Gringo Land

I have never seriously entertained the notion of retiring abroad yet it is a popular option for Americans who want a cheaper life in Mexico among other countries. The appeal of retiring on the cheap is undeniable. But there are aspects that I find decidedly unattractive.

The bust of Emiliano Zapata a mythical Mexican revolutionary stands at the entrance to Punta Mita a former surfers beach hang out when we sailed here from California at the end of the century. His glowering presence is hugely ironic given that today this town is devoted to serving Americans living either in Mexico or surrounded by Mexico. 

Of course there are different ways to live in Mexico but we spent Monday on a slightly sentimental journey through the Bay of Banderas, the body of water that Puerto Vallarta sits upon and which we visited in 1998. It was a different world of course now, like any other population center that has evolved over twenty years.
We remembered La Cruz de Huanacaxtle as a little village with fishing boats pulled up on the beach and a few sailboats anchored inside a small municipal breakwater. We anchored outside and brought our dogs and our dinghy to land in the calm waters in front of the cruisers hangout, a little waterfront cafe. Now there is a marina and a wall.

Cruisers who want to get out and eat a bite in Mexico van cross the wall and sit on a street far outside any water view.

We found a space for  GANNET2 at the Benito Juarez park and took Rusty for his usual stroll. I was keen to see the waterfront. Easier said than done.

There are people still out there sitting in their boats. I don’t envy them. I enjoy driving and wandering through small Mexican towns and when it rains I turn on the windshield wipers. I don’t miss dragging anchors and sitting around talking about the cost of all things boat related. 

I am in a minority in these things I know, but I’d rather see the old village back. I know the clock can’t be reversed. We were here in a moment in time. The same way Key West has evolved and changed and taken the promise of wealth. I saw signs in English filled with prohibitions as we walked off the sand and came through the marina. 

I put Rusty on his leash and we walked back through the gate as though we belonged. Back to the world of  things slightly askew and potholed  streets. No drinking of intoxicating liquor in public places. A shame that as I was feeling low. 

An angry Mexican walked up to me in Punta de Mita while I stood outside the van and maybe was inside on the loo. Yeah I know, it happens. In this case this guy who was moving some trash or something was angry about something and started yelling at me and when I replied calmly in Spanish he switched to fluent English.  He told me to fuck off and this was his town and I stood there telling him to back off. It was actually quite funny as I couldn’t get into  the van or Layne would have killed me! I dared not turn my back on him as he was fingering his pocket like he was going to pull a knife. Great I thought to myself. I’m going to have to punch a man at my age. I’d better make it good. No knife appeared and I told him I was leaving. He could keep his town. He wandered off mumbling and finally Layne was ready to receive visitors. I guess I was handling it okay as the chief security officer was sitting behind a light pole firing the exchange. 

In my world view the fact that there was a resentful angry Mexican taking out his anger on foreign incomers reinforces my feelings about foreign enclaves living apart in Mexico.

Puerto Vallarta is a big city. I find it rather touching that Layne points out the Starbucks and Subways as though she is still surprised by the hegemony of American culture. I enjoy poking around Mexican tiendas and watching Layne exploring new flavors for her kitchen.  

The fact is we all like the ability to reach out for the familiar when we are away. Layne and I have been traveling for three months and the normal exhaustion that comes from constant novelty hasn’t made itself felt.

The reason is we have a life aboard GANNET2 that is as far from Mexico as Cudjoe Key. We close the door on the world and we are gone. We watch silly TV, we eat familiar food, consume familiar art and we refresh ourselves for another day of Mexico and the unfamiliar.

But we don’t want to immerse ourselves in expatriate culture. As much as Covid allows we float through the fringes of the world we have come to see. And that isn’t the world of yacht clubs or gated communities but I’m glad they are there for those who want them.

Mexico is huge, larger than you know, and most of it will never see an American. The fear and the myths and the reports of drug violence that have nothing to do with visitors keep people away. Obviously I don’t fit in that camp and I hope it’s obvious by now the dangers of Mexico are overrated. 

