What is it with Americans?
Why do most american tourists we come across really make me sad for them? Is it something in our drinking water? Must be flouride, or maybe the republican party, but those travelers from the united states we've encountered have just downright sucked. More on that, though, as the tale progresses...
Howdy yall...not a whole lot to report on this week, as we´ve been drifting from one sleepy town to the next for the past few days. I´m also sick as a dog, whatever the hell that means, so i´m not in much of a writing mood.
Hmmm...looking at my journal, it seems the last time i wrote all of you, we were still in zihuatanejo, the sleepy fishing/resort town. well, we spent most of our time here jumping from one beach to another. at playa madera, we enjoyed the silky smooth sand, the clear ocean water (that made me look like a man-shaped salt crystal when i dried off from the high sodium content in the bay here), and the little kids having a blast eating sand and throwing it up...i tell ya, they make em different down here. speaking of differences for a minute:
the majority of mexicans we´ve seen at the beaches swim in their clothes...now we´re just baffled by this...at first we thought that people were just spontaneously deciding to go swimming and left their trunks at home, but then we started noticing that the women all have swimsuits on underneath their t-shirts and shorts. hmmm. catholic conservatism?
in the united states, red salsa is usually hotter than green salsa...here, red salsa is hot, but salsa verde is fucking downright sinister. you´re guaranteed to lose your sight if you´re not careful. someone better tell georgie bush that those weapons of mass destruction are down here in old mexico.
you have to ask for your check at restaurants here...unlike the u.s. where the waitress/waiter puts it on the table with your food (which is actually fairly rude if you think about it), here they hold it until you´re finished out of politeness.
okay, sorry for the sidetrack...there will be more, i´m afraid. ate the best BBQ chicken i´ve ever had in my life here, and watched the 10 guys in all of mexico over 5 feet tall play an amazing game of basketball along the waterfront. on our way back from the game, we spied two american tourists standing absolutely bewildered on the corner, recently emerged from their taxi, with a look on their face like they had just eating a good poo. "Ugh, this is not what i had expected..." and "The whole town must be like this!" both uttered with utter snobbery and harvard accents. hmmm, i've got an idea. why don´t you take your snively yuppie polo shirted asses back to new england, take your unhappiness out on your manservants, and stop giving us gringos a bad name.
At playa las gatas, we snorkeled around for hours in the crystalline blue warm water gazing at thousands of fish, including pufferfish and barracuda...for the first five minutes i swam with our money pouch (smooth move, exlax). aside from the great time in the water, it was a little too crowded for relaxation, as it was the national holiday celebrating the batalla de puebla (battle of puebla), which we know in the united states as cinco de mayo...everyone takes a four day weekend and travels to the beach towns. in one day, we went from sole occupants at our hotel, to all 30 rooms completely full of people. the battle of puebla took place when the invading french armies under napoleon the third were stopped and defeated in the town of puebla, preventing them from taking mexico city. puebla, and mexico city (thus the entire country) were captured by french forces the next year, but that seems to have been forgotten, giving the modern country yet another excuse to party. anyway...on the boatride back from playa las gatas (it's across the bay from zihuatanejo) we ran into more heart attack inducing irritants in the form of american tourists...they didn't speak a lick of spanish and kept trying to ask the pilot of the boat to drop them off at a "i´m a white american and deserve special treatment because i'm rich and you're not" location far away from the set taxied route...the driver tried to explain that it wasn´t possible, but the americans kept insisting. They finally gave up and spent the next ten minutes complaining about having to walk the extra ten minutes to their luxury hotel...get a clue you greazy pile of walrus fat, the people here aren´t born to serve your wallet. sorry, it just really bothers me how the many americans we´ve crossed have treated the locals...and we wonder why our country isn´t respected in the international community.
After another day relaxing on the beach in the crowds, we decided to move on with the trip, buying tickets to manzanillo...passed out of the state of guerrero, went back into michoacan along their beautiful rocky coast (looks very much like northern california) and past endless acres of banana plantations, finally arriving in the small state of colima...very tropical here and much cooler than what we had become acclimated to. Manzanillo is THE mexican port on the pacific ocean, and makes no pretence at catering to tourists...this is strictly a working class city, busy with machines and freight-laden ships night and day. very reminisent of the east bay ports of oakland, etc. while not as relaxing as the coastal resort areas, it was nice to get a change of scenery and have people be sincere without the semi-genuine smiles of those trying to make a buck off of the tourist population. Stayed in a lovely colonial style hotel with arched balconies, stained glass windows, colorful tile work, and a plant-filled courtyard...very peaceful here, but not a whole lot to do without accessible beaches, so we moved on the next day.
