house and livestock at 6 a.m. while they wasted hours in dalliance.
I plan visiting a school midway down the river. The school recruits bright kids of both sexes from the Maya villages and educates them to be leaders in their communities. The school is the brain child of a North American from the US. I must enquire as to his background.
IS THE TOAD ON THE DOWN SLOPE?
SUNDAY, JUNE 4
My leg hurt and kept me awake. I heard horses out on the farm road soon after first light. The horses had escaped from a paddock. I doubted if there was much I could do - maybe stand in the road and wave my arms while one of Eugenio´s farm workers coralled the beasts. So I tiptoed barefoot downstairs and out onto the lawn. A puppy the size of small elephant made a charge for the door - so I closed it. The keys were upstairs on my dressing table. Andresito permitted Monica and Eugenio a Sunday sleep-in. So I sat on the lawn for four hours. For the first half-hour I thought of myself and that I wasn´t doing too well what with the leg and the locked door. Oh, and the camera that I left in Grand Central station, New York.
Over the next half-hour I relented in my self criticism. Yes, I admit that doing the leg was an act of adolescent stupidity and that senility could explain the loss of the camera.
However, Josh and Jed leave things.
And there was the time I did my leg in on a Bultaco Matador, laying it over and sliding into an unexpected traffic island on the road to Ibiza town from our house in San Jose. This was a main road that I rode every day and more than once. True, it was at night and what mind I had had drifted far off course. But I was forty years younger...
And look at the positives. I am amongst friends. I am enjoying myself. I am interested by people and I keep meeting new people, nor have I lost the art of letting THEM do the talking. Yes, and I have a passion for good food and have eaten some remarkably good meals. And the Honda is stalwart companion.
My leg hurt and kept me awake. I heard horses out on the farm road soon after first light. The horses had escaped from a paddock. I doubted if there was much I could do - maybe stand in the road and wave my arms while one of Eugenio´s farm workers coralled the beasts. So I tiptoed barefoot downstairs and out onto the lawn. A puppy the size of small elephant made a charge for the door - so I closed it. The keys were upstairs on my dressing table. Andresito permitted Monica and Eugenio a Sunday sleep-in. So I sat on the lawn for four hours. For the first half-hour I thought of myself and that I wasn´t doing too well what with the leg and the locked door. Oh, and the camera that I left in Grand Central station, New York.
Over the next half-hour I relented in my self criticism. Yes, I admit that doing the leg was an act of adolescent stupidity and that senility could explain the loss of the camera.
However, Josh and Jed leave things.
And there was the time I did my leg in on a Bultaco Matador, laying it over and sliding into an unexpected traffic island on the road to Ibiza town from our house in San Jose. This was a main road that I rode every day and more than once. True, it was at night and what mind I had had drifted far off course. But I was forty years younger...
And look at the positives. I am amongst friends. I am enjoying myself. I am interested by people and I keep meeting new people, nor have I lost the art of letting THEM do the talking. Yes, and I have a passion for good food and have eaten some remarkably good meals. And the Honda is stalwart companion.
WALLS HAVE THEIR USES
THOUGHTS AT TIJAX, JUNE 1-4
I was in the pool at the hotel on Friday evening. An ex-cop from Israel was talking with me. He had served in the anti-terrorist squad for a while. He mentioned that Israel was more or less at peace now that the wall was built. The US is about to build a wall along the dividing line between El Norte and El Sud. Such walls are statements of despair and of defeat. And they always fall.
The Great Wall of China failed to keep out the Tartars.
Hadrian´s Wall signalled the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.
The Germans drove round the corner of that great wall of interconected fortesses and bunkers, the Maginot Line.
The Berlin wall was pulled down by joyful Germans, both East and West.
However, let us be positive and consider the needs of those morally righteous amongst the US contracting fraternity, those who loyally contribute to the Republican Party´s war chest. They are always in need of a little extra and the Iraq war can´t last for ever.
Think Cheyney, think Rumfeld, think Haliburton...
And don´t concern yourselves up there in El Norte, your servants will find a way through.
I was in the pool at the hotel on Friday evening. An ex-cop from Israel was talking with me. He had served in the anti-terrorist squad for a while. He mentioned that Israel was more or less at peace now that the wall was built. The US is about to build a wall along the dividing line between El Norte and El Sud. Such walls are statements of despair and of defeat. And they always fall.
The Great Wall of China failed to keep out the Tartars.
Hadrian´s Wall signalled the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.
The Germans drove round the corner of that great wall of interconected fortesses and bunkers, the Maginot Line.
The Berlin wall was pulled down by joyful Germans, both East and West.
However, let us be positive and consider the needs of those morally righteous amongst the US contracting fraternity, those who loyally contribute to the Republican Party´s war chest. They are always in need of a little extra and the Iraq war can´t last for ever.
Think Cheyney, think Rumfeld, think Haliburton...
And don´t concern yourselves up there in El Norte, your servants will find a way through.
AFTERMATH
HACIENDA TIJAX, JUNE 3
I researched the Guatemalan chapters of AFTERMATH while staying at Tijax. Now I keep recognising places I have used. Today we drove into Morales. On the return, we stopped for chicken soup at a restaurant/carwash that I used. Should you wish, you can find a short extract under FICTION on my web site that describes the place: www.simongandolfi.com
The carwash had a dangerous reputation for some years. The then owner´s husband had been shot dead. So had a few others. Gun battles under the palapa. The widow is not the woman in the book - though she was a warm woman and left with three small children who I remember as timid of strangers.
The new owner had worked as a mechanic in El Norte for a few years, a leagal with a green card. He didn´t know of the gun battles. Nor did he know much about restaurants and went into a huddle with Eugenio who gave him advice.
Josh, Jed and I were living in Cuba ten years ago; Bernadette ran her business back in England and visited every six weeks. Shops were empty in Cuba. Eugenio and I would drive into Morales. Eugenio would do his banking and the chores, then come looking for me. He knew where I would be: in one of the Chinese stores, mouth open, gapeing at the choice: three different marks and sizes of refrigerator, same for TVs, bikes, scooters. For Eugenio this was a corner shop. For a resident of Castro´s Cuba, it offered the joys of a combined Harrods and WallMart.
I researched the Guatemalan chapters of AFTERMATH while staying at Tijax. Now I keep recognising places I have used. Today we drove into Morales. On the return, we stopped for chicken soup at a restaurant/carwash that I used. Should you wish, you can find a short extract under FICTION on my web site that describes the place: www.simongandolfi.com
The carwash had a dangerous reputation for some years. The then owner´s husband had been shot dead. So had a few others. Gun battles under the palapa. The widow is not the woman in the book - though she was a warm woman and left with three small children who I remember as timid of strangers.
The new owner had worked as a mechanic in El Norte for a few years, a leagal with a green card. He didn´t know of the gun battles. Nor did he know much about restaurants and went into a huddle with Eugenio who gave him advice.
Josh, Jed and I were living in Cuba ten years ago; Bernadette ran her business back in England and visited every six weeks. Shops were empty in Cuba. Eugenio and I would drive into Morales. Eugenio would do his banking and the chores, then come looking for me. He knew where I would be: in one of the Chinese stores, mouth open, gapeing at the choice: three different marks and sizes of refrigerator, same for TVs, bikes, scooters. For Eugenio this was a corner shop. For a resident of Castro´s Cuba, it offered the joys of a combined Harrods and WallMart.
DANGEROUS DOGS
SATURDAY, JUNE 3
I wrote, ten years ago, much of the Guatemalan section of AFTERMATH in the restaurant at Hacienda Tijax (www.tijax.com). The marina is bigger now. Eugenio has added a swimming pool and an open-air jaccuzi; the guest cabins are of wood and mosquito proof. Ten years ago, Eugenio and I lived in open walled palapas and I defended myself against the mosquitoes with an electric fan. Oh, and Charlie, Eugenio´s dog of very mixed parentage, ate one of my brown Church shoes. I wear brown shoes by Church on this trip. They are comfortable and, under normal conditions (riding motorcycles, climbing mountains, crossing forests) are indistructable. However they are made of high quality leather. Flexible leather. To a Guatemalan dog, they appear delectable. Eugenio has a pack of dogs. One is a puppy, a spotted Brazilian mastiff with feet the size of snow-shoes. He will be truly massive should he ever grow into his feet. For the moment he believes he is very small. I read on the verandah and he tries to climb on my lap. I reject him. He droops his head, eyes so mournful that I expect him to weep. I relax for a moment and he lays his head on my Church-shod feet and drools a little. The drooling gives him away. And that every now and again he has a little lick at the leather - just a taster.
I wrote, ten years ago, much of the Guatemalan section of AFTERMATH in the restaurant at Hacienda Tijax (www.tijax.com). The marina is bigger now. Eugenio has added a swimming pool and an open-air jaccuzi; the guest cabins are of wood and mosquito proof. Ten years ago, Eugenio and I lived in open walled palapas and I defended myself against the mosquitoes with an electric fan. Oh, and Charlie, Eugenio´s dog of very mixed parentage, ate one of my brown Church shoes. I wear brown shoes by Church on this trip. They are comfortable and, under normal conditions (riding motorcycles, climbing mountains, crossing forests) are indistructable. However they are made of high quality leather. Flexible leather. To a Guatemalan dog, they appear delectable. Eugenio has a pack of dogs. One is a puppy, a spotted Brazilian mastiff with feet the size of snow-shoes. He will be truly massive should he ever grow into his feet. For the moment he believes he is very small. I read on the verandah and he tries to climb on my lap. I reject him. He droops his head, eyes so mournful that I expect him to weep. I relax for a moment and he lays his head on my Church-shod feet and drools a little. The drooling gives him away. And that every now and again he has a little lick at the leather - just a taster.
HACIENDA TIJAX
FRIDAY, JUNE 2
Eugenio has married, he has a new son (Andresito, 9 months), he has built a house. Hacienda Tijax ( www.tijax.com ) rises for the shores of the Rio Dulce to a high ridge from which there are views thru 360 degrees to mountains in the distance and both down the Rio Dulce and up towards the Spanish fortress that once guarded the entrance to Lago Izabal from English pirates. For me, the view is the most beautiful in the world and I had expected Eugenio to site his house on the ridge. Eugenio has chosen a site further down the hill. The house is on two floors; all rooms have French windows opening onto wide shaded verandahs or balconies. The house faces down a valley of cattle paddocks to a fringe of forest that hides the water. The distant mountains are the least imposing of those that are visible from the ridge. It is a restful view. It is undemanding. You may look or not look. You can read in peace.
I understand Eugenio´s choice of site. He has enough demands put on him each day with his hotel and his marina and the restaurant and the rubber plantation and cattle rustled and his fear of forest fires that could destroy the teak plantation. I understand the armed guard who patrols the hacienda and I understand the gate and the high wire fence fixed to white ceramic insulaters that surrounds the garden.
Eugenio is never short of courage. If anything, he is risk prone. He has lived thru the clandestine war; attached to the Ministry of Finance, he worked with the Maya and lived in their villages. But now he has a young and beautiful wife and small son to protect and, here in his house, while still a batchelor, he was robbed at gun point by three men.
