welcome home

Every airport seems to have its own particular icon -- a spot that people try to see as they descend to their airport.

The Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. The Statue of Liberty in New York City. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris. They provide travelers with that point of orientation we all seek in life.

Manzanillo airport has one, as well, that welcomes me home after every trip. Peña Blanca. A large white rock island in the Pacific just offshore and southeast of the airport.  

It sits just off the playa de oro.  Beach of gold. Not coincidentally, that is also the official name of Manzanillo's airport.

The name is not unique to this part of Mexico.  There is another beach with the same name a mere 10 miles southeast in Manzanillo.  And almost every Spanish-speaking country has one -- or many.  Even Oregon has a Gold Beach.

In most cases, the name is merely a romantic, aspirational metaphor.  "Our sand is as beautiful as gold."  Or, more prosaically, it represents the cash that flows from tourist hands into local merchant coffers.

In the case of this particular playa de oro, it is the literal truth. Or a mix of truth and legend. A hundred years ago, it truly was a gold beach. 

We need to sift the facts from the legend as best we can.  The facts first.

One of America's fastest steam ships, S.S. Golden Gate, left San Francisco on July 21, 1862 with 338 passengers and crew, and a hold filled with over one million dollars worth of gold that was on its way to the East Coast to help finance the Civil War.  That amount did not include the gold in the money belts of the 337 passengers -- many whom were headed east with their takings from the Sierra Nevadas. 

On the evening of July 27, 1862 something went terribly wrong.  A fire broke out in the engine room.  With the flames quickly engulfing the ship, Captain Hudson put some of his passengers in lifeboats and then steered it to Peña Blanca in the hope that other passengers and crew members could seek refuge on its sheer slopes. They couldn't.

The captain then tried to steer the ship to beach, but fell short when it grounded 300 yards from the beach. The fire then destroyed most of the ship. Of the passengers and crew 204 died from burns or drowning. A mortality rate of 60%. Bodies continued to wash ashore for almost a year.

And the goid was gone. In the sand and surf of Mexico.

But because there is gold in them thar tales, the rumors started swirling.

We know that just a few months later, a salvage operation recovered most of the gold in the hold. At least, 80% of it. There were reports that people living in the area may have been successful in recovering a portion of the gold, as well. But that is where the facts end.

And when facts end, legends are born.

Almost immediately, rumors began about finding money belts stuffed with gold on the beach. Then, according to rumor, gold and silver coins started washing up on the beach. 

But the legend that keeps on living concerns Bart Varelmann, a retired American, who claimed to have salvaged enough gold, a hundred years after the sinking, to finance building a bed and breakfast in Manzanillo. Photographs of the hotel would indicate not much gold was salvaged -- if any. But I am certain he had great tales to share with patrons who were thirsty for a little local color. Especially, if that color was gold.

People still come to the beach, some armed with metal detectors, in the hope that prior salvages and the ill-natured sea have not recovered all of the gold -- because everybody seems to know somebody who knew a guy who knew a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales. Even if you have no Jack Sparrow dreams, the beach is worth visiting. It is one of my favorite beaches in the area. Well-signed, but badly-roaded, on Highway 200 just south of the airport.

After all, the place is called playa de oro for a reason.

grounded beef

The world is ready to travel.

Or, at least, some of us are -- based on some recent newspaper and magazine articles. And, even if we cannot hop on a Boeing 777 to Santiago, we can re-create some of the joy of flying without leaving the ground.

Comedians have long made a living off of airline food. Not by eating it, but by ridiculing it. Even Stephen Sondheim took a whack at flight cuisine: "Anything that is white is sweet/Anything that is brown is meat/Anything that is gray don't eat." Even the food in the first class cabin of Emirates is barely a step above a Swanson's dinner.

Not that it matters. After all, who chooses a flight for the food? The beverages and meals are merely there to take our minds off of the fact that we are tempting several laws of physics by hurtling through the air in an aluminum tube.

Well, it turns out that a lot of people rank the food as their favorite part of their air trip. And, for some reason, a lot of those people are Asians.