After our first under 8-hour bus trip, we arrived in the small town of Barra de Navidad...this place gives a whole new meaning to the term "sleepy village"...this town is comatose. i swear to god, people actually move, speak, eat, and work in sloooooooooowmoooooooootioooooooooon..........we instantly found ourselves following suite, getting up late, taking an hour or so to eat breakfast, eventually finding ourselves wandering aimlessly around the dusty streets for another few hours, eating again, and before we knew it the sun had set and we drifted into hibernation once more...aaaand that's about what we´ve been doing ever since. We stayed in a bungalow in Barra...basically an apartment...two sets of windows with mosquito screens (not common here), the bathroom actually had a shower door (who woulda thunk), a full kitchen, and a large bed with a tiled mosaic of an african savanna scene, complete with penis-endowed giraffes (not necessary)...all for 250 pesos, about 23 bucks a night. none to shabby. unfortunately, i also became afflicted with some sort of death virus around this time, and spent most of the day in a snot-infested, medication-induced haze...so don't expect too many more details...it's all kind of a blur.
oh, and just for your information, every toilet in this country leaks...it must be some sort of law, or something. and no one, i mean absolutely positively completely and totally no one, has change...not at restaurants, not at stores, not at hotels...it works like this: ATMs here only spit out 200 and 500 peso bills. now nothing costs that much here, and an average purchase at a store may run around 30 pesos, soooo....either you can decide to buy their entire stock of pickeled jalapenos, or you can walk your ass elsewhere hungry, because you're not getting your change. they just don't have it. oh, sure, sometimes they do, but they only have it because they've left you in charge of their store for 48 minutes while they walk across town to get change from their grandmother´s cousin´s aunt. yeah, so basically "no tengo cambio"....
well, since after two days we had walked every street in town, checked out every store inside and out, walked along the entire beach, and ate at each of the two restaurants open this time of year, we decided to take a taxi a mile or two down the beach to relocate in the town of san patricio-melaque...a much bigger, much dustier town, and unfortunately for the part of our minds that likes being awake, a much sleepier town. we were dead on arrival. this town has no life to it...it feels like no one works, and no one cares. the whole town sits in plastic chairs outside their homes, outside their stores, along the beach, in the plaza, in the streets, on the roofs...doing nothing...no talking, just gazing blankly in peaceful bliss. so far, we´ve found A restaurant open this time of year, and have been eating there nightly...we´ve been spending so much time there, we´ve started paying rent. We arrived here on my birthday, and moved into the nicest hotel we´ve stayed at so far, hotel bahía. we are the only guests here, and have a corner room overlooking the bay...it's very relaxing falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves...and blaring banda music, which thankfully stops around 3am. The owner of this hotel, rafael or rafa for short, is the best part...this guy is a crustacean, salt of the earth type of guy...smile creases in his face have turned to canyons, and he has a face that makes you instantly feel welcome...a longtime friend. this guy is the only one in town that moves more than thrice a day (getting out of bed, moving to their chair outside, then getting back in bed)...he is famous in this state of jalisco for his masonry, and his hotel shows that...it is very intricately built, and meticulously maintained...at any given point of the day, we'll stumble across him working on some project to improve on greatness. i really can't say enough on how welcoming this place is...there is even a completely equiped communal kitchen and fully stocked library to make the stay as comfortable as possible...well, as i said, we arrived here on my birthday, and not but 10 minutes after moving into our room does rafael come upstairs with three shot glasses and a bottle of nice tequila to serenade my special day with (in my excitement i clumsily bumped the table, spilling two of the shots, but he happily poured two more with a grin). good times.
okay, so i lied and wrote another long-ass email...so sorry to distract you from the daily grind (which we have actually begun to miss a little...yes you can smack me for saying that when we get back). another few days here, then on to our timeshare resort (thanks pops!!) in puerto vallarta...i'll write another update then.
i'm so sick of spending an hour each day lathering myself in sunscreen...we are perpetually greasy. Horray for oily greco-roman wrestlers!
love ya, old and kesia
Howdy yall...not a whole lot to report on this week, as we´ve been drifting from one sleepy town to the next for the past few days. I´m also sick as a dog, whatever the hell that means, so i´m not in much of a writing mood.