In these modern times the Internet makes travel easy even if you don’t speak the language. Being able to converse will add depth to a visit but  using electronic guides will get you where you want to go. 

Understanding the culture helps but you don’t need to speak Spanish. The trick is to understand the hints and not to cross invisible lines. Making assumptions and presuming will bring down the guardians of the rules. 

In La Cruz there was an unattended hose in the park and I wanted to use it to hose off the dust that has built up on our home since our last dirt road exploration. However there was no one in the park to ask permission. Should I have used it anyway? 

Layne has enjoyed visiting Mexico all her life so she needed no persuasion to make a turn to the south. I enjoy the variety from both sides of the border and I am aware of the privilege of being able to cross at will. 

I don’t recommend visiting as giving advice is generally a waste of time. But I’m glad we came.

Beach Hunting

Yesterday was one of those days when nothing goes right. It was no great drama - van life shock! horror! click bait! - but it was instead a series of small reverses that added up to an irritating time on the road. 

We left the truck stop south of Mazatlan early, around eight, to get a good start as we hoped find a beach spot to sit still for a few days. The toll road wasn’t busy on a Sunday and we bowled along at 55 to 60 listening to a Carl Hiassen novel (Chomp), a pleasant light memory of South Florida and home.

The toll road isn’t a normal freeway like you’d understand it. Long stretches in Nayarit State were two lanes only, though reasonably pot hole free. Short stretches  went through towns and villages as though a toll road were suddenly a four lane Main Street. It’s slightly weird but you get used to it. The other thing to know is there is an  expectation that slower vehicles will get out of the way and ride the shoulder if there is one.

On a two lane like this when passed you don’t take offense, you just pull aside. If oncoming traffic is passing you don’t play chicken, you just pull onto your own shoulder and keep going. Also when passing in an iffy area ( like the crest of a hill!) turn on your headlights. I was really getting into it and enjoying the flow until the voice of reason suggested she was getting a bit nervous at my Italian style of making progress. The van is a small home for us to live in and she is important to my welfare so I did as I was told. It was fun though driving like a Mexican and I really enjoy their no stress style. 

Turning off to take the highway to San Blas was lovely. The road wound down the mountain, perfectly smooth and full of gorgeous views between the mango groves. San Blas is known for its vicious insects that breed in the mangroves in the estuaries around the city. Long ago San Blas was a major shipbuilding center but the harbor silted in and trade moved to cities up the coast. San Blas never got over becoming a bug filled backwater. 

The lovely central square is all torn up and dusty. That was a disappointment. We sailed here twenty years ago and had fond memories of walking the town before retreating to the boat of an evening to avoid the infamous insect bites.

Our favorite ice creams, one dollar paletas de Michoacán, watermelon for Layne and strawberry for me. 

I used the wide angled setting on my phone to catch Rusty staring at the dogs on the roof. You can see the distortion that gives Rusty a barrel shaped look. A local sitting on his sidewalk engaged with me and started chatting about him. He’s fat he said. Well I wanted to say your dogs are underfed but I laughed and kept my opinions to myself. 

We had already stopped for lunch  when we arrived town. Dorado and grilled lobster and two sodas (“Coca lite”) and it was excellent but not inexpensive at $33. A friend asked it it was street food. Not at that price Bruce! 

Layne got a to go box from the van and we took some dorado for later. It’s nice traveling with your own fridge! Then she went shopping:
On the way out of town we stopped for “world famous” banana bread which looks very familiar and Layne who enjoys shopping the street stalls also got a pie. A sort of ricotta texture not too sweet and of undefinable flavor.
On the whole San Blas left us feeling disappointed. The town doesn’t seem to have enjoyed prosperity as one might have liked. It doesn’t have a very vibrant feel. We set off to find a campground on a beach an hour south as listed on iOverlander the invaluable app.
We followed the directions and took twenty minutes to cover less than two miles of rocky lumpy jerky dusty mess. We crawled and made our slow way past a private development. 
The van did well and the skid plate protected us from the rocks. It was like being at sea and hitting waves every few seconds, rocking side to side as we lurched. 