Eugenio has married, he has a new son (Andresito, 9 months), he has built a house. Hacienda Tijax ( www.tijax.com ) rises for the shores of the Rio Dulce to a high ridge from which there are views thru 360 degrees to mountains in the distance and both down the Rio Dulce and up towards the Spanish fortress that once guarded the entrance to Lago Izabal from English pirates. For me, the view is the most beautiful in the world and I had expected Eugenio to site his house on the ridge. Eugenio has chosen a site further down the hill. The house is on two floors; all rooms have French windows opening onto wide shaded verandahs or balconies. The house faces down a valley of cattle paddocks to a fringe of forest that hides the water. The distant mountains are the least imposing of those that are visible from the ridge. It is a restful view. It is undemanding. You may look or not look. You can read in peace.
I understand Eugenio´s choice of site. He has enough demands put on him each day with his hotel and his marina and the restaurant and the rubber plantation and cattle rustled and his fear of forest fires that could destroy the teak plantation. I understand the armed guard who patrols the hacienda and I understand the gate and the high wire fence fixed to white ceramic insulaters that surrounds the garden.
Eugenio is never short of courage. If anything, he is risk prone. He has lived thru the clandestine war; attached to the Ministry of Finance, he worked with the Maya and lived in their villages. But now he has a young and beautiful wife and small son to protect and, here in his house, while still a batchelor, he was robbed at gun point by three men.
ROAD TO RIO DULCE
BACK TO THURSDAY, JUNE 1
The Honda is loaded onto Eugenio´s pick-up. We drive down from Antigua into the capital for lasagne with Eugenio´s mother. I make notes in my journal of a conversation earlier in the morning. The speaker was a woman, a Gutemalan. She talked of massacres during the clandestine war, of a country in which, for thirty years, Governments placed no value on life. She talked of Big Brother up north who placed no value on the lives of Latin Americans, of Arabs, of Asians. Bomb anyone you don´t like (the enemy). Why care if there are civillian casualties? And why be surprised when gangs of city kids in Guatemala have as little care for life?
"They see the corruption in Government. We used to think it was only us. We thought that countries outside, in Europe were different - countries like England. Now we learn that all Governements are the same. Look at your Tony Blair. He is a liar like the rest. What hope is there? Why should the kids have hope?"
Grim...
I have been in Europe too long. I have lost touch with the reality of the outside world. I had been critical of a school Principal´s lack of courage in a country where, for thirty years, to be suspected of thought crime could get you shot.
The Honda is loaded onto Eugenio´s pick-up. We drive down from Antigua into the capital for lasagne with Eugenio´s mother. I make notes in my journal of a conversation earlier in the morning. The speaker was a woman, a Gutemalan. She talked of massacres during the clandestine war, of a country in which, for thirty years, Governments placed no value on life. She talked of Big Brother up north who placed no value on the lives of Latin Americans, of Arabs, of Asians. Bomb anyone you don´t like (the enemy). Why care if there are civillian casualties? And why be surprised when gangs of city kids in Guatemala have as little care for life?
"They see the corruption in Government. We used to think it was only us. We thought that countries outside, in Europe were different - countries like England. Now we learn that all Governements are the same. Look at your Tony Blair. He is a liar like the rest. What hope is there? Why should the kids have hope?"
Grim...
I have been in Europe too long. I have lost touch with the reality of the outside world. I had been critical of a school Principal´s lack of courage in a country where, for thirty years, to be suspected of thought crime could get you shot.
BATTLES WITH THE INTERNET
THURSDAY, JUNE 8
I chose to travel in the rainy season. I have been blessed with greenery even in the wastelands of the Texas Panhandle. Now Eugenio and I are staying with an ecentric French conservationist, Santiago Billy, on the eastern litoral of Lake Peten Itza. Clouds rise from thick forest on the far shore in layers of greys that range from the almost white to the almost black. The waters reflect the layers and we watch, from the small palapa at the end of Santiago´s jetty, rain squalls first chase each other across the forest before joining forces in a solid curtain that shatters the calm of the lake and thrashes the surface into silver foam. You can keep your days of endless sun. This is glory...
Even when the satelite connection to the internet crashes and eats the same piece of rewritten work on three seperate occasions. Which is what I did yesterday, write and have the connection break before I could post the blog.
Today I am in the capital of the Peten, Flores, where there is a cable connection and where Santiago attends a breakfast meeting with the Minister of Agriculture. Eugenio remains in bed. I feel that I have betrayed him. Our plan was to ride a huge loop. Instead we are stuck here by my ugly leg. On Tuesday Santiago demanded that I drive with him to a doctor in Flores. Santiago insists that the doctor ordered me to return in three to four days. Meanwhile I was to rest: no alcohol, no dancing, no sex. I quote Santiago. I wasn´t listening. I sat hypnotised by a hyperdermic and the size of the bottle of antibiotics the doctor had placed on his desk beside the pills and dressings and creams with which I was to annoint myself. Forty-eight hours have passed and the contents of the bottle remain as a big sore bump in my bum. As for the leg and the creams--shush. Anna, Santiago´s maid, returned from the forest yesterday with a portfolio of herbs which she infused in hot water and stood over me while I bathed the burns. The wounds dried miraculously, no more seepage until this morning when I reaplied the doctor´s creams. I betray modern medicine in continuing Anna´s treatment.
I shall mix the two.
Meanwhile, temporarily at a halt, I shall catch up with the Blog.
I chose to travel in the rainy season. I have been blessed with greenery even in the wastelands of the Texas Panhandle. Now Eugenio and I are staying with an ecentric French conservationist, Santiago Billy, on the eastern litoral of Lake Peten Itza. Clouds rise from thick forest on the far shore in layers of greys that range from the almost white to the almost black. The waters reflect the layers and we watch, from the small palapa at the end of Santiago´s jetty, rain squalls first chase each other across the forest before joining forces in a solid curtain that shatters the calm of the lake and thrashes the surface into silver foam. You can keep your days of endless sun. This is glory...
Even when the satelite connection to the internet crashes and eats the same piece of rewritten work on three seperate occasions. Which is what I did yesterday, write and have the connection break before I could post the blog.
Today I am in the capital of the Peten, Flores, where there is a cable connection and where Santiago attends a breakfast meeting with the Minister of Agriculture. Eugenio remains in bed. I feel that I have betrayed him. Our plan was to ride a huge loop. Instead we are stuck here by my ugly leg. On Tuesday Santiago demanded that I drive with him to a doctor in Flores. Santiago insists that the doctor ordered me to return in three to four days. Meanwhile I was to rest: no alcohol, no dancing, no sex. I quote Santiago. I wasn´t listening. I sat hypnotised by a hyperdermic and the size of the bottle of antibiotics the doctor had placed on his desk beside the pills and dressings and creams with which I was to annoint myself. Forty-eight hours have passed and the contents of the bottle remain as a big sore bump in my bum. As for the leg and the creams--shush. Anna, Santiago´s maid, returned from the forest yesterday with a portfolio of herbs which she infused in hot water and stood over me while I bathed the burns. The wounds dried miraculously, no more seepage until this morning when I reaplied the doctor´s creams. I betray modern medicine in continuing Anna´s treatment.
I shall mix the two.
Meanwhile, temporarily at a halt, I shall catch up with the Blog.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
ANTIGUA ARTIST
THURSDAY, JUNE 1
Ten years have passed since my last visit to Antigua. Of my friends, all but an artist and her Frenchman have abandoned the city to commercialism and moved to gated communities on the outskirts. I recall eating dinner in this house my last night in Guatemala. We sat in front of a wood fire and drank wine and discussed a future of hope that accompanied the peace process. Today, the artist, a liberal educated at University in Europe, talked of the nihilism that drives the country´s urban youth to kill for a few Quetzals and ape the most extreme details of the sexual act as they dance the raegeton.
The artist´s son was 12 or 13 when I last visited. Now he is a six-six Adonis back from college in Colorado. He guides tourists up volcanoes and teaches rock climbing. http://www.wildguatemala.com
He is exceptional in having returned. The majority of his generation, the offspring of my Guatemalan friends, are in Spain, Canada, El Norte, even England. Do they sense, if only subconciously, that they have no future in Guatemala? If so, are we once again entering the territory of race?
Ten years have passed since my last visit to Antigua. Of my friends, all but an artist and her Frenchman have abandoned the city to commercialism and moved to gated communities on the outskirts. I recall eating dinner in this house my last night in Guatemala. We sat in front of a wood fire and drank wine and discussed a future of hope that accompanied the peace process. Today, the artist, a liberal educated at University in Europe, talked of the nihilism that drives the country´s urban youth to kill for a few Quetzals and ape the most extreme details of the sexual act as they dance the raegeton.
The artist´s son was 12 or 13 when I last visited. Now he is a six-six Adonis back from college in Colorado. He guides tourists up volcanoes and teaches rock climbing. http://www.wildguatemala.com
He is exceptional in having returned. The majority of his generation, the offspring of my Guatemalan friends, are in Spain, Canada, El Norte, even England. Do they sense, if only subconciously, that they have no future in Guatemala? If so, are we once again entering the territory of race?
ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA
WEDNESDAY, MAY 31
Be patient. I write my journal throughout each day. Transfering the journal to the internet is more complicated. Thus I take the reader backwards on occasion and forward on occasion. Now, if you are with me, we are in the days prior to the stupidity of my leg and my misconception as to my true age and abilities. This is a pompous discription of my having been truly dumb!
Antigua remains full of beautiful buildings. I ride with care on the cobbles and I ask of myself, as always, who were the architects? And I wonder if the conquistadors numbered camouflaged Muslims amongst their number. We know of three recursos (Jewish "converts" to Christianity) amongst Cortes´group and that Cortes´neighbors back in the Extremadura of his childhood were Islamic owners of a vineyard. I imagine myself a bright Islamic kid of the period. Banned from Spanish universities, where would I have studied? Perhaps to that great centre of learning, Baghdad. Returning home to Spain, I would have been faced with the bigotry and zeal of Christendom. What then? Surely I would have been tempted to change my name to Jose Jesus and escape to a New World.
Last night I visited the home of an elderly Guatemalan, a wealthy businessman, whose brother is an architect in New England. The Guatemalan brother has a fierce loathing for George W Bush whom he descibes as totally ignorant and Fascist. He recounts that his brother warns him to be careful of what he says over the telephone as all calls from abroad to the US are monitored. The conqueror dresses himself in the clothes of the conquered: The US increasingly wears the the clothes of Nazi Germany.
I report the views of two elderly respectable conservative gentlemen. I encountered the same views in Mexico amongst all classes. I leave the reader to judge whether such beliefs should be of concern...
Be patient. I write my journal throughout each day. Transfering the journal to the internet is more complicated. Thus I take the reader backwards on occasion and forward on occasion. Now, if you are with me, we are in the days prior to the stupidity of my leg and my misconception as to my true age and abilities. This is a pompous discription of my having been truly dumb!
Antigua remains full of beautiful buildings. I ride with care on the cobbles and I ask of myself, as always, who were the architects? And I wonder if the conquistadors numbered camouflaged Muslims amongst their number. We know of three recursos (Jewish "converts" to Christianity) amongst Cortes´group and that Cortes´neighbors back in the Extremadura of his childhood were Islamic owners of a vineyard. I imagine myself a bright Islamic kid of the period. Banned from Spanish universities, where would I have studied? Perhaps to that great centre of learning, Baghdad. Returning home to Spain, I would have been faced with the bigotry and zeal of Christendom. What then? Surely I would have been tempted to change my name to Jose Jesus and escape to a New World.
Last night I visited the home of an elderly Guatemalan, a wealthy businessman, whose brother is an architect in New England. The Guatemalan brother has a fierce loathing for George W Bush whom he descibes as totally ignorant and Fascist. He recounts that his brother warns him to be careful of what he says over the telephone as all calls from abroad to the US are monitored. The conqueror dresses himself in the clothes of the conquered: The US increasingly wears the the clothes of Nazi Germany.