Last August, The Economist ran an article about Asian airlines that are trying to staunch their revenue hemorrhaging by selling in-flight meals to the public. Garuda, the Indonesian carrier, will deliver a meal to the "passenger's" home with the food packaged in white plastic containers and served with plastic cutlery, on a tray, just as it would be on a Garuda flight. For 30,000 rupiah ($2 US), you can order a satisfying meal. Two choices on the menu are spinach and pastrami quiche and nasi daun jeruk (rice infused with coconut milk and lime leaf).

Some swear the meals are better on the ground than they are in the air. If history is any guide, that may undoubtedly be true. But Garuda is not alone. Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific offer similar services, as do two Australian companies who usually cater airlines.

But those schemes are pikers compared to a story that hit the wire services this weekend. On Saturday, Singapore Airlines set aside two of its A380 fleet for an ground experience in the world's largest passenger aircraft.

The diners went through the same process as passengers checking in and going through security. They were then shown to their respective seats where they could wear masks and practice social distancing while watching in-flight movies.

But the selling point, according to the newspaper, was the meal. Coach diners could dig into soy sauce-glazed chicken with spicy fried eggplant and rice for the bargain price of S$53 ($40 US). 

Business class diners were served a six-course meal for S$321 ($236 US). For the lucky few to be seated in one of the first-class suites, the meal cost a princely S$642 ($472 US). But even that was a fire sale price compared to the five-figure fare it would cost to be in that cabin on almost any of Singapore's A380 flights.

However, Australia gets the prize for creativity. On 10 October, Qantas tasked one of its Boeing 787 to do a seven-hour scenic flyover of a list of Australia's prime tourist destinations:  Queensland, the Northern Territory, New South Wales, the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Byron Bay and Sydney Harbor. Lunch was designed by a celebrity Australian chef. Not surprisingly, the flight quickly sold out even though each ticket cost between $2,700 (US) and $560 (US) to end up right back at the place of departure.

Singapore Airlines had considered a similar "flight to nowhere," but spiked it after local protests concerning pollution.  

So, I do not appear to be on my own in my flighty wanderlust. I have not seen any stories about Aeromexico selling its in-flight meals to the public. That is fine with me. I doubt I would have even taken up Singapore Airlines on its dining offer.

After all, the true joy of flying is to have that airline door slam behind me like a jail door, and then, hours later, have it open on a place I have never been.

One day. 

But today, I am going to make a pasta dish that will be better than anything I will ever eat on an airplane.

And that is good enough for me -- for now.   

dr. freud takes a walk

There are few rules in the house with no name.

One of them is: Always wears sandals or shoes when walking around in unlit areas. Such as, the patio.

I mention the patio specifically because that is where the rule began. I had stepped on enough cockroaches, slugs, and snakes while walking across the patio at night that it seemed prudent to institute a No Shoes, No Traverse rule. Of course, it is my rules in my house. So, I don't always obey them.

What happened last night was an example of why there is a rule.

It was just before 2 in the morning. I had finished watching an episode of Peaky Blinders and decided to return my ice cream bowl to the kitchen. Because there was plenty of moonlight on the patio, I did not turn on the lights -- even though I was barefoot.

I had walked maybe three paces when I felt a very distinctive crunch under my left heel. The ectoskeletons have a certain feel. I was positive I had sent a cockroach back to its maker. Good riddance.

When I finished washing up the dishes, I returned to my bedroom, picked up my flashlight, and went outside to see what I had just killed.

My readers are a clever lot. You will have already drawn the connection between the crunch and the photograph. I had stepped on one of those nasty beige scorpions that show up with some regularity on this part of the Mexican coast.

This was not my first barefoot encounter with the scorpion clan. It was my third. The other two happened in my bedroom and in the kitchen. I must step on them just right to avoid being stung by the nasty little barb on the end of their tails.

The lack of negative reinforcement, of course, encourages me to do what I have been doing. Despite my own rules.

Now, there may be a Covid moral embedded somewhere in this morality play. Every discussion these days has -- or so it seems.

But, as Freud never said, but I will: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

And a scorpion is just a scorpion.
   

gaining an hour

Time is like a mafia loan shark.

You may borrow an hour in the Fall, but come Spring, the piper must be paid.