We got to the beach but the main area was closed as part of the private  development. A side road seemed to be the way to go with mangroves on the left and a barbed wire fence on the right bypassing the beach club. The track was narrow but we made it until an overhead branch threatened our roof. I stopped. We had to go back or cut the branch. I was ready to get the saw out but my common sense wife noted we were in full view of God and everybody and we didn’t know whose private property I wanted to vandalize. Sighing, and forgetting to take a picture I started backing up.

Somehow I avoided backing into a broken culvert and I avoided scraping the barbed wire. Or whacking the roof air conditioner.  A young couple in a Nissan Versa smiled after waiting patiently for my maneuvering before they turned down the lane to the restaurant and campground. They confirmed the privacy of the club we could see, and said the campground was down the track we couldn’t negotiate. We turned around.

The journey back was tough as we had failed. We made it back to pavement at which point We had 90 minutes till dark so we tried our second parking choice 15 minutes down the road. That was a bust as it was a large parking lot next to some loud restaurants and the whole area was filled with trash. Rusty would have been overwhelmed by the number of local dogs. This was a no go. We fell back on our last resort plan: a gas station on the edge of a nearby town called Las Varas (“the canes”) about an hour away.

We passed through a small town on the way, Zacualpan of which we had never heard. It was pretty enough but it was also a break from the many nasty potholes and topes (speed bumps) that littered Highway 16. 

The cratered nature of the main road wore on our last nerve but it also explained why Google estimated a 35 minute drive for 16 miles.

It was about a half hour before dark when we saw our destination. Two traffic cops were monitoring the highway but they ignored us. That was checkpoint number 13 since we entered Mexico. We have never been stopped, not once. So much for corrupt police. So much for dangerous Mexico. We drive as freely as we do in the States.

We put $66 of regular into the heroic GANNET2 and gave the attendant a dollar when he said we would be fine if we parked for the night. We sat and stared at our phones for a while wondering where we were going next. Then I walked Rusty and said hello to some people sitting out enjoying a Sunday evening. Good for your health he said to walk the dog. I agreed. Good for my mental health too.

He ate a huge dinner, we had salad and a beer and a slice of banana bread. I think we shall all sleep well. Monday we will try to find an oceanside berth near Punta Mita north of Puerto Vallarta. Fingers crossed.

Winning The Revolution.

One reason Layne wanted to spend some time in a campground was the advertised laundry. She was insisting on doing her laundry herself, not handing it over to be done by some anonymous laundry woman as is the Mexican custom. $20 a night was more than we wanted to pay to park especially as we don’t need to plug in electricity, but the pool, the WiFi and that blessed do it yourself laundry sucked her in. I didn’t mind the amenities…

Well, it turned out the owner’s laundry was backed up and there was no room for ours, and the beach was full of dogs that freaked Rusty out so badly he refused to walk the sand, and the gate at the entrance was locked so it was unnecessarily  complicated to go for a distant walk. I had to find the handyman called Oligarco ( I’m not making that name up!) and ask him to unlock it. And I had to hope he was in shouting distance when Rusty and I got back to the gate. The paranoia of gringos requiring to be locked inside in Dangerous Mexico. None of this sounds like a reason to leave probably but we did just that after one night.

Compared to wild camping I felt totally fenced in like the song says. A Canadian woman whose camper seemed to have put down roots had a small exceedingly yappy dog that gave voice every single time it saw us. Some Germans in a truck camper never appeared. There was no one to exchange war stories with so we were ready to spread our wings again. Unlock that gate!

The fact was the damned laundry still had to be done so iOverlander to the rescue, again. Once in Mazatlan we dropped off seven kilos (15 pounds) of reeking laundry for $8 bucks, to be washed dried and folded including sheets and towels. Lovely. Be back by five she said. Laynes dreams of doing it herself were shattered. 

Mazatlan is a large coastal city and traffic can be quite busy, if you’ll excuse the understatement. Saturdays are working days for many Mexicans so businesses are open as a matter of course and commuting rules apply. We stopped by Walmart to try to solve a long-standing problem which had developed at the beach at Huatabampito where one of our camping chairs broke.

