Despite its reputation, we escaped from Culiacán this morning unscathed.
Darrel announced that it was about as anti-climactic as leaving Detroit in one piece. Promises of mayhem almost always go unmet.
Instead, we were up before the sun to head off through the remainder of our road trip through northern Mexico. I often hear Mexicans, from further south in the country, referring to northern Mexicans as being hybrids between Mexico and The States.
I do not know about that. But the north has long been culturally different from Mexican lands to the south.
The north is one of the areas where the Apaches and Comanches limited the northern expansion of Spanish and Mexican settlement. That is one reason the Mexican government invited American settlers into Texas. Of course, that did not end well for Mexico -- with its defeat in the inevitable Mexican-American war.
But what remained of the northern area of Mexico proved to be a volatile mix for the country. It is where mestizos came to find a less-hierarchical life. They built the Mexican cowboy culture -- a culture that was adopted by cowboys north of the Rio Bravo.
And, being free of Mexico City's cultural (and, often, political) grasp, the northerners built their own view of their region. Very similar to what would be known as Whigs -- the country party -- in England. Distrustful of central authority. Willing to gauge a man by his talents, rather than his birth.
It is one reason many northern Mexicans see narco lords as modern day Robin Hoods -- gathering wealth and sharing it with their community. And then celebrating them in song. One of the best examples is, of course, Culiacán itself.
But we did not stick around long enough to determine if all of that is merely another Mexican myth. Instead, we spent the day driving through the fields and deserts of Sinaloa and Sonora. As well as the state capital of Hermosillo -- with its bustling traffic that rivals Los Angeles in its quest -- for whatever such people seek.
Most of our Sonora drive (from Santa Ana to the border at Sonoyta) was in the dark. I am not fond of driving in the dark -- whether in Mexico or elsewhere. It is usually as boring as night flights. And the drive was a bit frustrating because I know how stunning the scenery can be on that drive.
But this is a Cotton Boy road trip. We like to stretch our destination points as far from our departures as we can.
In this case, we are spending the night in Gila Bend, Arizona at the Space Age Lodge. It is not our first time here. Professor Jiggs, Darrel, and I spent a night here in 2009 (racing arizona). And nothing has changed. It is still over-priced (costing more than the Best Western across the street from Disneyland). But for two tired vagabonds, the room is adequate enough to recharge for another long day heading further north.
And that is not bad for a situation comedy episode.
I have been written out of one situation comedy episode and into another.
Three months ago I took my first walk on our local exercise path. In anger and in the dark. That walk resulted in my decision to cut back on my Mexpatriate publication schedule. The background on that is not very interesting.
The memory of that trek into mild madness came back to me this morning. My excuse for cutting back on writing was to free up time for exercise and studying Spanish. I have done both -- even though I have been far more conscientious and constant about one than the other.
I was walking at 5 AM because my brother Darrel and I were leaving early on our drive to Oregon. That is the cover story. He flew down to extract me from the delinquencies of my mind that have entertained me for the past few months.
And so we are off. We never travel with a plan. The only consistent rule we have is that we do not stop except for necessities -- gas, food, urination. And, then, only briefly. For us, a road trip is a means to go from Point A (where we are) to Point B (even though we may have only a vague idea where that is). It is a gene we inherited from our Dear Old Pa. My mother has stories.
Every road trip has its tales. And this one is no exception. But I will warn you, those of you with sensitive sensibilities should just skip the next seven paragraphs.
The downside of Cotton brief stops is that all business is not entirely completed before we start rolling down the road. The toll road from Tepic to Mazatlan is relatively new. As a result, Pemex has not opened as many gas stations as it has on some of the older roads in Mexico. That means limited access to bathrooms.
Combine long distances with a 66 year-old bladder, and there are bound to be moments of discomfort. Well, there were.
I drove the first leg from Bara de Navidad to Tepic -- with my brother repeatedly imploring: “Put me in, coach.” I did not take it as social commentary on my rather brisk method of putting Barra far behind us.
I eventually did put him in the game. At Tepic.
That turned me from being the controlling brother to be being the passenger brother. Or, rather, the brother who had to rest his swollen left foot -- caused by sitting for too long. Somewhere in northern Nayarit, nature put in an emergency call to my bladder.