I report the views of two elderly respectable conservative gentlemen. I encountered the same views in Mexico amongst all classes. I leave the reader to judge whether such beliefs should be of concern...
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
TOAD TOASTED
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7
The toad toasted himself. The fault was a friend´s. Obviously. Remember WIND IN THE WILLOWS? Toad is never at fault.
Eugenio has built a tower on the crest of the hill above his house at the Rio Dulce.
"The road is rough," said Eugenio. "Don´t try riding up on your bike. I´ll run you up in the pick-up once I´ve finished down at the hotel."
So I waited. Then I recalled Ibiza in the Sixties.
I recalled me on a Bultaco Matador 350 trial bike.
I pictured myself as I had pictured myself then: chest thrust out as I gripped the wide-spread controls, white canvas trousers over Frye boots, granddad T shirt, sun-bleached locks in a coronet of Moroccan beads. Wow, was I something. Every girl´s dream (as long as she was short of brain) - Poop Poop.
So what had changed? Nothing (I thought) and kicked the Honda alive. No trouble for the first flat fifty meters. Then uphill on a wet rutted track. The front wheel slipped. I hadn´t the strength to hold the bike upright. Over it went. My knee hit the exhaust pipe. I yelped and tried to stand only to hit the exhaust pipe wth my calf.
So what had changed?
As Monica, Eugenio´s young and intelligent wife, remarked. "Hey Simon, you are an old man. You need to be careful."
Careful, I wouldn´t be heading for Tierra del Fuego...
The toad toasted himself. The fault was a friend´s. Obviously. Remember WIND IN THE WILLOWS? Toad is never at fault.
Eugenio has built a tower on the crest of the hill above his house at the Rio Dulce.
"The road is rough," said Eugenio. "Don´t try riding up on your bike. I´ll run you up in the pick-up once I´ve finished down at the hotel."
So I waited. Then I recalled Ibiza in the Sixties.
I recalled me on a Bultaco Matador 350 trial bike.
I pictured myself as I had pictured myself then: chest thrust out as I gripped the wide-spread controls, white canvas trousers over Frye boots, granddad T shirt, sun-bleached locks in a coronet of Moroccan beads. Wow, was I something. Every girl´s dream (as long as she was short of brain) - Poop Poop.
So what had changed? Nothing (I thought) and kicked the Honda alive. No trouble for the first flat fifty meters. Then uphill on a wet rutted track. The front wheel slipped. I hadn´t the strength to hold the bike upright. Over it went. My knee hit the exhaust pipe. I yelped and tried to stand only to hit the exhaust pipe wth my calf.
So what had changed?
As Monica, Eugenio´s young and intelligent wife, remarked. "Hey Simon, you are an old man. You need to be careful."
Careful, I wouldn´t be heading for Tierra del Fuego...
Monday, June 05, 2006
CONFESSION
MONDAY, JUNE 5
First an appology. I criticised the timidity of a school Principal and of a young Licenciada. I mocked their fear that I might contaminate their students. Guatemala suffered thirty years of hell that historians refer to as a clandestine war. People were murdered throughout those thirty years merely on suspicion of wrong thinking. Of course the Principal and the Licenciada were nervous of who I was and of what questions I might ask of their students.
I have ignored, until the past few days here in Guatemala, the cowardice of the novelist. The novelist choses safety. He is always ready with the novelist´s excuse. I hear myself: "It´s a novel. That wasn´t me. That was a character speaking."
Now I write fact as I perceive it; I place my own opinions naked before the reader; I do so in a country in which horrific violence is commonplace and where fear is as normal as eating breakfast.
I have dear friends here. They may supply the chanel to those whom I wish to interview. They may be judged for the opinions I form - not judged by a court of law, judged by those with whom I talk or by the reader.
And I write with no knowledge of even the very immediate future. Yet I fear for this beautiful land. I fear because of its past; I fear because of what I hear and I fear because of what I don´t hear.
I will write. Only permit me a little time...
First an appology. I criticised the timidity of a school Principal and of a young Licenciada. I mocked their fear that I might contaminate their students. Guatemala suffered thirty years of hell that historians refer to as a clandestine war. People were murdered throughout those thirty years merely on suspicion of wrong thinking. Of course the Principal and the Licenciada were nervous of who I was and of what questions I might ask of their students.
I have ignored, until the past few days here in Guatemala, the cowardice of the novelist. The novelist choses safety. He is always ready with the novelist´s excuse. I hear myself: "It´s a novel. That wasn´t me. That was a character speaking."
Now I write fact as I perceive it; I place my own opinions naked before the reader; I do so in a country in which horrific violence is commonplace and where fear is as normal as eating breakfast.
I have dear friends here. They may supply the chanel to those whom I wish to interview. They may be judged for the opinions I form - not judged by a court of law, judged by those with whom I talk or by the reader.
And I write with no knowledge of even the very immediate future. Yet I fear for this beautiful land. I fear because of its past; I fear because of what I hear and I fear because of what I don´t hear.
I will write. Only permit me a little time...
AMONGST FRIENDS
WEDNESDAY, MAY 31
I rode up out of Pana at 9 a.m. on the steep climb towards Guatemala city and was rewarded for the misery of yesterday´s decent with wonderful views both of the lake and of the volcanoes beyond that were dressed in raggedy minskirts of pearl grey cloud. I stopped near the top and watched a launch, made tiny by distance, drag Vees behind it that seemed tired and soon collapsed to leave the water calm and unmarked. The weather stayed dry and I had a fine run across the crest with splendid views of forest way below and of the great volcano dominating the horizon.
I rode into Antigua in early afternoon. I had expected this jewel of Spanish colonial architecture to cast its usual magic. Much had changed in ten years. I recall shops and cafes and guest houses sprinkled amongst private homes. Now there is only commerce. Magnificent 16th century doorways and passages to inner patios have been desecrated with kiosks in the scrabble for an extra dollar. I searched for a room within my budget and was shown a series of windowless cupboards attached to dank horrors that I was assured were bathrooms. Finally I struck lucky both in hotel (Hotel San Vicente, 6A Avenida Sur 6) and owners and in discovering a pair of bright and charming young English honeymooners as fellow guests.
I spoke with my friend, Eugenio, on the telephone. He was on his way up from Guatemala city in his double cab Ford pìck-up (new and luxurious - especially when compared to the bum-numbing Honda). Antigua was a disapointment while the changes in Eugenio´s state were extreme but positive: a beautiful young wife with a great sense of fun and humour and a son of nine months who takes teething in his walker-aided stride.
I rode up out of Pana at 9 a.m. on the steep climb towards Guatemala city and was rewarded for the misery of yesterday´s decent with wonderful views both of the lake and of the volcanoes beyond that were dressed in raggedy minskirts of pearl grey cloud. I stopped near the top and watched a launch, made tiny by distance, drag Vees behind it that seemed tired and soon collapsed to leave the water calm and unmarked. The weather stayed dry and I had a fine run across the crest with splendid views of forest way below and of the great volcano dominating the horizon.
I rode into Antigua in early afternoon. I had expected this jewel of Spanish colonial architecture to cast its usual magic. Much had changed in ten years. I recall shops and cafes and guest houses sprinkled amongst private homes. Now there is only commerce. Magnificent 16th century doorways and passages to inner patios have been desecrated with kiosks in the scrabble for an extra dollar. I searched for a room within my budget and was shown a series of windowless cupboards attached to dank horrors that I was assured were bathrooms. Finally I struck lucky both in hotel (Hotel San Vicente, 6A Avenida Sur 6) and owners and in discovering a pair of bright and charming young English honeymooners as fellow guests.
I spoke with my friend, Eugenio, on the telephone. He was on his way up from Guatemala city in his double cab Ford pìck-up (new and luxurious - especially when compared to the bum-numbing Honda). Antigua was a disapointment while the changes in Eugenio´s state were extreme but positive: a beautiful young wife with a great sense of fun and humour and a son of nine months who takes teething in his walker-aided stride.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
GUATEMALA
SUNDAY TO TUESDAY, MAY 28/30
I seem to have caught an addiction to biking up mountains. From the border I head towards Quetzaltenango. The easier route keeps to the littoral. I turned left on the RN1. A little beyond the intersection, an extraordinary building has been under construction for the past twenty years. I am told that it is a private house; it is the size of hotel. It has minarets and towers and endless wings. It stands on the side of hill behind iron gates decorated with lions rampant. Those whom I asked were either ignorant or reluctant to tell me anything of the owner though I gathered from the interplay that they believed him more than eccentric - a little crazy.
So am I. RN1 climbs over the flank of Ajumulco, at 4,220 metres, the tallest volcano in Guatemala. I stopped for a good breakfast (Q20) at the entrance to San Paulo at the Rancho de los Sora, then headed up in expectation of superb views. The views were wonderful until I hit the first layer of cloud. The road climbed thru the cloud into a thin layer of clear air before climbing on up into the next layer of cloud. The upper clouds were wet. I froze and I dripped and pictured myself in the eyes of a sensible hotel keeper - an aged tramp on a small bike. No, not a good prospect.
Quetztalenango has cobbled streets and a one way system that is bewildering when your specatacles drip rain. I slithered downhill into the Park Central (Cathedral across the square), took a right to escape the traffic and spotted Hotel Kiktem-Ja. The hotel is on a one way street. Continue half a block beyond the square and the hotel is on the right. Drive into the courtyard: a good bed, excellent hot water in the bathroom. More welcoming if the owners repainted floors and ceilings - black is not a lively color! Shame, as window boxes on the first floor gallery giving onto the courtyard drip geraniums.
I am attempting to catch up on the blog and worked at an internet cafe until 9 p.m. The owner of the internet cafe, Mario, is a biker, though above my class: big BMW. Mario directed me to a waiter-serviced cafeteria. Steak with guacamole and refried beans (Q20 - as of now the exchange rate is 7.47 Quetzales to the US dollar). The hotel room is Q125 - perhaps more than I need pay but I was tired, wet and cold and the receptionist didn´t quake at my appearance.
Monday morning, I visted schools. I wore my green shirt, the shirt that failed to earn me an upgrade on Air Lingus.
Students at the first, a private school, were in the middle of exams. The second turned out to be a junior technical college, the students too old. The Principal warned against visiting State schools were teachers were under qualified and English taught from a dictionary. She suggested a second private school with some foreign teachers (US). Access was thru solid iron gates set in a twelve-foot high wall. A statue of the Virgin and one of Christ stood on a patch of neat lawn to the right of the gate. Walling and gateing is the norm in Guatemala and religious statues are a positive. No statues and I would be on Evangelist territory - unsafe for a Catholic, even a lapsed Catholic. I wore the Virgin of Guadalupe in my colar. I preened myself in my green shirt - green for Ireland, Ireland for Catholicism. Who would doubt that I was in a winning situation? I handed the licenciada my visiting card, outlined my purpose and awaited a priest from County Mayo baring a whisky Mac.
The licenciada had doubts. Was she colour blind? Or was she sensible of a recent past in which murder/execution/assasination/fatal accident were a common reward for being suspected of harbouring the wrong political thoughts?
Or did she pick me as a possible sex criminal? Surely not. And, if so, that, also, would be thought crime. Whatever the urge, I am too old and slow and lazy to catch unwilling prey.
