I have often been asked what I do when I am in Mexico and
what is it like. Well, I have been
asked that at least once, anyway.
So I thought I would take my seven regular readers on a stroll through
this beautiful town and try and capture a little of its soul.
Let’s start our journey in bed where we are peacefully
sleeping until a man yells “bolillos” outside the window at 7:15am. Bolillos are a type of roll you can eat
with your first cup of coffee in the morning. This vendor walks through your neighborhood calling out his
wares and you just need to stick your head out your door for home
delivery. Random home delivery
still exists in Zihuatanejo. Later
in the afternoon a man will call out “agua” and once again you need only stick
your head out and indicate how much you want. He will carry 5
gallon jugs of bottled water up your stairs and to your door. The garbage men ring a bell and yell
“basura” when they are nearby so you remember to take your garbage out. A man plays a few notes on a wooden pan
flute to indicate he is around if you need anything sharpened. Then there is the tamale lady and
finally the gas company that plays a recording that sounds like the seventh
cavalry coming to the rescue followed by an elongated “gaaaaassss.” I have taken to announcing gas this
way, but Pat feels it is inappropriate.
I say forearmed is forewarned.
After breakfast we head out into the bright sunlight and
crisp, clean air. We walk past the
man who sells fresh juice in a vacant lot on the corner. Here, we cross the street and head down
Calle Los Cocos.
I think I need to pause here and talk a little bit about the
art of walking around Zihuatanejo.
There are a few rules and precautions the smart pedestrian should heed
to prevent injury and/or embarrassment.
If you are walking in the part of town that caters to tourists, you can
disregard most, but not all of these rules. For the last several years the town has done a good job of
repaving both streets and sidewalks with red bricks in these areas and have
just began to start doing the same in the neighborhoods.
We will be walking in the less tourist-travelled areas and
you have to pay close attention to where you are going. The sidewalks will dip unexpectedly, or
a curb will show up between two lots, or the sidewalk will end and you will be
on dirt or gravel, or there will be a hole in the center of the sidewalk, or
the sidewalk will narrow to a single human lane, or a tree will be growing in
the middle of the narrow sidewalk or rebar (the metal bars that hold concrete
together in a building) will be sticking up through the sidewalk. You get the picture. So, the first rule is if you are going to
gawk at something, stop and gawk.
And you will see thinks that make you take a second look. A couple of days ago, I saw a motorbike
go by with a driver and three passengers.
It was a wonder they could all get on it, let alone ride around in
traffic like that. On that same
day, I saw a motorist, who apparently missed his turn in a busy traffic circle,
throw it in reverse and back up into oncoming traffic to where he could make
his turn. Of course, he could have gone around the circle one
more time to where he could have made the turn without backing up, but that
must have seemed like a waste of gas or something to him. Which brings me to
the other bit of cautionary advice I have for you.
Pedestrians should assume they never have the right of
way. There are crosswalks where
I’ve been told, if they run you over, they are in the wrong. Of course you will be run over, so I
suggest avoiding testing that out.
The rules of the road are different here and they seem to work for the
local drivers. Mexicans have to be
the greatest defensive drivers on the planet. I have seen some pretty outrageous moves and the other
drivers make room, change lanes, break just in time and everything seems to
work out fine. I’ve never
witnessed any road rage, even when the maneuver in question was incredibly
dumb. So, as a pedestrian, you
need to become a defensive walker.
Another factor playing a part in walking around is how the
streets are laid out. Minnesota’s
famous wrassling governor once observed that drunken Irishmen must have
designed the streets of Saint Paul.
Well, it appears the city engineers of Zihuatanejo brought these very
same Irishmen to town and got them lit up on tequila to help plan the streets
of the city. It is hard to get
from point A to point B. What
concerns us most, as pedestrians, is making the mistake of assuming a street is
one way just because it looks like it should be. Look both ways, children, and you will live to go on another
field trip.
There, now that is out of the way, we are ready to make our
way down Calle Los Cocos. Los
Cocos is a street full of vegetable and fruit markets. There are also places that sell
tortillas, chicken, eggs and fresh fish.