Stopping beside the road was out of the question. The toll road was filled with trucks driving on the shoulders. But, being an ingenious guy, I put an empty Coke Light bottle to good use. Over the years, I have developed a leak-proof strategy for relief while driving.
But all calls are not equal. In the middle of my impromptu performance, the in-dash telephone rang. Fortunately, I was able to put one call on hold while I answered the other. It was my good friend Lou, who had called me accidentally. Before Kim asks: No, I did not tell him he had piss-poor timing.
And that is how road trips go. Some people make periodic stops to see the sights. Darrel and I simply like entertaining ourselves as circumstances allow. While we are on the roll. He is a noble and witty sparring partner.
At one of the toll booths, Darrel chuckled that between airfare, gasoline, tolls, hotel rooms, and meals, I could easily have bought all of the items we are going to drag back to Barra de Navidad from my brother’s garage later in the month. Several times over.
He, of course, is correct. But irrelevant.
We are making the trip because we enjoy each other’s company. After all, if I had stayed at home in Barra de Navidad, I wouldn’t have anything interesting to share with you. Well, I would have a lot of interesting things happening, but I couldn’t share them with you.
At Tepic, we discussed the possibility of spending the night in Mazatlán. But we had plenty of sunlight left when we drove past the city where my father had talked of retiring.
So, on we drove to Culiacán -- arriving in the dark, with reservations at the City Express Hotel. And, yes, I know the city’s history.
Where will we stay tomorrow night? If you don’t know the answer to that, you might want to reread the fifth paragraph.
We will see you there. Wherever it is.
Maybe north of the border. Maybe not.
A regular cast member has returned to this situation comedy we know as Mexpatriate.
My brother Darrel. Or, as the Bob Newharts amongst you would have it -- my other brother Darrel.
He flew in on Saturday afternoon for a specific mission. He is going to join me on a road trip from Barra de Navidad to Bend, Oregon. I have several boxes in my mother's garage the contents of which would be better served in the house with no name.
Books. Clothes. Kitchen goods. Dining accessories. All of which had little or no value to me as a renter, but most can immediately be put to service in my role as a homeowner.
Could I live without them? Sure. Could I simply have them shipped to Mexico? Of course. But they make a great excuse for me to spend more time with my brother.
It has been far too long since we spent time together -- and the last time resulted in us taking a long desert hike where I eventually lost the nail on my right great toe. Ah, the good times.
As in most Cotton productions, there are no plans. We don't know when we are leaving. We have no idea of our route. One morning we will get up and decide that is the day. We will point the Escape north and be on our way.
And what about that photograph at the top of this essay? When Darrel and Christie were here last year, the Escape had a flat on the way from the airport. Yesterday, it happened again. This time it was merely a small meta screw. But quite effective in stopping the beast I drive.
Driving on our local roads is similar to plowing through a construction site. All four of the Escape's tires have now been subjected to quick fixes for leaks.
My intentions were to buy a new set of tires in Oregon -- if only because they cost less. But I currently have one tire that has a bulge in the sidewall and a crack in the bead. It may not survive the drive north.
But all of that will be for future episodes. For now, simply welcome our new cast member. My only gripe is that he always get the great lines. I need to take a meeting with the writers.
While leaving Ozzie's apartment yesterday, we noticed a young man talking with the owner of the Red Lobster restaurant in Villa Obregón. The young man was wearing a Telmex shirt.
It was the logo on the shirt that mattered to both of us. Over a week ago, I drove Ozzie to the Telmex office in Manzanillo to sign him up for a telephone line and internet. The very efficient woman who took the order told him he would have a working internet connection by the end of the week.
Well, a certain hurricane and a subsequent flood put paid to that promise. Of course, the connection does not yet exist.
I have my own complaints with Telmex. Eleven days after the storm and I am still without telephone or internet.
Ozzie wanted to stop the guy in the Telmex shirt. I thought it was an exercise in futility. He was obviously a salesman -- with a chart of Telmex's internet service packages in his right hand. Sending a salesman into a neighborhood that still lacks telephone service struck me as the equivalent of sending a David Duke canvasser into Harlem.
But Ozzie asked. The young man appeared to have been well-briefed. Yes, he was just selling internet packages, but he knew new installations would not occur for at least ten more days -- not until current subscribers had their service restored. He was even aware my neighborhood in the barrio was without service.