The manner in which she fingered my visiting card sapped my initial confidence. She askled what questions I intended asking and said that she would peruse my web site prior to discussing the possibility with the Principal. Would I call her in the morning?
"Of course," I say, while mentally reviewing my web site. The one piece of fiction is chosen for its quality. It is a pece of writing of which I am proud. It is moral. It is humane. Would the licenciada be shocked at discovering that sexuality is its subject matter?
Should I cut the piece out? Could I reach an internet cafe before the licenciada read it? Why was I even thinking of cutting it out. It is good writing. It is what I do best - or believe that I do best: portray characters in moments of intimacy.
The piece continues to exist. I called the licenciada in the morning only to be informed that the Principal wished to examine my web site before reaching a decision.
What could I say, other than weakly wonder whether an elderly English writer could corrupt students of a good school in a mere thirty minutes?
Better get back on my bike...
I took the road down to the littoral. Recent torrential rains have swept bridges away. A truck and trailer had slipped off a corner on one of the dirt-surfaced diversions. Retalhuleu was well worth an uninteresting cup of coffee - the mountains are cloaked in coffee, coffee is Guatemala´s biggest export.
From the coast I took the main highway towards Guatemala City (very busy), then turned off to Lake Atitlan on a road thru rich beautiful farmland and climbs thru sugar and ranches and rubber plantations to coffee and on into clouds in which Friesian dairy-cows were barely visible in a lush paddock.
The clouds turned wet on the way down the mountain to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. I rode down the main street and turned right at the pink walled bakery to a small hotel within gates. Good room with excellentt hot water in the shower for Q75 (I bargained it down from Q100). I walked across the street to the Hotel Dos Mundos and found Room 12 facing onto the pool. The palm trees have grown in the past ten years. Ten years ago I crawled in agony out of that room on all fours begging for a doctor. The doctor arrived on a trial bike and jammed a needle in my butt. So I live and my heart has been good ever since. The doctor worked at the State Health Center up the street. Hearts were his major interest. Back in Havana none of my medical friends believed that free medicine and State employed doctors existed outside Cuba - particularly in Guatemala.
I asked at the Health Center and was told that doctors usually only stay a year. Nor could they put a name to my saviour - sad as I was in Atitlan specifically to thank him.
Evening and the rain bucketed down transforming the main street, now tarmac, earth when I was last here, into a river. Unable to escape, I ordered vegetable soup at a tiny six-table restaurant. The soup was good and freshly-made. I know because of the wait: Q15.
Thunder much of the night and a noisy group of French in the next room packing their plunder from the markets and catching an early bus.
When riding, I smile at anyone I pass. In Mexico I became accustomed to smiles in immediate reply - from everyone, cops included. My small experience is that Guatemalans take more time to respond or are more cautious in responding. Perhaps they have less to smile about or are unused to people smiling at them. When I do receive an answering smile, it has great value.
I seem to have caught an addiction to biking up mountains. From the border I head towards Quetzaltenango. The easier route keeps to the littoral. I turned left on the RN1. A little beyond the intersection, an extraordinary building has been under construction for the past twenty years. I am told that it is a private house; it is the size of hotel. It has minarets and towers and endless wings. It stands on the side of hill behind iron gates decorated with lions rampant. Those whom I asked were either ignorant or reluctant to tell me anything of the owner though I gathered from the interplay that they believed him more than eccentric - a little crazy.
So am I. RN1 climbs over the flank of Ajumulco, at 4,220 metres, the tallest volcano in Guatemala. I stopped for a good breakfast (Q20) at the entrance to San Paulo at the Rancho de los Sora, then headed up in expectation of superb views. The views were wonderful until I hit the first layer of cloud. The road climbed thru the cloud into a thin layer of clear air before climbing on up into the next layer of cloud. The upper clouds were wet. I froze and I dripped and pictured myself in the eyes of a sensible hotel keeper - an aged tramp on a small bike. No, not a good prospect.
Quetztalenango has cobbled streets and a one way system that is bewildering when your specatacles drip rain. I slithered downhill into the Park Central (Cathedral across the square), took a right to escape the traffic and spotted Hotel Kiktem-Ja. The hotel is on a one way street. Continue half a block beyond the square and the hotel is on the right. Drive into the courtyard: a good bed, excellent hot water in the bathroom. More welcoming if the owners repainted floors and ceilings - black is not a lively color! Shame, as window boxes on the first floor gallery giving onto the courtyard drip geraniums.
I am attempting to catch up on the blog and worked at an internet cafe until 9 p.m. The owner of the internet cafe, Mario, is a biker, though above my class: big BMW. Mario directed me to a waiter-serviced cafeteria. Steak with guacamole and refried beans (Q20 - as of now the exchange rate is 7.47 Quetzales to the US dollar). The hotel room is Q125 - perhaps more than I need pay but I was tired, wet and cold and the receptionist didn´t quake at my appearance.
Monday morning, I visted schools. I wore my green shirt, the shirt that failed to earn me an upgrade on Air Lingus.
Students at the first, a private school, were in the middle of exams. The second turned out to be a junior technical college, the students too old. The Principal warned against visiting State schools were teachers were under qualified and English taught from a dictionary. She suggested a second private school with some foreign teachers (US). Access was thru solid iron gates set in a twelve-foot high wall. A statue of the Virgin and one of Christ stood on a patch of neat lawn to the right of the gate. Walling and gateing is the norm in Guatemala and religious statues are a positive. No statues and I would be on Evangelist territory - unsafe for a Catholic, even a lapsed Catholic. I wore the Virgin of Guadalupe in my colar. I preened myself in my green shirt - green for Ireland, Ireland for Catholicism. Who would doubt that I was in a winning situation? I handed the licenciada my visiting card, outlined my purpose and awaited a priest from County Mayo baring a whisky Mac.
The licenciada had doubts. Was she colour blind? Or was she sensible of a recent past in which murder/execution/assasination/fatal accident were a common reward for being suspected of harbouring the wrong political thoughts?
Or did she pick me as a possible sex criminal? Surely not. And, if so, that, also, would be thought crime. Whatever the urge, I am too old and slow and lazy to catch unwilling prey.
The manner in which she fingered my visiting card sapped my initial confidence. She askled what questions I intended asking and said that she would peruse my web site prior to discussing the possibility with the Principal. Would I call her in the morning?
"Of course," I say, while mentally reviewing my web site. The one piece of fiction is chosen for its quality. It is a pece of writing of which I am proud. It is moral. It is humane. Would the licenciada be shocked at discovering that sexuality is its subject matter?
Should I cut the piece out? Could I reach an internet cafe before the licenciada read it? Why was I even thinking of cutting it out. It is good writing. It is what I do best - or believe that I do best: portray characters in moments of intimacy.
The piece continues to exist. I called the licenciada in the morning only to be informed that the Principal wished to examine my web site before reaching a decision.
What could I say, other than weakly wonder whether an elderly English writer could corrupt students of a good school in a mere thirty minutes?
Better get back on my bike...
I took the road down to the littoral. Recent torrential rains have swept bridges away. A truck and trailer had slipped off a corner on one of the dirt-surfaced diversions. Retalhuleu was well worth an uninteresting cup of coffee - the mountains are cloaked in coffee, coffee is Guatemala´s biggest export.
From the coast I took the main highway towards Guatemala City (very busy), then turned off to Lake Atitlan on a road thru rich beautiful farmland and climbs thru sugar and ranches and rubber plantations to coffee and on into clouds in which Friesian dairy-cows were barely visible in a lush paddock.
The clouds turned wet on the way down the mountain to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. I rode down the main street and turned right at the pink walled bakery to a small hotel within gates. Good room with excellentt hot water in the shower for Q75 (I bargained it down from Q100). I walked across the street to the Hotel Dos Mundos and found Room 12 facing onto the pool. The palm trees have grown in the past ten years. Ten years ago I crawled in agony out of that room on all fours begging for a doctor. The doctor arrived on a trial bike and jammed a needle in my butt. So I live and my heart has been good ever since. The doctor worked at the State Health Center up the street. Hearts were his major interest. Back in Havana none of my medical friends believed that free medicine and State employed doctors existed outside Cuba - particularly in Guatemala.
I asked at the Health Center and was told that doctors usually only stay a year. Nor could they put a name to my saviour - sad as I was in Atitlan specifically to thank him.
Evening and the rain bucketed down transforming the main street, now tarmac, earth when I was last here, into a river. Unable to escape, I ordered vegetable soup at a tiny six-table restaurant. The soup was good and freshly-made. I know because of the wait: Q15.
Thunder much of the night and a noisy group of French in the next room packing their plunder from the markets and catching an early bus.
When riding, I smile at anyone I pass. In Mexico I became accustomed to smiles in immediate reply - from everyone, cops included. My small experience is that Guatemalans take more time to respond or are more cautious in responding. Perhaps they have less to smile about or are unused to people smiling at them. When I do receive an answering smile, it has great value.
Monday, May 29, 2006
MEXICO FOR THE MATURE (OLDIES)
SUNDAY, MAY 28
I arrived in Mexico May 6 and left today - three weeks, of which ten days was occupied by buying and registering the Honda. I have crossed Mexico from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific. I have ridden 1885 kilometers and have used 44 liters of gas (approximately 100 miles to the US gallon - smaller than the Imperial) at an approximate cost of $US45. The Honda has carried me up mountains to an altitude of nearly 3000 meters and born me effortlessly along the two littoral.
I have eaten sensibly. I have cleaned my teeth and washed the toothbrush in bottled water. I have drunk bottled water, fresh fruit juice and the occasional beer. My bowels have functioned normally.
I have made myself comfortable within a reasonable budget - this is not an endurance or survival test. Older people have their quirks. Our ablutions are more complicated than in our youth. We need to get up in the night and we value our privacy. I have taken rooms with bathrooms other than in Oaxaca where the bathroom block was across the patio and at the beach where the ablutions were midway down a gravel path behind the row of palapas ($M50). My heavy feet trudging back and forth thru the night must have kept younger guests awake!
I prefer a fan to air-con. A fan keeps the mosquitoes at bay and you don't risk a chill from frequent acute changes in temperature. My final two nights were $M120 - the rest were $M175. All rooms were ample, clean and with double beds. The bathrooms were clean and adequate: shower draining through the tiled floor, hand basin, lavatory. Mexican plumbing requires coseting - put all paper in the bin supplied. On the coast the water was cold - you don't want hot. In Oaxaca the water was hot and I could easily have found a hotel with private bath within the $M175 budget, I preferred to enjoy the Hotel Central's lovely patio.
Staff seldom volunteer to carry bags. Ask and they will do so. Don't be shy of asking.
Laundry is easily arranged, economical ($M30-40) and fast so there is no need to weigh yourself down with clothes. Again, ask the hotel staff for directions.
We Oldies tend to be particular in our diet. We prefer quality to quantity - though, if hungry, a simple set meal of three courses costs between $M35 and $M50. Mindful of my senile diabetes, I ate a cooked breakfast ($M28-35). Mostly I have eaten fruit at midday and in mid-afternoon. I have made do with fruit in the evenings of those days when I ate a late lunch. I have seldom eaten more than single dish. $M70-80 is the standard main course at a good restaurant - good judged by the food rather than by the tablecloths, cutlery and waiter's uniform. Mexico is a nation of cooks. Cross into Guatemala and recognize the difference between comfortable adequacy and true fanaticism. I look for restaurants with full tables.