The expensive Pico chair drives me crazy as it takes precision to open and close, it’s heavy but very comfortable and it is not built to last in my opinion. We shall see what happens with the other one which still works but is showing signs of exhaustion. Jerky movements and getting stuck when closing it makes me think the little plastic parts and springs have had as much as they can take from Mexican sand and the grind of life on the road. Over engineered and under built.

No one, not anyone on the waterfront sold folding chairs. One woman suggested we try San Kloo near the Soriana Hiper Market. San Kloo was all I heard. No idea but I figured if I looked up the supermarket I could get a hint off Google maps. I got the clue finally. San Kloo is Mexican for: 

$31 and valid anywhere in the world. She wanted an address for our membership. Your house I suggested. She looked puzzled and then started giggling. I looked up an RV park in Mazatlan on Google maps and that’s our membership address. I hope they enjoy the special offers. We got the chair, $22, and it’s simple yet comfortable and tough enough for office work dealing with the beach should be easily within its capabilities. 

All this trundling around takes effort. Our visit to the Soriana supermarket yielded more loose dog food for hungry dogs we meet and they had a half price offer on six packs of Carta Blanca, a beer labeled “suave.”  How could I resist? 

Layne had a one o’clock appointment for a hair cut. Everyone wears masks in businesses as a matter of course and she was glad to get her hair done. While she was getting cropped Rusty and I went for a walk. 

Dogs in Mexico are not usually abandoned, but who they belong to sets the quality of their lives. Unlike in the US dogs, except those owned by the wealthy, aren’t treated as family members and they live on the streets much like their owners. Compared to dogs left home alone in the US constantly leashed and monitored, Mexican dogs live a life of freedom if not one of love and over eating. A leashed dog is dangerous. Why else would you tie him up? So I let him roam the sidewalks and I try not to get distracted. 

Walking with Rusty I watched him negotiate the sidewalk crowds like an old pro. No one noticed him. Had I leashed him I would have cleared the way ahead by freaking everybody out at the sight of an obviously dangerous dog. 

Traffic is the danger. The indifference of pedestrians is mirrored by drivers so crossing the street is a closely supervised operation. Rusty is obedient so when I say stop he stops which makes it possible for him to walk on his own. One hand on his collar as we wait for a break in traffic. 

He loves Mexico. What overwhelmed him at first intrigues him now. He assesses danger but he enjoys exploring. So do I:

I dropped Rusty off at GANNET2 and gave him a bowl of water. He was ready for it as temperatures are reaching Key West levels. Back at the salon Layne suggested I get trimmed. Good idea.

After $19 dollars of chopping (including tip) we got back to our home where we had lunch on the street. Corn tortillas with spicy mayo cheese and deli meat. Sort of Mexican.  Living in a van is great fun I find. I feel like a kid sometimes. 

We followed the blue Google line back to the laundry and got a neat bundle of our stuff. Layne is a convert at last to the idea of getting other people to do the job for her. It was perfectly done. 

We use a bedding system that is a double sided duvet, thicker on one side than the other. Inside we have a double sheet which Velcros inside the duvet. It’s like a king sized sleeping bag that feels like the most comfortable bed. I really like it. 

While we fixed the bed and put away our clothes Rusty napped at the truck stop, our campsite for the night. 

We like truck stops for overnight roadside pauses in the journey. They aren’t that different to stops in the US. Free parking usually, with clean bathrooms and sometimes showers. There’s always a convenience store and sometimes a diner. 

No one bothers us, and I suspect Mexican truck drivers hold amateurs like us in similar contempt to that US truckers feel for RVers in their parking areas. We like their facilities though. $9 for two beef ranchera dishes and a large bottle of shared beer. 

Free WiFi and a view of the action at the Pemex gas station. It’s just life on the road. Mexico dangerous? Nah. 

20 pesos to the dollar more or less. About $4 a gallon for regular for our Promaster. 

In the village kids were playing in the street on the other side of the truck stop fence. I watched as I walked Rusty. 

We settled in got some downloaded TV to shut out the world so we could feel at home. In the morning it will be another day on the road. More relaxation soon I hope. This is my retirement.