So, it appears that I will be posting the occasional errant message thanks to the good graces of either Rooster's or Papa Gallo's. It is Papa Gallo's today.
I currently have over 2000 messages in my email inbox. For those of you awaiting responses, I promise to get to the as soon as Carlos Slim deigns I am worthy of his internet services.
We are getting our storms on the installment plan.
When Patricia came sashaying through our neighborhood, the weathermen predicted she would give us the gift of up to 20 inches of rain. It did not happen. We received less rain than we usually get in an average summer storm.
Last night all of that changed. While eating supper by the beach, an obvious storm front moved in. By the time I got back to the house to take down an outdoor painting, the rain had started. Accompanied by one of the best lightning and thunder storms we have had this season.
I knew this was not going to be a normal rain when the street dogs starting lining up in pairs. And it wasn't. The rain hitting the laminate at the top of my shower chimney sounded as if Chita Rivera had opened a dance studio up there.
The photograph is what I saw when I opened the garage door this morning. I am convinced I live on a former stream bed. Well, I was until I drove down Nueva España -- the main street in my part of town. It would have done Venice proud.
But not as proud as the streets in San Patricio and Villa Obregón. Enough rain had formed in the streets to turn the villages into an island. Well, at least, a peninsula. One road was handling all of the usual village traffic -- along with the augmented disaster relief traffic that is still in town.
Of course, I have abandoned any hope of my telephone and internet being restored in the near future. The rain has undoubtedly set back Telmex in its tortoise-speed service. Lenny Bruce once described Communism as being "one large telephone company." He was a clever man.
I suspect the reverse is true, as well. The monopolistic Telmex has all of the efficiency of Bulgarian Communism.
But that is fine with me. Even though my email inbox is piled high with unread messages, blogs (like the unexamined life) remain strangers, and my magazines and newspapers go unread, I am enjoying my respite from the 21st century.
I am no Luddite. But I have been spending more time with people around here -- with some very mixed results. But that is life. An analog life without digitization.
Will I enjoy seeing the return of my internet connection? Of course, I will. But, for the moment, I am enjoying the change of rhythm -- and the rain, with its own bag of challenges.
My only question is: What is coming next? A plague of snakes -- or, perhaps, rabid flying monkeys.
Something in my morning walk transported me to the little mountain town in Oregon where I grew up.
When I was seven or eight, Mike Pinson, my best friend in Powers, and I would jump on our bicycles and pedal down the secondary road that led to the Rogue River. We were not heading to Agnes. Our sights were on the more sybaritic pleasure of the old swimming hole. Affectionately, known as the apple orchard -- a name reflecting its former incarnation.
We regularly ran across reminders that we were in The Woods. Spawned-out salmon. Hawks on the hunt. Snakes and frogs. Bobcats -- usually nailed to fence posts for bounty. Even the occasional black bear.
But one sound assured us civilization was at hand. The whine of chain saws.
That, of course, was was the era when Powers made its living out of the woods. Literally, out of the woods. The giant fir that crowded our hillsides. Before the environmentalist squad took on the job-providers. (But we will not bother with that discussion. It is not really pertinent to the theme of today's essay.)
My little morning reverie had its genesis in the same sound. Chain saws.
Even though Patricia blew through town almost a week ago, the cleanup is running apace. The army is picking up piles of debris and burning it in central locations. It almost looks like the Romans burning their military dead in the opening sequence of Cleopatra.
Fortunately, the final stages of debris cleanup is primarily what we are doing in my part of the Mexican coast. The people a few miles north of us took the full brunt of the storm.
My friend, Ben, who assists Samaritan's Purse, has made several trips to the hardest-hit area. He says it has been blown flat.
Entire villages have disappeared. Some concrete buildings were toppled. And, even though the death toll was mercifully small, people died. Others are in desperate need.
That is not generally true in our town. The computer models showed Patricia making landfall north and west of us. Almost directly where Jova hit four years ago.
But we were certainly not untouched. Like all of my neighbors, I had decided to ride out the storm in my house. The young family, who I have been assisting, did not want to stay in their apartment -- just two blocks from the beach. So, I invited them to stay with me.
It was a wise decision. Sharing experiences is far better than riding through life alone. And, it turns out, my place is well-designed to withstand storms of the intensity we experienced.