I shot this photograph in the Melaque jardin in late September. Just after Independence Day. That is why the gazebo is gussied up in its fiesta finery. But what caught my eye was how the light from the setting sun was highlighting the sacred while the secular was slipping into shadows.

My initial thought was to share a specific sight most winter visitors never get to see in this particular combination -- primarily because Independence Day is celebrated when most northerners are watching the tree leaves put on their own show in their home countries.

But I never used it. And, even though today’s essay is on a completely different topic, the photograph retains its unless-you-are-here-you-will-not-experience-it attitude.

The parts of Mexico that have fallen to the beguiling song of Daylight Saving Time (there are large chunks that have not) will revert to Standard Time tomorrow morning at 2 AM. Most clocks these days re-set themselves. For those that don’t, you will need to move your clock back one hour.

If you live in Canada or The United States and are now panicking about the time change, you can calm down. You will not revert to Standard Time until next Sunday -- 1 November. That means that for one week, your two countries and Mexico will be on separate times. In the Spring, it will be for two weeks.

And, if you are living in a European country, you will change your clocks the same day Mexico does. Further adding to the twice-annual carnival.

This is usually the point where I mount my Sunkist crate and rant about the absurdity of the whole time-changing system. But I am not going to do that. The world is filled with enough irrational raving about almost anything imaginable. I do not need to add to the manure pile.

And why should I? I am living the life of a retiree in Mexico. With the exception of getting to church on time, I have nowhere to go that requires me to be there at any given time. Nowhere. Time is about as relevant to me as getting sucked into a debate whether consumer labels in Vietnam should be in Urdu.

There is one practical problem, though, that arises during the period The States and Mexico are on different time standards. I rely on the Saturday Alaska Airlines flight out of Manzanillo to whisk me here and there. When Los Angeles and Manzanillo are on their Daylight-Standard mix, Alaska keeps its flights on Los Angeles time. That means that the usual departure and arrival times in Manzanillo will be off one hour than usual.

Because of that anomaly, I always double-check my ticket for the departure time. The only time I didn’t, when I arrived at the airport, the Alaska team was closing up the check-in desk and the passengers were starting to board the flight. It was an interesting experience.

So, there you have it. Those of us who are here will pretend that we are living on Daylight Saving Time starting tomorrow.

For the rest of you, be patient until you can join us in place. If not time.
  

going to the birds

It is Wednesday.*

That means it is vine-cutting day when I try to establish some form of order on my unruly cup-of-gold vines by lopping off their apical meristems. That means pulling out the tall ladder to do my periodic audition for the Wallendas. And, yes, you are correct, men in their seventies climbing tall ladders is a perfect recipe for an essay ending in tears.

But not today. Today's adventure did not end in tears. Just an essay. And this is it.

I had finished one vine and was busy trimming the one that stands guard on my brother and sister-in-law's bedroom when I felt a small irritation on my left hand. That is not unusual. The vines house all sorts of creatures. But I could not see anything.

Then I felt another. And another. Then another, but this time on my left arm.

I missed the culprits because they were almost too small to see. But they were quickly joined by a small swarm of larger creatures I see quite often around here. Usually, drinking at the swimming pool. They were the small black and white wasps that are common here. Paper wasps.

The source of this buzzing and stinging mayhem was not easy to see. I had to lift a few vines to discover one of those football-shaped nests common in the wasp family. This one was rather small.

It was not my first encounter with the small wasps. Several years ago, when I lived in Villa Obregon, , I discovered the wind had knocked down a basketball-sized nest of the same wasps after one of our occasional storms. They were not happy when I started investigated their fallen home.

I called my land lady who then called civil protection. Nothing happened for two days. When the gardener arrived, he picked up the nest and put it in a garbage bag. That is how I learned that, even though the small wasps sting, they were not a true danger. At least, to me. My brother, who is allergic to the stings of flying pests, may not have been as fortunate.

With that knowledge in hand, I grabbed a can of wasp spray and stopped the swarm. Extracting the nest was easy. You can see it at the top of the essay.

These brood factories are an architectural wonder. There are three layers of egg chambers stacked one on top of the other with space between them. All to provide a safe home for eggs and the subsequent larvae. Just like the Windsors.