I was chatting with a woman in the bank today. I remarked on how helpful I had found all Mexican officials. She said that much depends on the tourist's attitude. I always first apologies for putting demands on the official's time. Such small courtesies are valued in countries where salaries are woefully inadequate.
Transport: Mexican main bus services are safe, comfortable and punctual. They serve all cities and major towns. All bus companies use the same terminal. The terminals are clean and safe. Porters are available both to load and unload luggage from the hold. Luggage carried in the hold is ticketed. Cab fares from the bus terminal to your hotel are set at the terminal taxi kiosk so there is no fear of being over charged.
Mexicans dress conservatively. I wear sports shirts during the day, long sleeves at night and black or dark brown chinos with velcroed side pockets. Wallet goes in the left, camera in the right. I wear good solid Church shoes (shoe shine $M10) and carry flip-flops for the beach and bathroom. We Oldies tend to be absentminded. I carry my passport, credit card, bike registration and spare bike keys in a waterproof purse hung on a steel cord and tucked inside my pants - the purse was an invaluable gift from my sister-in-law, Caroline. She also gave me a Boots first aid kit which I can top up as needs be. Chemists will advise on any small medical problem and subscribe the remedy. I have a burn on my leg from the exhaust for which a chemist subscribed a good antibiotic cream.
I can only write of my own experiences. Riding the Honda enables me to stop where I want. An old man on a bike arouses curiosity and is an easy introduction. I have chatted with campesinos on the road side, with minor and middle officials, those in commerce and the professional classes - lawyers, doctors, an architect, dentist. I have not met any of the white oligarchy that rules Mexico - merely a couple of their servants. I have been shamed by the warmth of Mexican hospitality and courtesy. I write of every contact over these past three weeks. Oh, that we Brits treated foreigners with such universal kindness.
Mexicans appear to like the elderly. They keep their elderly at home rather than park them in a geriatric's garage. Do I recommend Mexico as a tourist destination for Oldies? Definitely
Turn off the TV, pack your bags, go...
I arrived in Mexico May 6 and left today - three weeks, of which ten days was occupied by buying and registering the Honda. I have crossed Mexico from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific. I have ridden 1885 kilometers and have used 44 liters of gas (approximately 100 miles to the US gallon - smaller than the Imperial) at an approximate cost of $US45. The Honda has carried me up mountains to an altitude of nearly 3000 meters and born me effortlessly along the two littoral.
I have eaten sensibly. I have cleaned my teeth and washed the toothbrush in bottled water. I have drunk bottled water, fresh fruit juice and the occasional beer. My bowels have functioned normally.
I have made myself comfortable within a reasonable budget - this is not an endurance or survival test. Older people have their quirks. Our ablutions are more complicated than in our youth. We need to get up in the night and we value our privacy. I have taken rooms with bathrooms other than in Oaxaca where the bathroom block was across the patio and at the beach where the ablutions were midway down a gravel path behind the row of palapas ($M50). My heavy feet trudging back and forth thru the night must have kept younger guests awake!
I prefer a fan to air-con. A fan keeps the mosquitoes at bay and you don't risk a chill from frequent acute changes in temperature. My final two nights were $M120 - the rest were $M175. All rooms were ample, clean and with double beds. The bathrooms were clean and adequate: shower draining through the tiled floor, hand basin, lavatory. Mexican plumbing requires coseting - put all paper in the bin supplied. On the coast the water was cold - you don't want hot. In Oaxaca the water was hot and I could easily have found a hotel with private bath within the $M175 budget, I preferred to enjoy the Hotel Central's lovely patio.
Staff seldom volunteer to carry bags. Ask and they will do so. Don't be shy of asking.
Laundry is easily arranged, economical ($M30-40) and fast so there is no need to weigh yourself down with clothes. Again, ask the hotel staff for directions.
We Oldies tend to be particular in our diet. We prefer quality to quantity - though, if hungry, a simple set meal of three courses costs between $M35 and $M50. Mindful of my senile diabetes, I ate a cooked breakfast ($M28-35). Mostly I have eaten fruit at midday and in mid-afternoon. I have made do with fruit in the evenings of those days when I ate a late lunch. I have seldom eaten more than single dish. $M70-80 is the standard main course at a good restaurant - good judged by the food rather than by the tablecloths, cutlery and waiter's uniform. Mexico is a nation of cooks. Cross into Guatemala and recognize the difference between comfortable adequacy and true fanaticism. I look for restaurants with full tables.
I was chatting with a woman in the bank today. I remarked on how helpful I had found all Mexican officials. She said that much depends on the tourist's attitude. I always first apologies for putting demands on the official's time. Such small courtesies are valued in countries where salaries are woefully inadequate.
Transport: Mexican main bus services are safe, comfortable and punctual. They serve all cities and major towns. All bus companies use the same terminal. The terminals are clean and safe. Porters are available both to load and unload luggage from the hold. Luggage carried in the hold is ticketed. Cab fares from the bus terminal to your hotel are set at the terminal taxi kiosk so there is no fear of being over charged.
Mexicans dress conservatively. I wear sports shirts during the day, long sleeves at night and black or dark brown chinos with velcroed side pockets. Wallet goes in the left, camera in the right. I wear good solid Church shoes (shoe shine $M10) and carry flip-flops for the beach and bathroom. We Oldies tend to be absentminded. I carry my passport, credit card, bike registration and spare bike keys in a waterproof purse hung on a steel cord and tucked inside my pants - the purse was an invaluable gift from my sister-in-law, Caroline. She also gave me a Boots first aid kit which I can top up as needs be. Chemists will advise on any small medical problem and subscribe the remedy. I have a burn on my leg from the exhaust for which a chemist subscribed a good antibiotic cream.
I can only write of my own experiences. Riding the Honda enables me to stop where I want. An old man on a bike arouses curiosity and is an easy introduction. I have chatted with campesinos on the road side, with minor and middle officials, those in commerce and the professional classes - lawyers, doctors, an architect, dentist. I have not met any of the white oligarchy that rules Mexico - merely a couple of their servants. I have been shamed by the warmth of Mexican hospitality and courtesy. I write of every contact over these past three weeks. Oh, that we Brits treated foreigners with such universal kindness.
Mexicans appear to like the elderly. They keep their elderly at home rather than park them in a geriatric's garage. Do I recommend Mexico as a tourist destination for Oldies? Definitely
Turn off the TV, pack your bags, go...
ACROSS THE FRONTIER INTO GUATEMALA
SUNDAY, MAY 28
The frontier at Talisman is recommended to the private motorist as the most trouble free. However, some guide books warn of delays, over charging, swindles by money changers, robbery in the public lavatories, etc. and the neccessity of an international driving permit if entering Guatemala.
Maybe this all true.
I don't have an international driving permit.
You must have photocopies of your car registration papers, of your driving permit (mine is standard plastic UK and EU) and of the details pages of your passport.
Leaving Mexico, I was five minutes at Immigration most of which was taken up with where was I going and humorous hopes that I would survive and had I enjoyed Mexico?
I changed money with a man in a stetson while seated on my bike. He gave the correct rate.
I stopped a couple of minnutes at the Guatemalan sanitation post - mostly we joked. I was a little over thirty minutes at Immigration and customs. The three customs officers came out of the office to wave me on my way.
The frontier at Talisman is recommended to the private motorist as the most trouble free. However, some guide books warn of delays, over charging, swindles by money changers, robbery in the public lavatories, etc. and the neccessity of an international driving permit if entering Guatemala.
Maybe this all true.
I don't have an international driving permit.
You must have photocopies of your car registration papers, of your driving permit (mine is standard plastic UK and EU) and of the details pages of your passport.
Leaving Mexico, I was five minutes at Immigration most of which was taken up with where was I going and humorous hopes that I would survive and had I enjoyed Mexico?
I changed money with a man in a stetson while seated on my bike. He gave the correct rate.
I stopped a couple of minnutes at the Guatemalan sanitation post - mostly we joked. I was a little over thirty minutes at Immigration and customs. The three customs officers came out of the office to wave me on my way.
WRITERS WRITE
SATURDAY, MAY 27
Writers write. They also suffer painful cramps in the thighs at night if they are old and dumb and feel challenged and ride a small motorcycle 500 Ks acros Oaxaca and the Chiapas litoral in a day. The Honda was mocked, not the man. The Honda remains victorious.
AND THERE ARE NO SEVEN-FOOT-TALL ALIENS IN CENTRAL AMERICA, IN OR OUT OF SARCOPHAGI. Go recalibrate yourself for the umpteenth time. Shades of Ibiza sixties...
I worked an hour last night at a pleasant internet cafe peopled by a bunch of students with whom I chatted before being directed to an old-fashioned cafe, dark wood-panelling and wood-bladed celing fans. Drank a beer, ate good liver and onions with chili AND a flan: $M71
Took my laundry round the corner ($M38 for 3Ks, wash, iron and ready in two hours). Breakfast outdoors on the central square. Cafe on the right facing uphill is best value ($M28). The electricity had been cut at last night's internet cafe! Found another, more comfortable, equally pleasant people and worked for ten hours ($M100) with only a break to fetch my laundry and eat a fruit salad. People-watched on the central square, drank a beer and ate a steak. My last meal in Mexico...
Writers write. They also suffer painful cramps in the thighs at night if they are old and dumb and feel challenged and ride a small motorcycle 500 Ks acros Oaxaca and the Chiapas litoral in a day. The Honda was mocked, not the man. The Honda remains victorious.
AND THERE ARE NO SEVEN-FOOT-TALL ALIENS IN CENTRAL AMERICA, IN OR OUT OF SARCOPHAGI. Go recalibrate yourself for the umpteenth time. Shades of Ibiza sixties...
I worked an hour last night at a pleasant internet cafe peopled by a bunch of students with whom I chatted before being directed to an old-fashioned cafe, dark wood-panelling and wood-bladed celing fans. Drank a beer, ate good liver and onions with chili AND a flan: $M71
Took my laundry round the corner ($M38 for 3Ks, wash, iron and ready in two hours). Breakfast outdoors on the central square. Cafe on the right facing uphill is best value ($M28). The electricity had been cut at last night's internet cafe! Found another, more comfortable, equally pleasant people and worked for ten hours ($M100) with only a break to fetch my laundry and eat a fruit salad. People-watched on the central square, drank a beer and ate a steak. My last meal in Mexico...
MAD MAX
FRIDAY, MAY, 26
I long to stay at this small village, to record the happenings. I am commited to a different book.
Let this be clear: the mockery of a chemicaly-recalibrated fortysomething (yes, all of that), a surf addict who states as fact that corpses of seven-foot-tall aliens have been discovered in stone sarcophagus unearthed from the burial chambers beneath Central America's pyramids - that I should be so adolescent (in my dotage) as to rise to the challenge of such a man? Never. Yet I find myself on the road at 7 a.m. and determined to reach Tapachula - 500 Ks.
The coast road is glorious with it trees and blossoms and the Honda slices through fresh scent. A freeway bypasses Salina del Cruz and Tehuantepec: $M12.50. I stop for breakfast at a roadside palapa $M28. At the state border an official welcomes me to Chiapas.
"To Argentina? Patagonia? Bravo," he tells me and shakes my hand and claps me on the back.
The Chiapas litoral is mile after mile of magnificent green paddocks and cows and horses grazing in the shade of trees that would dwarf the tallest oak in an English parkland. Cloud blankets forested mountains that rise directly behind the ranches.
So my bum is numb - this is a countyman's visual heaven...