Hmmm...looking at my journal, it seems the last time i wrote all of you, we were still in zihuatanejo, the sleepy fishing/resort town. well, we spent most of our time here jumping from one beach to another. at playa madera, we enjoyed the silky smooth sand, the clear ocean water (that made me look like a man-shaped salt crystal when i dried off from the high sodium content in the bay here), and the little kids having a blast eating sand and throwing it up...i tell ya, they make em different down here. speaking of differences for a minute:
the majority of mexicans we´ve seen at the beaches swim in their clothes...now we´re just baffled by this...at first we thought that people were just spontaneously deciding to go swimming and left their trunks at home, but then we started noticing that the women all have swimsuits on underneath their t-shirts and shorts. hmmm. catholic conservatism?
in the united states, red salsa is usually hotter than green salsa...here, red salsa is hot, but salsa verde is fucking downright sinister. you´re guaranteed to lose your sight if you´re not careful. someone better tell georgie bush that those weapons of mass destruction are down here in old mexico.
you have to ask for your check at restaurants here...unlike the u.s. where the waitress/waiter puts it on the table with your food (which is actually fairly rude if you think about it), here they hold it until you´re finished out of politeness.
okay, sorry for the sidetrack...there will be more, i´m afraid. ate the best BBQ chicken i´ve ever had in my life here, and watched the 10 guys in all of mexico over 5 feet tall play an amazing game of basketball along the waterfront. on our way back from the game, we spied two american tourists standing absolutely bewildered on the corner, recently emerged from their taxi, with a look on their face like they had just eating a good poo. "Ugh, this is not what i had expected..." and "The whole town must be like this!" both uttered with utter snobbery and harvard accents. hmmm, i've got an idea. why don´t you take your snively yuppie polo shirted asses back to new england, take your unhappiness out on your manservants, and stop giving us gringos a bad name.
At playa las gatas, we snorkeled around for hours in the crystalline blue warm water gazing at thousands of fish, including pufferfish and barracuda...for the first five minutes i swam with our money pouch (smooth move, exlax). aside from the great time in the water, it was a little too crowded for relaxation, as it was the national holiday celebrating the batalla de puebla (battle of puebla), which we know in the united states as cinco de mayo...everyone takes a four day weekend and travels to the beach towns. in one day, we went from sole occupants at our hotel, to all 30 rooms completely full of people. the battle of puebla took place when the invading french armies under napoleon the third were stopped and defeated in the town of puebla, preventing them from taking mexico city. puebla, and mexico city (thus the entire country) were captured by french forces the next year, but that seems to have been forgotten, giving the modern country yet another excuse to party. anyway...on the boatride back from playa las gatas (it's across the bay from zihuatanejo) we ran into more heart attack inducing irritants in the form of american tourists...they didn't speak a lick of spanish and kept trying to ask the pilot of the boat to drop them off at a "i´m a white american and deserve special treatment because i'm rich and you're not" location far away from the set taxied route...the driver tried to explain that it wasn´t possible, but the americans kept insisting. They finally gave up and spent the next ten minutes complaining about having to walk the extra ten minutes to their luxury hotel...get a clue you greazy pile of walrus fat, the people here aren´t born to serve your wallet. sorry, it just really bothers me how the many americans we´ve crossed have treated the locals...and we wonder why our country isn´t respected in the international community.
After another day relaxing on the beach in the crowds, we decided to move on with the trip, buying tickets to manzanillo...passed out of the state of guerrero, went back into michoacan along their beautiful rocky coast (looks very much like northern california) and past endless acres of banana plantations, finally arriving in the small state of colima...very tropical here and much cooler than what we had become acclimated to. Manzanillo is THE mexican port on the pacific ocean, and makes no pretence at catering to tourists...this is strictly a working class city, busy with machines and freight-laden ships night and day. very reminisent of the east bay ports of oakland, etc. while not as relaxing as the coastal resort areas, it was nice to get a change of scenery and have people be sincere without the semi-genuine smiles of those trying to make a buck off of the tourist population. Stayed in a lovely colonial style hotel with arched balconies, stained glass windows, colorful tile work, and a plant-filled courtyard...very peaceful here, but not a whole lot to do without accessible beaches, so we moved on the next day.