A Mexican friend told me that when he was young, his siblings would tear the nests open to harvest the grubs. His mother would fry them with salt and chilies. When I asked him why he no longer ate them, he replied: "We have better things to eat now."

I have one more tale about my vine-cutting day. My patio is not simply a breeding ground for insects. We breed birds, as well.

Currently, there are two nests in operation. The bullying Eurasian Collared Doves are once again sitting on eggs in one of the Queen Anne palms. I have done my best to shoo them away because their bathroom habits put them in the irritating bird category. I may as well be housing park pigeons.

The other nester is far more welcome. A few weeks ago, while practicing my Spanish in the alberca (just to show that I do learn something in my language exercises), I noticed a small Ruddy Ground Dove coming and going. She appeared to duck inside the vines in front of Omar and Yoana's bedroom.

I was not surprised to find a tiny cupped nest. But it was too high for me to see if it had eggs or hatchlings.

Daily she would swoop in, usually for an hour or so before she darted out again for a quite trip to the Oxxo or wherever Ruddy Ground Doves goes to refresh themselves. Most small doves are near the bottom of the food chain. When not being devoured by snakes, they can be found on expensive plates at Máximo Bistrot. As a result, they are extremely flighty.

But she is persistent. Every day she endures being attacked by the Eurasian Collared Doves who try to drive her away from her appointed duty. She endures.

Yesterday, the vines where her nest is hidden was my last project of the day. I climbed the ladder and cautiously looked into the nest. I will not include a photograph of what I saw. There was one chick stretched out on its side. As black as a moonless night. For some reason I do not know, it had died.

That did not keep the mother dove from returning to the nest to sit on circumstances that will not feed her instinct to reproduce. Or maybe it does. 

Biologists would call it the drive to replicate genes. The rest of us, falling into the dangerous realm of anthropomorphization, see it as a mother's love in its unadulterated form.

I do not know what the bird feels -- if anything. But if I had to choose between science and a symbol of virtues most humans have experienced, I would choose the latter.

Life is not a Disney tale. It is far better than that. 

* -- At least, it was when I wrote this essay. You will be reading it on Thursday. Just pretend you have crossed an international date line in the Blogosphere.  

the quick and the dead

Tradition does not run deep in my DNA.

My family is just as likely to celebrate Christmas in June and Independence Day in November. After all, one day is as good as another for celebrating life. (Social warning. Husbands trying to excise a missed anniversary with those two sentences will discover they are not universally true.) 

That is why I am a little surprised that I have fallen into a tradition of my own. One of the most notable sights in Melaque each October is the appearance of the white blossoms of the Mexican Rosewood. 

Whenever the surrounding hills look as if piles of snow have accumulated in our tropical greenery, it is an omen of three events: the return of the buzzards to my communication tower, the migration south of northern visitors, and the arrival of day/night of the dead.

Of course, it is not snow --as welcome as that occurrence would be. They are the white flowers of the Mexican rosewood. Or barcino as it is known locally. (Interestingly, "barcino" is the Latin name for Barcelona, which has nothing at all to do with the tree. There, I have now given you three answers for your next pub trivia outing. Mexpatriate is here to serve.)

The barcinos start blooming in October, just as the Canadian feet start hitting the Manzanillo tarmac. Those sandal-clad feet constitute the first ranks of the long-term northern visitors. People who will stay for seven or six months, and who are happy to trade the snow of the barcinos for the white stuff clogging their northern homes.

They will be followed by waves of visitors with shorter stays in mind, until the flow peaks in critical mass in January and February. It will then start ebbing.

Even with only the early arrivals, it is possible to discern a shift in the social cycles. Grocery shelves are being re-stocked. Seasonal restaurants are opening. Hotel staff are practicing their English. Masks are making their appearance for theatrical purposes. And tip jars are shiny after a good scrubbing.

During half of the year, this area is a tourist destination for Mexican families. The town has a different aura in the summer. In the winter, the place is simply -- different. Only Christmas and Semana Santa bring back the Mexican aura in spades.

The third event announced by the flowers is day/night of the dead. To a certain extent, the Mexican Department of Education's declaration in the 1960s to turn a regional rite into a national cultural event did not fully take root in our area -- or other areas of Mexico.

