Sketches of Mexico

During parts of 1959 and 1960 Gil Evans and Miles Davis combined their immense talents and made a recording they called Sketches of Spain.  When I first bought it I thought the music was hauntingly beautiful but I didn’t fully appreciate their accomplishment until I listened to the recording after returning from a visit to Spain.   What I had missed the first time was how the music evoked the sound and feel of the country.  The music was not only beautiful but it had somehow captured the essence of Spain.

I traveled to Mexico for the first time about 40 years ago and have returned many times over the years.  Mexico has surely left its mark on my and my family’s lives.  In this post I am going to attempt to convey what it is about Mexico that originally intrigued and charmed me and why it has become so important in my life.  The following “sketches” are but a tiny slice of that experience.  Please ignore the whirring sound as you read this post.  It’s just Evans and Davis spinning in their graves.

The saying goes “Ignorance is Bliss.”   Most of the time ignorance is ugly and sometimes dangerous.  But when Mary, Pat and I travelled to Veracruz on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the early seventies the saying held up.  As we blissfully made our way to Veracruz, we were unaware that about a half of million other souls were also making the same trip to the largest carnival in Latin America outside of Brazil.

Remarkably, when we hit town we went to the first hotel that looked like it would be in our price range and procured a big clean room about a block and a half from the center of downtown.  At that point we had no idea the demand for rooms was way beyond the city’s supply.  I still don’t know how we lucked into that room, let alone in that location.

Our hotel was just up the road from the Zócalo (town square) that was ground zero for the carnival.  The square was full of restaurants and taverns featuring outside dining and drinking and providing ringside seats for the carnival’s chaotic explosion of humanity.  When we left our hotel room and wandered down to the Zócalo we began to get some idea of the scope of the event that was happening around us.

The carnival was a nighttime affair.  I remember going down to the Zócalo and grabbing a table at one of the bars around 5:00pm.  You could still get a seat then but within an hour the square was packed.  I would order a beer and it would come in a schooner so large that when you tipped it to drink, it was like you were looking across a lake of beer to the other side.  That first beer would cost 5 pesos and each beer thereafter got more expensive.  By the time you got to the 12 peso beers you could see pirate ships and surfers and all sorts of things when you looked across that lake of beer.

Sitting at those tables exposed you to numerous vendors selling all kinds of cheap crap and kids who found it extremely entertaining to throw handfuls of confetti all over you.  They took particular delight in bombing gringos and we found those little pieces of paper in our shoes and clothes for weeks after we left Veracruz. 

One particular type of vendor caught my eye because I couldn’t tell what it was he was selling.  The vendor had a box with two cords coming out of it and a metal handle at the end of each cord.  The vendor would clink the handles together as he walked through the crowd and occasionally stop at a table of presumed customers.

One night as Mary, Pat and I sat at a table a young man at an adjacent table positioned himself so he was looking directly at one of my companions.  In his hands he had the metal handles and one of these mystery vendors was standing next to his table with the box in his hand.  As it turned out, the box contained a big battery and had a dial on it that allowed the vendor to control how big of shock he was delivering to his customer.  That’s right, these guys were paying someone for the privilege of being electrocuted in an attempt to prove who was mas macho.  It sounds like a Newt Gingrich idea for prison reform, but that, in fact, was what was going on.

As the vendor turned the dial the young man’s mouth turned into a grotesque cross between a grimace and a grin.  His eyes bulged and veins popped out on his forehead.  Just about when it looked as if his hair would go up in flames he signaled the vendor and the juice was cutoff.  Then he looked at Pat and Mary with a “what did you think of that display” look.  Now I am no expert on what woman find attractive in a man but I have to believe seeing a guy being electrocuted, as a first impression, isn’t likely to be near the top of the list.  During the course of the night one or two other guys tried to spark an attraction in the same way without success.

One night I was sitting at a table drinking beer with a Canadian I had met the day before. As we progressed to about the eight peso beers a Mexican friend of the Canadian joined us.  As it turned out the Mexican fellow was a shock box vendor and my Canadian friend asked him if he would let me try the box free of charge.  I resisted that kind offer but when it came up again at about the 10 peso beer mark, I agreed to give it try.

Before we started I tried to set some ground rules.  Primarily I wanted only the wimp equivalent of electricity and I wanted it shut down as soon as I signaled I’d had enough.  So with those rules in place, I grabbed the metal handles for my free shock treatment.

