Mexican Adventure

Day One:
After 24 sleepless hours from Claremont to San Pancho (about an hour outside Puerta Vallarta), I was finally able to put down my bags in a small but hospitable villa near a fordable river. On the way, we (my mother, Kathy, and I) stopped by Costco, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot, a sort of easy transition into what was to be a chain-free ten day stay near the beach in Mexico. The rest of the first day was spent deliriously staring at the increasingly vegetative scenery, haphazardly unpacking my stuff and acclimating to the intense heat, and passing out occasionally from physical and mental exhaustion. My finals might have been over, but my relaxation phase had yet to begin.

Day Two:
I decided today that I would start getting back into shape. This happens every once in a while, when my back starts to naturally arch from the weight of my stomach after a distressing few weeks of finals drives me to four meals a day—two of which consist entirely of preprocessed food bars and chips—and just as many post-meal naps. Sorry B-Town, I just don't have your eating deadline capabilities. This time I made a morning ab, push-up, and mini-leg workout plan that will hopefully work in tandem with a bi-daily run around town. We'll see if in ten days when I get back this attempt will be able to keep itself up. If not, at least I'll be able to move more than ten feet without wheezin' up a storm.

No one has any vehicle here with shocks tighter than a truck's. Even Kathy's truck, a six-wheel Behemoth with all-wheel drive and power steering (I think even more rugged, angry, and edgy than that she-monster of the same name), jumps and twists uncontrollably with every block of a road that seem to be covered in a-bomb blast zone fallout. Nevertheless, some people manage to drive over 25 mph without once touching the brake in the knowledge that everyone will get the heck out of everyone else's way...somehow.

The highlight of my day came in the form of a brisk walk behind the facade of pastry shops, trinket vendors, and general stores that thrive in the gringo-financed nearby town of Sayulita. The beach is beautiful, but I knew that my quest for Real Mexico—without the neon freshly painted colors and bilingual restaurant menus—lay past the adobe wall at the back of the beach disconnecting the surfers and beachgoers from the town's original inhabitants. I picked a broken concrete road that cut through that back wall like a blast of dusty light in an attic that points to the family heirloom no one has seen in hundreds of years.

At first, the typical tenement-like apartments seemed rather mundane, almost generic. Who hasn't seen broken-down apartments? After Italy, I've learned that they are in no way indicative of poverty. Often people just give up taking care of the outside of their flats in order to focus their somewhat menial paychecks on the part that they view much more often. No, I would have to trek further down the road to find the kind of abject poverty I knew was hidden away from public eye. Why equate Poor Mexico with Real Mexico, you ask? For the obvious reasons. You have one guess. Whatever it is, you're right.

I discovered my payload (no irony intended) in two places. First, a house whose entire internal structure had been taken apart wall by wall, its insides devoured first by people, then animals. Behind it (or more likely, previously attached to it) lay four rooms side by side, each of which had obviously had a forth wall that had been replaced by a makeshift curtain. I didn't venture too far towards the quarters because I noticed the only nearby working thing of value—a new motorbike—and assumed that I was trespassing as it was. Four unrelated homeless dogs followed me for a bit out of that area in the hopes that I would drop my water bottle or perhaps magically produce a smidgen of leftovers. No luck boys, sorry. And yes, all the dogs on the street were male. Makes sense, I suppose.

Second, after climbing up a main hill populated by sprawling American estates filled with overweight sunbathing flower-print sporters, I discovered that the house at the top was not only abandoned, it was DONE. All that was left were partially toppled cinder block walls containing jutting corrugated rebar support poles. But they at least made climbing the one-story relatively easy. At the top, I could see at least four other hillsides and of course the picturesque ocean. All I could hear was the crash of the waves. Just what I wanted. Or so it turned out.

Day Three:
Of course, all of my assumptions are always proven wrong. That occurred today in spades. First, I realized I didn't have a photo of the aforementioned houses, so I went back today to take some snapshots I could share. I get to my first exhibit and low and behold, there are people all over it this time. What are they doing? Why, remodeling the house of course. The guys are living in the hulled-out rooms in the back while they renovate the house in front, or some such arrangement. Granted, it's a bit of an unkempt undertaking, but it's hardly a sign of crushed dreams and daily bread. Also, it turns out that lots of mexican homes are architecturally very open; there is a strong connection with nature that seeps even into the buildings that they create to block it out.

The second house was actually on the property of another, much more up to date house behind it, as I learned when the real house's guard dog starting barking in a tone that politely let me know I needed to get the hell out of there before I got torn to shreds by the equivalent of a man-eating wildebeest. Oops.

I brought my juggling balls with me on the trip, but after the first two days of non-use I figured that there was really no non-pretentious way for me to juggle on a crowded beach so I left them in my room for once. Today, a group of traveling Mexican jugglers and drum-players showed up and started playing around about three feet away from me. D'oh.

To top it all off, my night was completely sleepless, turning over random events in my mind and obsessing mostly about a girl I realized I was crazy about who I think has gotten over me in the time we've been apart. She hadn't emailed me back in weeks, she has all these photos up everywhere with this guy she's been going out with where she is, etc. In falling asleep I finally gave up. On the morning of Day Four she emailed me back. Of course. Now I'm not saying I think she's back into me, but the fact that she hadn't emailed was a pretty big factor.

More proof that I apparently cannot exist without my forever being proven wrong; maybe I'll have to somehow accept that fact to the point that it too becomes not true, in a sort of Sphere-like twist I won't understand till much later in my life. Until then, I'm off to another day at the beach. I'll update if anything adventurous happens.


For some reason, the photos are only coming out half-way on the blog, so I've attached links to my photobucket account here:

http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq274/romeoso/DSC00676.jpg
http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq274/romeoso/DSC00678.jpg
http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq274/romeoso/DSC00675.jpg