If we go in the morning, when the fresh stuff is delivered, we will find
a narrow street packed with delivery trucks, buses, taxis, delivery bicycles,
pick-up trucks, cars and tons of shoppers looking to buy the food they will
cook that day. There are little
carts parked on the sidewalk selling strawberries, blackberries, peanuts,
pistachios and things I haven’t been able to identify. Walking the sidewalk requires constant
adjustments, going from the sidewalk to the road and back again. The scene looks like the movies you’ve
seen where they show a New York City street circa 1915. It is very colorful, vibrant and
alive. If you are out shopping,
you can fill bags with bananas, melons, strawberries, onions, potatoes,
mushrooms, green peppers, avocados, and any number of other foodstuffs till
your arms are breaking and only spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 to
$15 bucks.
Having navigated Calle Los Cocos, let’s head over to Calle
Jose Morales for a glance at a slice of the local business community. Here, in the U.S., we like to pay
homage to small business and the entrepreneurial spirit. But in reality, the
ascendance of corporate America has made those two ideals seem like
anachronisms. Not so in
Mexico. The large box stores are
just beginning to show up in Zihuatanejo and there remains a tremendous variety
of small-scale business activity.
Jose Morales is a commercial street about a half mile from the tourist
area. As we walk down the street
we will pass a store that sells paper, a store that makes keys, a flower shop,
a store that sells bootleg movies, a pharmacy, a unisex beauty parlor, a
hardware store, a store that sells plastic pails, plates, cups etc., a store
that sells stuffed animals, a car wash, a shop specializing in repairing car
air conditioning systems, a men’s clothing store, a woman’s clothing store, a
pet shop, a motorcycle repair yard, a shoe store, several small grocery stores,
a bakery, several street vendors, several small restaurants, a furniture store,
a paint store, and an Internet café.
And this is on one side of the street in a little less than a mile. In addition, Jose Morales is just one
of several of these commercial streets in town. You also find a variety of small businesses sprinkled
throughout the neighborhoods.
This stunning array of small businesses makes you wonder,
how do they survive? Everybody
seems to be in the process of opening a small specialty business. I think their survival is probably
linked to several factors. One is
the purpose of many of these
businesses is to put food on the table of the owner and his family. There are chains in Mexico but far
fewer than you will find here in the U.S.. The owners of these small businesses are not looking to keep
a bevy of shareholders and stakeholders well fed, but rather looking to provide
for their families. The local
economy has not been consolidated into Best Buy’s, Home Depots, McDonalds’, and
other mega businesses that undercut the profit margins of the smaller guys and
eventually drive them out of business.
What you see in Zihuatanejo is similar to what you saw in the U.S. in
thousands of small towns across the country 50 years ago.
 |
| Pako practicing with "Las Gringas" |
Now that we have been walking for a while we should stop at
El Pueblito for lunch. As we are
walking down the street we see a small sign that says, “El Pueblito and a
single door is open to the street.
As you go through the door you will find an open courtyard with several
tables arranged under an open-air tile roof designed to provide shade. There are interesting antique ranch
tools, guns, saddles, children’s toys and even a hangman’s noose decorating the
place. There are a variety of
cacti growing along one wall.
Another wall, that abuts a church bell tower, is where you often see
iguanas scurry across the tile roof and sometimes settle down for a
sunbath. It is Thursday, so one of
Zihuatanejo’s best guitar players will be playing while you eat. The food is Mexican and good. One note. If you see a man come in and lay a three-foot machete, also
known as a gringa, across his table, don’t get worried. He is not some madman who is about to
start chopping his way through the patrons of the restaurant. He’s just someone stopping for lunch
that was working a job clearing brush or he took a walk up into the mountains
perhaps to chop some ginger root and used the machete to clear the way and chop
the root.
After we leave the restaurant, we pass the hall where the
Teacher’s wedding reception was held and eventually come to a large open field
where a kiddy carnival has been set up.
The carnival will stick around for a couple of weeks and will then be
replaced by a circus or a concert.
The kiddy carnival is remarkable for the rides that are set up. There is every ride, those of you over
50 will remember, from the church picnics and county fairs of your youth. Some Mexican carnival owner must have
traveled the U.S. and bought up every one of these ancient rides he or she
could find. People who are fans of
these amusement park relics (I’m pretty sure there is a subculture dedicated to
these things) would think they died and went to heaven.