He turned on the box and I just about went into cardiac arrest.  Now, you only have to have a very rudimentary knowledge of science to know that when you are part of an electronic current there is no letting go.  A lesser-known scientific fact is that verbal communication becomes much more difficult when you are being lit up.  As I tried to indicate he should turn the damn thing off, the signals got mixed up and he turned up the juice.  I had visions of smoke coming out my ears as I began to shriek my desire to be done with my free sample.   I’ll never know if there was a miscommunication or if the vendor thought “let’s see what this gringo’s got” but he cut the electricity.  I do know the Canadian was greatly amused.  Later that evening when Pat and Mary joined me, I wasn’t sure if they found me more attractive for having gone through the experience or more likely thought “what an idiot.”

We stayed in Veracruz for four days and nights and left completely carnivaled-out and headed to a beautiful freshwater lake where we had a close encounter with a huge bull.  But that’s a story for another time.

A more modern of the 'Quién es más macho?' box.  Newer packaging, same concept.

---------------------

In 1972 Gary, Don and I were driving down the Pan American Highway in an old Volkswagen approaching Mexico City.  The Pan American Highway is a 27,000 mile roadway that runs from North America through Central and South America with one 54-mile break in a Panamanian rainforest.  It is considered one of the engineering wonders of the world. 

As we entered the outskirts of Mexico City the car broke down in a very poor neighborhood.  We instantly realized that this was going to pose serious logistical problems, mainly because none of us spoke any Spanish.  Gary had taken a semester or two of Spanish in high school but I think he probably spent more time spoofing his teacher, Senor Statz, than actually learning any Spanish.  We did bring a phrase book with us and armed with that, Gary walked down to a corner pharmacy to try to call a Volkswagen dealership.

After miraculously connecting with the dealership, Gary tried to convey our problem.  Consulting the phrase book, he told the unfortunate person on the other end of the line that “El coche is rrrroto”, trilling his r like Salvador Dali on LSD.  This helpful phrase let the dealership know that the car was broken but nothing else they may need to know to help us out.  Gary repeated his phrase two or three times when the pharmacy clerk took pity on us, took the phone and explained the situation.  The clerk hung up and let us know they were sending a truck to tow us to the dealership.  When it would come was anyone’s guess.

The distribution of wealth in Latin American cities is the exact opposite of U.S. cities.  In Latin America the wealthy live in the center of the city and the further out you go the poorer the neighborhood.  Mexico City had about 12 million people at that time (now about 25 million) and we were broken down out on the edge of those twelve million.

It was around 1:00pm when we went back to the car and commenced our wait.  As we sat there the neighborhood kids started to appear.  This wasn’t exactly the gringo trail and it’s my guess that we may have been the first U.S. citizens most of these kids had ever seen.  Forty years ago, the size differential between Mexicans and people from the states was very pronounced.  Don was six foot one or two and had blond hair and blue eyes, so he drew the most attention.  It being the early seventies, we all had long hair and as the kids got bolder they would sneak up behind us and give a little tug on a pony tail and then run away laughing.  We began to play with them, chasing them around the car and having a good time relieving the boredom of waiting on a dirt street in the tropical sun.

Pretty soon after we began to run around with the kids, a mother came out with three oranges cut in half on a plate and gave them to us.  These were people who, I am sure, had a hard time feeding their families sufficiently, and sending out oranges to three strangers struck me as an extremely generous and gracious gesture.

As the afternoon dragged on, a young girl came out and through hand signals and the phrase book, we figured out we were being invited to dinner with her family.  We followed her to her house and entered a tiny dwelling.  We were introduced to her mother and her brothers and sisters and sat down in the main room.  There were two pictures on the wall.  One was of the current pope.  The other was a picture of JFK that had been cut out of a newspaper.  I have mixed feelings about JFK’s legacy but he obviously meant something to these poor people in another country.

The mother and oldest daughter approached us about what they were having for dinner and despite all of our efforts, we did not understand each other.  Then the mother got an idea and left to go to the kitchen area and returned with a birdcage with a nest in it.  In the nest were a few eggs and we realize what she had been trying to covey and learned huevos was Spanish for eggs.  This was long before huevos became slang in the U.S. for something unrelated to diet.  We nodded our approval the mother headed back to the kitchen.