After our first under 8-hour bus trip, we arrived in the small town of Barra de Navidad...this place gives a whole new meaning to the term "sleepy village"...this town is comatose. i swear to god, people actually move, speak, eat, and work in sloooooooooowmoooooooootioooooooooon..........we instantly found ourselves following suite, getting up late, taking an hour or so to eat breakfast, eventually finding ourselves wandering aimlessly around the dusty streets for another few hours, eating again, and before we knew it the sun had set and we drifted into hibernation once more...aaaand that's about what we´ve been doing ever since. We stayed in a bungalow in Barra...basically an apartment...two sets of windows with mosquito screens (not common here), the bathroom actually had a shower door (who woulda thunk), a full kitchen, and a large bed with a tiled mosaic of an african savanna scene, complete with penis-endowed giraffes (not necessary)...all for 250 pesos, about 23 bucks a night. none to shabby. unfortunately, i also became afflicted with some sort of death virus around this time, and spent most of the day in a snot-infested, medication-induced haze...so don't expect too many more details...it's all kind of a blur.
oh, and just for your information, every toilet in this country leaks...it must be some sort of law, or something. and no one, i mean absolutely positively completely and totally no one, has change...not at restaurants, not at stores, not at hotels...it works like this: ATMs here only spit out 200 and 500 peso bills. now nothing costs that much here, and an average purchase at a store may run around 30 pesos, soooo....either you can decide to buy their entire stock of pickeled jalapenos, or you can walk your ass elsewhere hungry, because you're not getting your change. they just don't have it. oh, sure, sometimes they do, but they only have it because they've left you in charge of their store for 48 minutes while they walk across town to get change from their grandmother´s cousin´s aunt. yeah, so basically "no tengo cambio"....
well, since after two days we had walked every street in town, checked out every store inside and out, walked along the entire beach, and ate at each of the two restaurants open this time of year, we decided to take a taxi a mile or two down the beach to relocate in the town of san patricio-melaque...a much bigger, much dustier town, and unfortunately for the part of our minds that likes being awake, a much sleepier town. we were dead on arrival. this town has no life to it...it feels like no one works, and no one cares. the whole town sits in plastic chairs outside their homes, outside their stores, along the beach, in the plaza, in the streets, on the roofs...doing nothing...no talking, just gazing blankly in peaceful bliss. so far, we´ve found A restaurant open this time of year, and have been eating there nightly...we´ve been spending so much time there, we´ve started paying rent. We arrived here on my birthday, and moved into the nicest hotel we´ve stayed at so far, hotel bahía. we are the only guests here, and have a corner room overlooking the bay...it's very relaxing falling asleep to the sound of crashing waves...and blaring banda music, which thankfully stops around 3am. The owner of this hotel, rafael or rafa for short, is the best part...this guy is a crustacean, salt of the earth type of guy...smile creases in his face have turned to canyons, and he has a face that makes you instantly feel welcome...a longtime friend. this guy is the only one in town that moves more than thrice a day (getting out of bed, moving to their chair outside, then getting back in bed)...he is famous in this state of jalisco for his masonry, and his hotel shows that...it is very intricately built, and meticulously maintained...at any given point of the day, we'll stumble across him working on some project to improve on greatness. i really can't say enough on how welcoming this place is...there is even a completely equiped communal kitchen and fully stocked library to make the stay as comfortable as possible...well, as i said, we arrived here on my birthday, and not but 10 minutes after moving into our room does rafael come upstairs with three shot glasses and a bottle of nice tequila to serenade my special day with (in my excitement i clumsily bumped the table, spilling two of the shots, but he happily poured two more with a grin). good times.
okay, so i lied and wrote another long-ass email...so sorry to distract you from the daily grind (which we have actually begun to miss a little...yes you can smack me for saying that when we get back). another few days here, then on to our timeshare resort (thanks pops!!) in puerto vallarta...i'll write another update then.
i'm so sick of spending an hour each day lathering myself in sunscreen...we are perpetually greasy. Horray for oily greco-roman wrestlers!
love ya, old and kesia
posted by Oldie | 5/11/2006 04:08:00 PM
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