Continuing on past the kiddy carnival and past a large home
goods tent sale we eventually come to a soccer field. If we are lucky, a game will be in progress. Among the first things you will notice,
if a game is being played, is that there is a layer of dust that hovers about a
foot and half above the field.
There are hints of where grass might live during the rainy season but
those areas have long ago been churned to dust. You will also probably notice the skill of the players. Soccer, or Fútbol, is Mexico’s favorite
sport and you can see that its best athletes gravitate toward ‘the beautiful
game.’
As we move along, we will come to a shady grove of trees
where the fisherman hang out before and after they go out to sea. They will be lounging in hammocks,
eating meals that are sometimes cooked over an open fire, or mending their
nets. Almost always there will be
an active conversation going on.
As we walk past the fisherman, we cross a bridge across a channel and
find ourselves in the tourist area.
But we aren’t interested in the tourist area of El Centro
today and it feels like it is time to walk to the nicest beach within walking
distance of the central part of town.
We are off to La Ropa.
 |
| Descent to La Ropa |
The trip from El Centro to La Ropa is an exercise of going
from sea level up a series of hills and then a steep descent back to sea level
and the beach. Don’t worry, once
you have walked up these hills four or five times a week for a couple of
months, the huffing and puffing becomes much less noticeable. The pay off for this walk is the
several places you can stop and look out at the beautiful vistas from high
above the bay. Bursts of cascading
bougainvillea decorate our route and if we are really lucky, we might look out
and see whales playing in the bay.
We might also come upon a three foot black iguana, sunning himself on
the sidewalk (I have been told the black ones make for the best eating). If you are a bit squeamish about three
foot lizards, the lizards are more squeamish about you and will skitter away,
amazingly fast, when you get anywhere close.
Once we make the descent to the sea, you will find a wide
sand beach scattered with restaurants, hotels, and public areas. The heat of the day will be relieved as
the ocean breezes cool everything down. As we walk the beach, we will see an amazing array of
human forms, some alluring and some not.
Now it is getting to be late afternoon and we deserve to treat ourselves
to drinks and a bit to eat while we watch the sun go down. So we will walk the length of the beach
to a restaurant named Rossi’s and go upstairs and claim a roof top table
overlooking the bay where we can watch the sun sink into the ocean and light up
the sky. For very little dinero,
we can drink beer, margaritas, pina coladas, or just about anything else while
munching on fresh guacamole or shrimp tacos. The sun will eventually go down, the sky will turn pink and
we will need to think about heading home.
There are two options for getting back to town. We can walk the way we came, but if you
been on the roof for a while, and enjoyed a beverage or two, it will be getting
dark, making the walk back more difficult. Another factor we might want to consider before walking back
is that, occasionally, a big old crocodile decides to visit the beach and take
an evening stroll. This doesn’t
happen often, but it does happen and the local firemen come out and wrangle the
monster and send him back to a swamp far removed from tourists and casual
strollers. The other
alternative is to walk thirty yards to where a bus will pick us up and take us
to town for 85 cents. If we linger
too long and the last bus leaves, we can take a taxi for around $3.
 |
| Try not to take a walk with this guy |
After you get back to the apartment and clean up and rest,
you might want to walk into town for an ice cream cone or just to see what is
happening. There are always
basketball or volleyball games to watch and, often, public entertainment to
take in. When you have had your
fill, it is time to walk home and go to bed.
You might think this is the end of your experience, but you
might be wrong. As you lay
dreaming of beautiful vistas around 3:00 in the morning, a car alarm will go
off. This will key the 15
neighborhood dogs to start snarling, barking and howling. Not to be out done, the roosters begin
crowing (yes, you live with roosters in town and no, they don’t just crow at
dawn). Finally, to top off the
symphony, your neighbor, who figures he would rather listen to his music, turns
his sound system to 11 and the strains of a Mexican polka join the
cacophony. This, too, is Mexico. Luckily, it all will usually die down
in 10 or 15 minutes and you can just sleep a little later in the morning or at
least till you hear the bolillo man calling.