Shortly thereafter, the father of the family came home.  His wife explained the situation and he came over and shook all of our hands.  He then called one of his daughters, who was about 8 years old, and spoke with her briefly.  A moment later, the daughter appeared before us with her reader from school, and began to read haltingly, a story in English.  When she finished we applauded and told her how good she had done.  While the daughter was obviously pleased with our reaction, it was the pride and love reflected on the father’s face I will always remember.

We then sat down to a dinner of eggs and tortillas with a side of mole.  This was the first time I had ever seen mole and I have to admit I was a little reluctant to put this stuff in my mouth.  I have since found out there are a million recipes for mole and they range in taste from delicious to road tar.

The mother noticed my reluctance and asked me if I didn’t like mole.  I figured I better try everything these good people had put before us and I put some on a tortilla and shoved it in my mouth.  The look on my face (this recipe was closer to the road tar end of the spectrum) resulted in a burst of laughter from the whole family.

Not long after we finished dinner there was a commotion outside and we discovered the tow truck had arrived.  We said our goodbyes and rode with the truck into Mexico City proper.  A day later the car was fixed and we were on our way again.

This was the first of many times Mexican people have showed me and my travelling companions extraordinary kindness.  I have found, by and large, the Mexicans to be gracious and generous to the people who have chosen to travel in their country.  These economically disadvantaged people had gone out of their way to make us feel welcome and to turn what might have been a tedious experience into a memorable one.

--------------------

There are at least three types of daylight you experience in Mexico.  There is the morning daylight I liken to a nice warm summer day in the northern U.S.  Then there is the mid-day light. This is the true tropical white light that you feel right down in your bones.  My favorite is the light that comes with late afternoon.  The heat dissipates and the light defuses as the sun and sky begin to change colors.  It was in this type of light, that Mary, Pat and I experienced the joys of “hillbilly hand fishing.”

The light I love.

We were camping in a coconut grove about two hundred miles south of Acapulco.  We had arrived at Puerto Angel on the west coast of Mexico one night after a crazy ride with a deranged gringo.  The coconut grove was about a kilometer north of the village and we walked there and pitched our tents.  Not long after we pitched our tents an Indian woman came by to collect eight pesos rent (about $1 dollar at that time).  We ended up staying there for two weeks and never saw the woman who collected the eight pesos rent again.

The grove was large with very tall, fully mature coconut trees.  There were several groups of Americans and Canadians camped in the grove.  Where the grove ended the beach began and there was about 50 yards of beach leading up to the pounding surf.  This surf was not one to be taken lightly.  There was a serious undertow and one had to be careful not to get dragged out to sea and drowned.  As it sometimes happens, dangerous things are also the most beautiful things. That was the case here.  The area also featured a waterfall about two kilometers inland were we could shower in gloriously cool fresh water.

The closest village consisted of two lean-to restaurants on a bluff overlooking the ocean, whose menus consisted of whatever was available that day.  One day eggs, the next day fish.  Out in the yard there were a couple of hammocks.  I remember whiling away a couple afternoons reading Herman Melville’s Encantadas, taking the occasional break to gaze out at the Pacific and imagine sailing ships plying the Spanish Main.

One late afternoon, as Mary, Pat and I returned from a trip into Puerto Angel, we looked out at the ocean and saw three people running madly around in the surf.  As this behavior continued we decided to walk down and see what was causing the commotion.  As we approached the water we saw the three people catching fish by hand and tossing them onto the beach.  So we joined in and began chasing these twelve to fifteen inch blue fish in the surf.  The drill was to chase a fish and reach down at the right time and grab it and throw it on the beach.  A whole school of these fish were swimming in two feet of water and it really wasn’t very hard to catch them.  It occurred to me later that maybe something much bigger and meaner might have driven that school of blue fish into the surf and it might not have been such a good idea running around sharing its catch.

We did catch 39 fish between the three of us.  We combined our catch with the other fisherman’s and someone ran up into the grove and returned with a tablecloth size piece of material to pile the fish in and carry them to the grove.

Once we got there word spread quickly and out of nowhere the locals came and built several campfires.  They also brought frying pans, butter, tortillas and other fixings.  The party was on.  After we ate the fish we had caught about 45 minutes earlier, the guitars, beer, and tequila arrived.  As we sat in that coconut grove, under a canopy of a billion stars, I couldn’t imagine any place I would have rather been at that moment.

And so concludes my “Sketches of Mexico.” These three stories are just the tip of the iceberg and maybe I will someday post a Sketches of Mexico Part Two.  Right now I need to run out and once again prove: "Quién es más Macho?"