I am glad Ozzie came along with me for my last outing before the storm hit. The emergency system in Barra de Navidad had warned everyone to stay in their homes. I could not resist the temptation.
With about an hour to go before zero hour, we drove down to the beach to see the wave action. Patricia knew how to stir the pool. I had never seen our ocean that agitated.
That was the point I turned into a tourist from Saskatchewan visiting the beach for the first time. I tried to get as close as I could to get a shot of the waves. While I was shooting, Ozzie warned me I was about to be swept away by a wave. I regret only that I did not get the shot.
By that point, the police had roped off the sand bar that gives Barra de Navidad its name. The fear was that the waves would wash across the bar. As it turned out, the fear was well-founded. The waves went right through several restaurants.
And they went through the homes on the street in Villa Obregon where I first lived when I moved down in 2009. Even though we were only touched by the edge of the storm, the damage was real.
Most of that damage came in board feet of trees. When the winds first died down, Ozzie and I took a quick drive through Barra de Navidad, curious if we could get over to Villa Obregon.
As I predicted, we could not get out of Barra de Navidad. During Jova, I was trapped on a new island formed by flooding from rain water. This time, we were spared the deluge.
But we were trapped just as effectively by downed trees in Barra de Navidad. All over town, huge trees fell. Primavera. Parota. Flamboyan. Palms. And the most exotic of all, rows of concrete electrical poles.
The heroes of the storm are the workers of the government-owned electrical company, CFE. The company stationed an army of trucks and workers here and in Puerto Vallarta. They had restored power to most local areas by Sunday night.
When the lights came on, people south of Nueva España had telephone and internet. Those north of the street in my immediate neighborhood were stuck in the 19th century -- as if Alexander Graham Bell and ARPANET had dropped out of history.
As of this afternoon, we are still without land lines and internet. You all know my libertarian credentials. I am hardly a class warrior. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that Nueva España divides the haves from the haves-less (I am one of the exceptions.)
That type of Marxist thinking also made me wonder why the government-owned electric company was so much more efficient than the private monopoly of Telmex. Until I realized, there is a free market answer.
When electrical power is interrupted, CFE's revenue stream is interrupted. When Telmex's service is interrupted, it continues to get the same revenue. The reason? CFE charges for services used. Telmex charges a flat fee -- whether or not service is provided.
At least, no one was injured at the house with no name. At least, during the storm. While cleaning up the courtyard, I forgot I had turned a metal-legged table on its side. And I ran into it at a full walk.
The pain was familiar. I had broken a rib in the same place about thirty years ago. Fortunately, it appears there is no break. I can raise my right arm without pain. But I cannot sleep on my right side. It must be something other than a break.
And, for me, that was the worst of it. To look at Barra de Navidad and Melaque today, it is hard to believe that a hurricane came through here less than a week ago.
But that is one of the virtues of this country. People are quick to clean up their property. And the government (the army, CFE, paid "volunteers") take care of the rest.
Here is what I learned last week. There are times to run from storms; there are times to stay in place. This was one of the latter. But due only to the predictive power of computer models. Patricia came awfully close to overturning my apple cart.
I also learned I need to buy a generator. Three days without power is a strain on my house. Without electricity, I have no water. And the pool water (for showering and washing up) was getting rather rancid by the third day. As was the food in the refrigerators.
I would be less than honest if I did not tell you I experienced an adrenalin rush during the storm. That does not take away from the damage the storm caused. But I felt the same jolt I feel skydiving or ziplining.
And as for the chain saws, to me it will always be the sign of industriousness. Even though I will hear them far more here than in Powers. Some experience are relegated to memories.
A quick update.
For various reasons, I have decided to stay in my house during the arrival and passing of hurricane Patricia. I have also invited Ozzie and his family to ride out the storm with me. Their apartment is far too close to the beach for my psychological comfort.
Patricia is predicted to make landfall around 8 PM tonight to the west and north of Barra de Navidad as a category 5 hurricane. But it is a very wide storm. We will feel some of its effects.
Right now (at 2:30 PM), we have a steady rain and increasing winds. The local authorities sent a sound truck around advising people to stay indoors.
I am writing this piece to let you know that the power company will be shutting off the power at 3 PM as a safeguard against the storm damaging the system. That means I will be out of contact with the internet until power is restored following the storm.
I have appreciated all of your suggestions and your heart-felt advice.
See you on the other side.