Some areas of the country had a long tradition of celebrating an annual conversation with dead relatives before it was tamed and homogenized by the Catholic Church. (Up north, we call that Thanksgiving dinner.) If you go to Oaxaca or Pátzcuaro, you will see the traditional sanitized version endorsed by the Church.

The tradition existed here, but it was certainly not as strong as it is in the highlands. There is some activity in local cemeteries, but most altars are built in the privacy of homes. And, of course, there are the public displays in the San Patricio jardin and on the Barra de Navidad malecon to add a Six Flags over Texas aura to the proceedings.

A couple of years ago, Hank told us that when marigolds, the traditional flower in the Mexican highlands for decorating graves, were difficult to buy here because of transportation issues, people would pick the barcino blossoms for graves. The substitution made sense.

Transporting fresh flowers was very difficult before these villages were connected by road to the rest of Mexico. And the substitution was very practical.

Because the barcinos bloom in October, they were readily available for decorating altars and graves at a reasonable price. Free. It may have also been better-suited to the purpose of the flowers -- to allow the departed soul to find its way through a familiar scent. What could have been more familiar than a local bloom? Otherwise, grandpa may have ended up sniffing marigolds in Tzintzuntzan.

But, if I am reading some other omens correctly, the barcinos may not herald the arrival of the usual mass of northern tourists. There is a very vocal contingent on Facebook who repeatedly spread the news that they are not coming south, accompanied by a subtext that those who are coming must have lost their common sense.

I do not know how many people will eventually not show up. But, while I was out shooting the hills for you, I stopped by one of Melaque's RV/trailer parks.

By this time in most years, the turtle people who travel with their homes have started arriving. Not today. At least, not in that park. It looked like a field waiting to be plowed.

Now, the question is whether the barcinos or the RV Park will be our more accurate haruspex-practicing Spurinna.

I do know that those tourists who plan on spending all or some of their winter here will have an enjoyable time -- as long as they keep reminding themselves that Mexico is not a colony that needs the help of outsiders in managing its affairs.

They may even want to pick a sprig of barcino to celebrate their arrival. 

 

putting your papers in order

 

One of the adventures of flying in these virus days is the addition of paperwork.

Passengers flying into and out of Playa de Oro International Airport (the official moniker of the Manzanillo air strip) are now required to fill out a form attesting they are symptom-free of the virus. Their temperature is then taken to verify at least one of the questions on the form.

For those on outbound flights, that is done inside the terminal before checking in with the respective airline. (Holders of permanent and temporary resident cards still go to immigration first to obtain their hall pass.)

For international passengers, the same process is conducted under the awning of the terminal before entering the airport. And that is what this essay is all about.

The health folks have tried to make the process as painless as possible. They have provided tables and pens to complete the forms that are handed out to each passenger. But there is only a limited amount of space, and it is just one more bottleneck in Mexico's bracing Fall weather.

When I was at the airport on my latest trip north, I asked the health representative if I could have an extra form to share with anyone who may be interested in one. But before I could finish this essay, Linda Bello Ruiz published one on a local Facebook page. I decided to use her version.

My suggestion for those of you who are flying internationally into Mexico is to print out this form, fill it in, and have it ready to hand to the temperature-taking crew.

I do not know if this will speed up the process of getting through the health line to stand in the immigration line. I have two caveats.

The first is that the health folks have started making their process more efficient by filling in a portion of the form in advance. If you copy off the form, you will need to fill in the information that is already completed in the form passengers will receive upon arrival.

I do not know if that will be a problem. Just be ready for the possibility that you may be asked to fill in a second form. And accept it with a thankful smile.

The second caveat is that filling out the form in advance may not save you any time. Passengers will line up in the order they came off of the plane. Having a completed form in hand will probably not move you along any faster. There is no express queue for folks with completed forms.

I know what you are thinking right now. It certainly would be more efficient if the forms were distributed to the airlines for distribution with the immigration and customs forms. But they are not.

And what is really lost by standing in line? Maybe a little time. But there will still be the waiting for immigration and luggage.

Print the form if you like. But maybe waiting in line will be a good transition moment to exercise the virtue of patience -- a virtue best exercised in these villages by the sea.

See you soon.