I stop for cold water and a packet of nuts at a tiny roadside shack, two of the white tables, six chairs. A man in uniform is the only customer. The earth gives way beneath the weight of the Honda and it tumbles sideways. The man tries to save the bike and burns his palm on the exhaust. He holds ice in his hand and boasts of the beauty of Chiapas and enquires of my journey and what will I write of Mexico.
The owner of the shack and her daughter listen, as does an old white man with pale blue eyes and a grey bristle-beard who has shuffled across the highway from a five-hut village.
"That Mexcio is an immensely rich and beautiful country with many poor people," I answer.
My listeners murmur their assent. Despite my protests, the man in uniform and with the painfully burnt hand insists on paying for my water and the packet of nuts.
Mexican generosity is inescapable. There is a moment in which I consider turning back to write that other book.
Instead I ride on into the evening and Tehuantepec and get caught in the rain as I try to decypher the guidebook's directions to a hotel. Who writes this stuff? ONE BLOCK FROM THE CENTRAL SQUARE? A square has four sides and is more than one block long and all streets are part of an incomprehensible one way system. A kind young man in jewellery suggests two hotels. He promises taht both are clean, cheap and comfortable. His directions are presice. I find without difficulty the Hotel Cervantina. Saintly staff hike the Honda over the high curb and wheel it to the far end of an entrance lobby that runs the full depth of the hotel. I take a room on the top floor, double bed, fan, bathroom and the best, biggest, thickest bath towell I have yet experienced: $M120 ($M150 for a room with TV).
Here are clear directions, understandable by even a fat wet old Toad on a bike in the rain: go up hill on the side of the central square oposit the church. Turn right midway up the square. Drive one block and turn right. The Hotel Feliz is on the left. It is clean, modern, comfortable and excellent value at $M200. The hotel's parking is immediately prior to the hotel's entrance so stop outside the garage entrance or you must circle the block again.
For the cheaper Hotel Cervantina take the same turning off the square and drive five blocks, turn right and drive one block, then right again. The Cervantina is on your right.
I long to stay at this small village, to record the happenings. I am commited to a different book.
Let this be clear: the mockery of a chemicaly-recalibrated fortysomething (yes, all of that), a surf addict who states as fact that corpses of seven-foot-tall aliens have been discovered in stone sarcophagus unearthed from the burial chambers beneath Central America's pyramids - that I should be so adolescent (in my dotage) as to rise to the challenge of such a man? Never. Yet I find myself on the road at 7 a.m. and determined to reach Tapachula - 500 Ks.
The coast road is glorious with it trees and blossoms and the Honda slices through fresh scent. A freeway bypasses Salina del Cruz and Tehuantepec: $M12.50. I stop for breakfast at a roadside palapa $M28. At the state border an official welcomes me to Chiapas.
"To Argentina? Patagonia? Bravo," he tells me and shakes my hand and claps me on the back.
The Chiapas litoral is mile after mile of magnificent green paddocks and cows and horses grazing in the shade of trees that would dwarf the tallest oak in an English parkland. Cloud blankets forested mountains that rise directly behind the ranches.
So my bum is numb - this is a countyman's visual heaven...
I stop for cold water and a packet of nuts at a tiny roadside shack, two of the white tables, six chairs. A man in uniform is the only customer. The earth gives way beneath the weight of the Honda and it tumbles sideways. The man tries to save the bike and burns his palm on the exhaust. He holds ice in his hand and boasts of the beauty of Chiapas and enquires of my journey and what will I write of Mexico.
The owner of the shack and her daughter listen, as does an old white man with pale blue eyes and a grey bristle-beard who has shuffled across the highway from a five-hut village.
"That Mexcio is an immensely rich and beautiful country with many poor people," I answer.
My listeners murmur their assent. Despite my protests, the man in uniform and with the painfully burnt hand insists on paying for my water and the packet of nuts.
Mexican generosity is inescapable. There is a moment in which I consider turning back to write that other book.
Instead I ride on into the evening and Tehuantepec and get caught in the rain as I try to decypher the guidebook's directions to a hotel. Who writes this stuff? ONE BLOCK FROM THE CENTRAL SQUARE? A square has four sides and is more than one block long and all streets are part of an incomprehensible one way system. A kind young man in jewellery suggests two hotels. He promises taht both are clean, cheap and comfortable. His directions are presice. I find without difficulty the Hotel Cervantina. Saintly staff hike the Honda over the high curb and wheel it to the far end of an entrance lobby that runs the full depth of the hotel. I take a room on the top floor, double bed, fan, bathroom and the best, biggest, thickest bath towell I have yet experienced: $M120 ($M150 for a room with TV).
Here are clear directions, understandable by even a fat wet old Toad on a bike in the rain: go up hill on the side of the central square oposit the church. Turn right midway up the square. Drive one block and turn right. The Hotel Feliz is on the left. It is clean, modern, comfortable and excellent value at $M200. The hotel's parking is immediately prior to the hotel's entrance so stop outside the garage entrance or you must circle the block again.
For the cheaper Hotel Cervantina take the same turning off the square and drive five blocks, turn right and drive one block, then right again. The Cervantina is on your right.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
IDYLLIC COMMUNITY THREATENED
THURSDAY, MAY 25
This is a long blog. Be patient. It concerns a small Mexican village on The Pacific coast, a community in which the villagers take turns collecting the garbage, being police officer or whatever requires doing. The community is under threat.
I heard of the village at the Hotel Central, Oaxaca, from a charming young Irish traveler, Eoin Hennesy. Eoin was flying home from Mexico City after traveling thru much of South and Central America. He has a web site: www.slackpackers.org
Eoin was the first person with whom I had talked in English since boarding the bus in Dallas. He suffered my verbal diarrhea patiently, learnt of my interest in students and told me of a Korean-American teaching school on the Pacific coast: surely a curious and unique combination? I was tempted. True, it was out of my way. One hundred and forty Ks out of my way...
What a morning. Rain had fallen heavily in the night and you could taste a sharp fresh cleanliness to the air. An excellent highway unwound thru hills speckled with the white blossom of frangapani trees and of a tree that I think was a wild fig and sudden patches of a deep rose creeper and one of startling blue. Vultures and buzzards floated overhead on dawn patrol for whatever had been flattened by the night's traffic. The sea and miles of deserted beach appeared between the hills. I had rested the previous day. My bum had un-numbed. Biking at its best!!!
A newly concreted track led off the coastal highway. The concrete dipped over a hill and ended. I rode cautiously downhill on the dirt and discovered a small square. I stopped at a home opposite an obviously official building and enquired of a man seated in one of those bought-on-sale white plastic chairs whether the building was the school. He asked why and I related my search for a Korean-American teaching school.
"Sit a little," he invited and introduced himself as Eduardo. The Korean (no villager referred to him as the American, nor even as the Korean American) didn't teach at the school. He gave private lessons to children and adults. He lived in a house nearer the beach. Normally the Korean would be watching the sea thru his binoculars. Eduardo would show me his house. Eduardo would collect the village garbage later in the black Ford pickup he had brought back from El Norte. Then Eduardo would show me. Meanwhile I must give an account of myself and why did I wish to meet with the Korean.
Children surrounded us, a small tribe, the elders perhaps listening while the young ones giggled and pushed at each other. I was off the highway. There was no hurry, nor moving Eduardo from the slow course of his investigation.
I told of my journey and that I was a writer and an Ingles.
Inglaterra? Was that close to El Norte?
Not close, I said. In Europe. In the North of Europe.
Perhaps satisfied, Eduardo related a little of his own life, of the three years in Taos where he had worked as a roofer for a gringo, a good employer who had insured his workers, even the ilegales (fortunate, as Eduardo had injured two fingers while on a roof).
In turn, I spoke of my father-in-law, a fine, dearly-beloved Irishman; how he had come to England in search of work and who's arm was trapped in a cement mixer when he was working alone on the roof of a tall apartment building.
My father-in-law and two brothers came to England on the false promise of well-paid work. Eduardo paid a smuggler $1,500 US to lead him across the frontier. Later Eduardo saved enough to pay the same amount to have his wife brought across. A daughter had been born in El Norte and had papers.
Eduardo had intended returning to Taos in June. He was a good worker. His job waited. Now there were new laws and greater difficulties and dangers in crossing the frontier. Eduardo was unsure whether crossing was possible.
The economy of his family depended on his going. These were anxious times.
Did many villagers go to the North?
Many, Eduardo said. To Taos, alone, more than one hundred.
Did they return?
My question was stupid. Naturally people returned. This was their village. Though now - those that were away - they would be afraid to return home. The new conditions might force them to stay in the North to be sure of sending money home. How could families survive without money? Here in the village, there was no work.
Then, almost casually, Eduardo mentioned the torneo.
In June an international surfing tournament would be held on the village beach.
Outsiders were organizers of the tournament. The tournament would be on television and reported with photographs in magazines and newspapers. The village would be famous. Many people would visit.
"More money will come," I suggested.
"Yes," Eduardo said, though he seemed uncertain, hesitant.
"The value of property will rise,"
"Yes," Eduardo said. "Yes, many people would wish to buy lots."
I told him of the early days in Ibiza, the Fifties, and that all the young men were friends. We , the few foreigners, together with the Ibicencos, partied together, we went to the beach together, went fishing: that twenty years later my then wife, Cate, and I were dining in The Olive Tree in San Antonio. The owner was one of those young men.
"How is Paco Tuels?" we asked. "How is Juan Jesus? Antonio of the ferry?"
The restaurateur's replies were noncommittal. Later, when the rush had cleared, he sat at our table and we drank brandy together and he told us, sadly: "In the days you remember, we were all friends. Now we have become competitors."
I followed Eduardo thru the village and waited while he loaded garbage from other families. Many of the homes are in that, to us, curious and very Mexican state of waiting for more funds to be extended or finished or painted. It is a small village, few more than a hundred houses, and easily swallowed - a small mouthful to a rich, powerful investor with the right political links. This was the story of Ibiza.
The road to the beach is gated. The village charges visitors an admission of ten pesos.
Eduardo enquired for the Korean. Yes, he had gone thru the gate an hour or more ago.
Eduardo stopped me in my hunt for change. The gate was opened. Thus an obligation of friendship to the village was placed on me. This seemed to me to be quite deliberate. I am, of course, a writer, and possess a writer's imagination...
The dirt track to the beach has been graded. A rich huerto lies below the track to the left with papaya and other fruit trees. The huerto ends in a lagoon that fills at high tide and is flooded with fresh water when there is heavy rain. The track leads to a sand parking lot shaded up close by a few small trees. A small concrete building houses clean lavatories and showers, his and hers. A big palapa shades a bar and kitchen and a score of the standard white plastic tables and white plastic chairs. An adjoining palapa shades a few hammocks. A steep hill surrounds the right end of a gently curving mile of perfect sand. The hill jabs a point of massive boulders into the sea. The surf breaks at the point. The surf is vertical and forms a perfect barrel again and again and again...and again.
The palapas belongs to the community. Two young women tend bar. One is remarkably pretty. And there is an older woman who I presume is the cook. If so, she should be described as a chef. The snapper she grilled was perfect. But I get ahead of my story...
I drove into the parking lot and spotted the Korean crossing from the palapa toward a four-by-four. He was unmistakable. He has the perfect body of a movie Kung Fu warrior. He was wearing a towel draped over his head as if he were a monk striving to concentrate on his brievary - or merely exclude the distractions of the outside world. The villagers call him the Korean. I prefer the Monk - though I doubt that he is celibate.
I said, "I think I've come to see you."
Even monks can be surprised.
I explained my mission, that Eoin had told me of him and told me that he taught English at the village High school: that I had already learnt that this was incorrect, that he gave private lessons.
Much was happening in the village and my sudden appearance made the Monk anxious. He asked how I learnt of Eoin's mistake and how I knew where to find him. I replied that I had been told by Eduardo and added that this was a small village and that most villagers must know his movements - certainly those who were interested.
The Monk admitted this truth. However, he remained suspicious and excused himself. He had students in the afternoon and must prepare.
Perhaps later, I suggested.
Yes, perhaps later - though he was unenthusiastic.
I ordered a beer in the palapa and watched the surfers out at the point. Later, I noticed the Monk in conversation with a tall young blond woman under the second palapa, the palapa shading the hammocks. The towel was back protecting the Monk's privacy.
A loud confident voice heralded the entry of four men and a young, tall, good-looking woman, perhaps a gringa. The voice was a big burly man over-accustomed to dining people on a corporate expense account: black hair streaked with silver, clipped moustache, fleshily sensual ears. Confident of his power, he wore shorts and a T shirt while the other three men were uncomfotarbly warm in slacks. One wore a long sleeve shirt and wore glasses and carried a briefcase. The gofer, I thought as he crossed to the bar to order. I caught his attention. We spoke and found that we shared Cuba as an experience, he having studied tourism in Havana for two years. Now he was an official at the Tourism board.
"The torneo," I presumed - as if fluent in village happenings.
Yes, the torneo.
Mister Big represented the money, the sponsors. He laid out plans and papers and all the talking came from him. I was at the wrong end of a double table to overhear clearly. Frustrated, I ordered the grilled snapper at the bar, then returned to the end of my table closest to the money group. Now I could overhear much of what Mister Big said. He had plans for the torneo, where marquees must be sited, new palapas, judges' stands.
The gofer was a non-contributor - perhaps he held a watching brief. Of the remaining two men one was quiet, yet clearly necessary and in need of persuasion. Later I discovered that he was the President of the community. The other man I will call Mister Keen. He wore a shirt with no sleeves and a baseball cap and and, in eagerness, leant across the table towards Mister Big. The woman interjected on occasion and ordered water melon from the bar (was she with Mister Big? Perhaps the sponsors? Or a TV company?).
Listening, I wondered what Mister Big really wanted. Unbelievable that those behind him would fund, out of the goodness of their hearts, an international torneo on an unknown beach that possessed no infrastructure? I looked down the perfect beach with the perfect surf and saw the apartment blocks and the hotels and the swanky surf club at which the villagers would be servants. It seemed to me intolerably sad. Yet this was the perfect moment for the money men to make their move. The villagers were afraid of a future in which passage to the north was closed. How many would hold out against alternative blandishments? How many could hold out?
I imagined that Mister Keen must be already mounting the Yes campaign. And the President?
He seemed almost bewildered, and as much by the physical force of Mister Big as by Mister Big's fluent exercise of the language of persuasion.
The discussion ended. Mister Big passed my table. He had noticed my conversation with the gofer and was professional in his attention to detail. Could I be important in even the smallest way?
Am I being cruel, vindictive? Am I demeaning a decent man, a man who was naturally friendly (though friendliness was also his stock in trade)?
He delighted with the open warmth and charm of his greeting.
"How's it going?" I asked with equal warmth.
"Difficult, though we're giving them everything they ask for," he said - then dismissed the weight of difficulties with a lift of those powerful shoulders. "Though I've had easier tasks in the capital on a major project."
"In the capital you know who to pay," I said.
"Precisely." My understanding was proof that we were on the same side - what ever the side was. He was employed by a company of lobbyists, men who knew the right people to make things happen. He wrote down his address and his e:mail and we shook hands and I watched him walk toughly to his vehicle and thought, sadly, that the teeth were already here, the teeth of the mouth that would devour a community...
The staff of the palapa had watched Mister Big's and my conversation. Now they were watching me, perhaps waiting. I worried that I was arrogant in judging the best interests of a community of which I knew so little. A surfer's paradise could be a villager's purgatory. And yet...
So I ordered a fresh beer and sat facing the three women and with my back to the sea. The torneo, what did they think?
There were small shrugs of uncertainty. "We will see," the pretty one said and the others nodded. Yes, they would see. Yet it seemed to me obvious that they had no concept of what they might see. I recalled for them my first visit to a small town on a lake near the wondrous Maya site of Tikal in Guatemala. Thirty or more years ago the women of the town met at a different house each night to arrange the flowers and decorate the church. A mere ten years later, television had reached the town. I found only three women arranging the flowers. The rest were at home watching a screen. The companionship of those evenings was dead. The rich sense of community was dead. Nothing remained that would tempt their children to return.
The older woman, the chef, was the first to nod. I asked where I could stay and the women directed me to a row of small, wood-walled palapas by the entry gate. The owner had been the first of the village to reach Taos. In Taos, he was legal and had his own business. He had returned. What did he think of the torneo?
"We will see."
I unloaded the bike, showered, changed into shorts, and returned to the beach. The Monk was reading at the centre table beneath the palapa. The towel protected him.
Brave, I approached. I asked if he was free. Might I sit with him? So we began what quickly became a friendship to be treasured.
The Monk had come to the US when eleven-years-old. He told me of his schooling in the US: of scholarships to private school in California, to Berkeley and Grad school at Harvard. He interspersed his later studies with spells in the world of banking. He was respectable. He did the right thing. He wore the right suit and the right shoes and the right tie...And sometimes he surfed.
Harvard undid him. He was studying finance with grad students from similar money-management backgrounds. He discovered something missing in them. They had no fixed belief in right and wrong. These were the future leaders of Corporate America. The Monk saw an endless parade of Enrons, of small investors bankrupted or robbed of their pensions. At first he was merely uncomfortable in their company. Perhaps he became nervous of infection. Perhaps he became nervous of his father's judgment, his father a famously crusading and respected newspaper editor back in Korea, a poet, a writer of important books. So the Monk loaded his surfboards on his truck and drove south and discovered a beach with the perfect wave.
Only later, and bit by bit, did he discover a community that was self-protecting and to which each member contributed. The Monk taught English. This had seemed to him sufficient contribution until the torneo surfaced. He found remarkable that I understood the threat and that we shared a near apocalyptic vision. He suspected that I was an investigative journalist. He hoped that I was an investigative journalist.
Merely a mediocre novelist.
But I would write of this?
Certainly.
Would I write that Mister Big and his backers were paying the community 4,500 pesos for the use of the beach (approximately five thousand dollars US) - that the community was to provide a workforce of two hundred men to complement the three hundred men Mister Big would import?
That the community accepted so small a fee underlined the danger. Mister Big must be licking his lips.
For the moment no land could be sold to an outsider without the community's agreement. That could change. For the right people, political pressure is easily acquired - such is Mexico's history. A major tourist development must be in the nation's interest (the developers' interest being synonymous with the nation).
The Monk's nightmare is not the destruction of his perfect beach. It is that these people with small experience or understanding of the outside world, people who have welcomed him warmly, will lose the very special dignity that accompanies their independence, that they will be dispossessed and become servants in their own house. Already Mister Keen was working on their fears and tempting them with profit. Others had approached the Monk for advice. He was a banker. He knew the worth of holding a torneo. So he advised them and was summoned by the representative of those with power and warned that it was dangerous for him to interfere.
Threatening the Monk is an error. He is his father's son. He marshals his forces.
We shared a simple dinner of tortillas that evening on the terrace of a local store. We drank cold Corona beer and listened to the quiet anger of the store keeper: four thousand five hundred pesos - a town with no health centre, a town with so many children. At least, they should have demanded a health centre for the community.
We sensed, without looking, that other villagers listened, men and women in the background and hidden by the night.
I paid the princely sum of $37 Mexican for 6 beers and a plate of meat-stuffed tacos.
And I bore, with good humor, the belittling of my Honda by a chemically-recalibrated surf addict of LATE middle-age. Hah!
And later, in bed, I thought of the senators and congressman in Washington and of the decisions they make concerning the frontier that is not a frontier and of how little interest or understanding they have in the destructiveness of their decisions. Their snouts are in the pork-barrel. They wish to keep them there. A small community in Mexico? Let it die in the name of progress...
This is a long blog. Be patient. It concerns a small Mexican village on The Pacific coast, a community in which the villagers take turns collecting the garbage, being police officer or whatever requires doing. The community is under threat.
I heard of the village at the Hotel Central, Oaxaca, from a charming young Irish traveler, Eoin Hennesy. Eoin was flying home from Mexico City after traveling thru much of South and Central America. He has a web site: www.slackpackers.org
Eoin was the first person with whom I had talked in English since boarding the bus in Dallas. He suffered my verbal diarrhea patiently, learnt of my interest in students and told me of a Korean-American teaching school on the Pacific coast: surely a curious and unique combination? I was tempted. True, it was out of my way. One hundred and forty Ks out of my way...
What a morning. Rain had fallen heavily in the night and you could taste a sharp fresh cleanliness to the air. An excellent highway unwound thru hills speckled with the white blossom of frangapani trees and of a tree that I think was a wild fig and sudden patches of a deep rose creeper and one of startling blue. Vultures and buzzards floated overhead on dawn patrol for whatever had been flattened by the night's traffic. The sea and miles of deserted beach appeared between the hills. I had rested the previous day. My bum had un-numbed. Biking at its best!!!
A newly concreted track led off the coastal highway. The concrete dipped over a hill and ended. I rode cautiously downhill on the dirt and discovered a small square. I stopped at a home opposite an obviously official building and enquired of a man seated in one of those bought-on-sale white plastic chairs whether the building was the school. He asked why and I related my search for a Korean-American teaching school.
"Sit a little," he invited and introduced himself as Eduardo. The Korean (no villager referred to him as the American, nor even as the Korean American) didn't teach at the school. He gave private lessons to children and adults. He lived in a house nearer the beach. Normally the Korean would be watching the sea thru his binoculars. Eduardo would show me his house. Eduardo would collect the village garbage later in the black Ford pickup he had brought back from El Norte. Then Eduardo would show me. Meanwhile I must give an account of myself and why did I wish to meet with the Korean.
Children surrounded us, a small tribe, the elders perhaps listening while the young ones giggled and pushed at each other. I was off the highway. There was no hurry, nor moving Eduardo from the slow course of his investigation.
I told of my journey and that I was a writer and an Ingles.
Inglaterra? Was that close to El Norte?
Not close, I said. In Europe. In the North of Europe.
Perhaps satisfied, Eduardo related a little of his own life, of the three years in Taos where he had worked as a roofer for a gringo, a good employer who had insured his workers, even the ilegales (fortunate, as Eduardo had injured two fingers while on a roof).
In turn, I spoke of my father-in-law, a fine, dearly-beloved Irishman; how he had come to England in search of work and who's arm was trapped in a cement mixer when he was working alone on the roof of a tall apartment building.
My father-in-law and two brothers came to England on the false promise of well-paid work. Eduardo paid a smuggler $1,500 US to lead him across the frontier. Later Eduardo saved enough to pay the same amount to have his wife brought across. A daughter had been born in El Norte and had papers.
Eduardo had intended returning to Taos in June. He was a good worker. His job waited. Now there were new laws and greater difficulties and dangers in crossing the frontier. Eduardo was unsure whether crossing was possible.
The economy of his family depended on his going. These were anxious times.
Did many villagers go to the North?
Many, Eduardo said. To Taos, alone, more than one hundred.
Did they return?
My question was stupid. Naturally people returned. This was their village. Though now - those that were away - they would be afraid to return home. The new conditions might force them to stay in the North to be sure of sending money home. How could families survive without money? Here in the village, there was no work.
Then, almost casually, Eduardo mentioned the torneo.
In June an international surfing tournament would be held on the village beach.
Outsiders were organizers of the tournament. The tournament would be on television and reported with photographs in magazines and newspapers. The village would be famous. Many people would visit.
"More money will come," I suggested.
"Yes," Eduardo said, though he seemed uncertain, hesitant.
"The value of property will rise,"
"Yes," Eduardo said. "Yes, many people would wish to buy lots."
I told him of the early days in Ibiza, the Fifties, and that all the young men were friends. We , the few foreigners, together with the Ibicencos, partied together, we went to the beach together, went fishing: that twenty years later my then wife, Cate, and I were dining in The Olive Tree in San Antonio. The owner was one of those young men.
"How is Paco Tuels?" we asked. "How is Juan Jesus? Antonio of the ferry?"
The restaurateur's replies were noncommittal. Later, when the rush had cleared, he sat at our table and we drank brandy together and he told us, sadly: "In the days you remember, we were all friends. Now we have become competitors."
I followed Eduardo thru the village and waited while he loaded garbage from other families. Many of the homes are in that, to us, curious and very Mexican state of waiting for more funds to be extended or finished or painted. It is a small village, few more than a hundred houses, and easily swallowed - a small mouthful to a rich, powerful investor with the right political links. This was the story of Ibiza.
The road to the beach is gated. The village charges visitors an admission of ten pesos.
Eduardo enquired for the Korean. Yes, he had gone thru the gate an hour or more ago.
Eduardo stopped me in my hunt for change. The gate was opened. Thus an obligation of friendship to the village was placed on me. This seemed to me to be quite deliberate. I am, of course, a writer, and possess a writer's imagination...
The dirt track to the beach has been graded. A rich huerto lies below the track to the left with papaya and other fruit trees. The huerto ends in a lagoon that fills at high tide and is flooded with fresh water when there is heavy rain. The track leads to a sand parking lot shaded up close by a few small trees. A small concrete building houses clean lavatories and showers, his and hers. A big palapa shades a bar and kitchen and a score of the standard white plastic tables and white plastic chairs. An adjoining palapa shades a few hammocks. A steep hill surrounds the right end of a gently curving mile of perfect sand. The hill jabs a point of massive boulders into the sea. The surf breaks at the point. The surf is vertical and forms a perfect barrel again and again and again...and again.
The palapas belongs to the community. Two young women tend bar. One is remarkably pretty. And there is an older woman who I presume is the cook. If so, she should be described as a chef. The snapper she grilled was perfect. But I get ahead of my story...
I drove into the parking lot and spotted the Korean crossing from the palapa toward a four-by-four. He was unmistakable. He has the perfect body of a movie Kung Fu warrior. He was wearing a towel draped over his head as if he were a monk striving to concentrate on his brievary - or merely exclude the distractions of the outside world. The villagers call him the Korean. I prefer the Monk - though I doubt that he is celibate.
I said, "I think I've come to see you."
Even monks can be surprised.
I explained my mission, that Eoin had told me of him and told me that he taught English at the village High school: that I had already learnt that this was incorrect, that he gave private lessons.
Much was happening in the village and my sudden appearance made the Monk anxious. He asked how I learnt of Eoin's mistake and how I knew where to find him. I replied that I had been told by Eduardo and added that this was a small village and that most villagers must know his movements - certainly those who were interested.
The Monk admitted this truth. However, he remained suspicious and excused himself. He had students in the afternoon and must prepare.
Perhaps later, I suggested.
Yes, perhaps later - though he was unenthusiastic.
I ordered a beer in the palapa and watched the surfers out at the point. Later, I noticed the Monk in conversation with a tall young blond woman under the second palapa, the palapa shading the hammocks. The towel was back protecting the Monk's privacy.
A loud confident voice heralded the entry of four men and a young, tall, good-looking woman, perhaps a gringa. The voice was a big burly man over-accustomed to dining people on a corporate expense account: black hair streaked with silver, clipped moustache, fleshily sensual ears. Confident of his power, he wore shorts and a T shirt while the other three men were uncomfotarbly warm in slacks. One wore a long sleeve shirt and wore glasses and carried a briefcase. The gofer, I thought as he crossed to the bar to order. I caught his attention. We spoke and found that we shared Cuba as an experience, he having studied tourism in Havana for two years. Now he was an official at the Tourism board.
"The torneo," I presumed - as if fluent in village happenings.
Yes, the torneo.
Mister Big represented the money, the sponsors. He laid out plans and papers and all the talking came from him. I was at the wrong end of a double table to overhear clearly. Frustrated, I ordered the grilled snapper at the bar, then returned to the end of my table closest to the money group. Now I could overhear much of what Mister Big said. He had plans for the torneo, where marquees must be sited, new palapas, judges' stands.
The gofer was a non-contributor - perhaps he held a watching brief. Of the remaining two men one was quiet, yet clearly necessary and in need of persuasion. Later I discovered that he was the President of the community. The other man I will call Mister Keen. He wore a shirt with no sleeves and a baseball cap and and, in eagerness, leant across the table towards Mister Big. The woman interjected on occasion and ordered water melon from the bar (was she with Mister Big? Perhaps the sponsors? Or a TV company?).
Listening, I wondered what Mister Big really wanted. Unbelievable that those behind him would fund, out of the goodness of their hearts, an international torneo on an unknown beach that possessed no infrastructure? I looked down the perfect beach with the perfect surf and saw the apartment blocks and the hotels and the swanky surf club at which the villagers would be servants. It seemed to me intolerably sad. Yet this was the perfect moment for the money men to make their move. The villagers were afraid of a future in which passage to the north was closed. How many would hold out against alternative blandishments? How many could hold out?
I imagined that Mister Keen must be already mounting the Yes campaign. And the President?
He seemed almost bewildered, and as much by the physical force of Mister Big as by Mister Big's fluent exercise of the language of persuasion.
The discussion ended. Mister Big passed my table. He had noticed my conversation with the gofer and was professional in his attention to detail. Could I be important in even the smallest way?
Am I being cruel, vindictive? Am I demeaning a decent man, a man who was naturally friendly (though friendliness was also his stock in trade)?
He delighted with the open warmth and charm of his greeting.
"How's it going?" I asked with equal warmth.
"Difficult, though we're giving them everything they ask for," he said - then dismissed the weight of difficulties with a lift of those powerful shoulders. "Though I've had easier tasks in the capital on a major project."
"In the capital you know who to pay," I said.
"Precisely." My understanding was proof that we were on the same side - what ever the side was. He was employed by a company of lobbyists, men who knew the right people to make things happen. He wrote down his address and his e:mail and we shook hands and I watched him walk toughly to his vehicle and thought, sadly, that the teeth were already here, the teeth of the mouth that would devour a community...
The staff of the palapa had watched Mister Big's and my conversation. Now they were watching me, perhaps waiting. I worried that I was arrogant in judging the best interests of a community of which I knew so little. A surfer's paradise could be a villager's purgatory. And yet...
So I ordered a fresh beer and sat facing the three women and with my back to the sea. The torneo, what did they think?
There were small shrugs of uncertainty. "We will see," the pretty one said and the others nodded. Yes, they would see. Yet it seemed to me obvious that they had no concept of what they might see. I recalled for them my first visit to a small town on a lake near the wondrous Maya site of Tikal in Guatemala. Thirty or more years ago the women of the town met at a different house each night to arrange the flowers and decorate the church. A mere ten years later, television had reached the town. I found only three women arranging the flowers. The rest were at home watching a screen. The companionship of those evenings was dead. The rich sense of community was dead. Nothing remained that would tempt their children to return.
The older woman, the chef, was the first to nod. I asked where I could stay and the women directed me to a row of small, wood-walled palapas by the entry gate. The owner had been the first of the village to reach Taos. In Taos, he was legal and had his own business. He had returned. What did he think of the torneo?
"We will see."
I unloaded the bike, showered, changed into shorts, and returned to the beach. The Monk was reading at the centre table beneath the palapa. The towel protected him.
Brave, I approached. I asked if he was free. Might I sit with him? So we began what quickly became a friendship to be treasured.
The Monk had come to the US when eleven-years-old. He told me of his schooling in the US: of scholarships to private school in California, to Berkeley and Grad school at Harvard. He interspersed his later studies with spells in the world of banking. He was respectable. He did the right thing. He wore the right suit and the right shoes and the right tie...And sometimes he surfed.
Harvard undid him. He was studying finance with grad students from similar money-management backgrounds. He discovered something missing in them. They had no fixed belief in right and wrong. These were the future leaders of Corporate America. The Monk saw an endless parade of Enrons, of small investors bankrupted or robbed of their pensions. At first he was merely uncomfortable in their company. Perhaps he became nervous of infection. Perhaps he became nervous of his father's judgment, his father a famously crusading and respected newspaper editor back in Korea, a poet, a writer of important books. So the Monk loaded his surfboards on his truck and drove south and discovered a beach with the perfect wave.
Only later, and bit by bit, did he discover a community that was self-protecting and to which each member contributed. The Monk taught English. This had seemed to him sufficient contribution until the torneo surfaced. He found remarkable that I understood the threat and that we shared a near apocalyptic vision. He suspected that I was an investigative journalist. He hoped that I was an investigative journalist.
Merely a mediocre novelist.
But I would write of this?
Certainly.
Would I write that Mister Big and his backers were paying the community 4,500 pesos for the use of the beach (approximately five thousand dollars US) - that the community was to provide a workforce of two hundred men to complement the three hundred men Mister Big would import?
That the community accepted so small a fee underlined the danger. Mister Big must be licking his lips.
For the moment no land could be sold to an outsider without the community's agreement. That could change. For the right people, political pressure is easily acquired - such is Mexico's history. A major tourist development must be in the nation's interest (the developers' interest being synonymous with the nation).
The Monk's nightmare is not the destruction of his perfect beach. It is that these people with small experience or understanding of the outside world, people who have welcomed him warmly, will lose the very special dignity that accompanies their independence, that they will be dispossessed and become servants in their own house. Already Mister Keen was working on their fears and tempting them with profit. Others had approached the Monk for advice. He was a banker. He knew the worth of holding a torneo. So he advised them and was summoned by the representative of those with power and warned that it was dangerous for him to interfere.
Threatening the Monk is an error. He is his father's son. He marshals his forces.
We shared a simple dinner of tortillas that evening on the terrace of a local store. We drank cold Corona beer and listened to the quiet anger of the store keeper: four thousand five hundred pesos - a town with no health centre, a town with so many children. At least, they should have demanded a health centre for the community.
We sensed, without looking, that other villagers listened, men and women in the background and hidden by the night.
I paid the princely sum of $37 Mexican for 6 beers and a plate of meat-stuffed tacos.
And I bore, with good humor, the belittling of my Honda by a chemically-recalibrated surf addict of LATE middle-age. Hah!
And later, in bed, I thought of the senators and congressman in Washington and of the decisions they make concerning the frontier that is not a frontier and of how little interest or understanding they have in the destructiveness of their decisions. Their snouts are in the pork-barrel. They wish to keep them there. A small community in Mexico? Let it die in the name of progress...
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