holy saturday at the beach

Semana santa is not just about beaches and beer.

It seems silly to even say it. But Holy Week is the time the Christian world celebrates Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to his crucifixion on Good Friday and ends with his triumphant resurrection on Easter Sunday.

And, even though I have not written about any of them, our streets have been filled with processions -- the most dramatic being on Good Friday with a DeMillean recreation of the stations of the cross in our streets, including a crucifixion.

In my protestant tradition, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is just that. A Saturday. At best, a day to get ready for Easter Sunday.

But, not in my little fishing village by the sea. It is Good Saturday. The day the Catholic Church assigns to Mary in her manifestation as Our Lady of Solitude where she mourns for the death of her son. I ran into the procession honoring her in Barra de Navidad on my morning bicycle ride. I particularly like the shadows -- including the impromptu cross.

Considering what the gospels have to say about that Saturday two millennia ago, it should be called the Day of the Cowering Disciples, who were holed up until Mary Magdalene brought them shocking news on Sunday morning.

However, this was also a special day for the only woman now in my house -- my sister-in-law, Christy. It was her birthday.

I am still without a car. Christy said she would be fine just staying at home. We have a prime rib to cook up in her honor. But we did not have all of the fixings.

So, we hit on plan B. We would take a taxi to Melaque, have lunch at our favorite Japanese restaurant (Kai Murasaki -- with their inimitable lime ice cream sandwiches), and then walk over to Hawaii to buy what we needed for Christy's prime rib birthday bash dinner tomorrow.

Now, whenever I write a sentence like that, the next one is usually: "That is not what happened." But, today that is exactly what happened.

Despite the Easter crowds, we easily caught a cab. And, even though the restaurant was closed on our last two visits, it had just opened as we arrived. And we had a great lunch.

Accompanied by a floor show. Two chickens -- a rooster and his hen -- worked their way under each table looking for the orts of diners. 

Health inspectors up north would never have allowed such a thing. But, the three of us were amused. After all, I once had a pet bantam hen named Susan. That is another story, though.

So, we will celebrate part two of Christy's birthday tomorrow with extra rare prime rib. The other half of the roast that we cooked for my mother;s birthday was just as good as the roast we had last year. We have air aged this one even longer.

Tomorrow is Easter. The churches will be filled with both regular attendees and those who stop by for their semi-annual top up.

I hope to see you there. No matter which group you are in. 

playas y pesos

There are two signs that Semana Santa is in full swing in our area of Mexico.

The first is almost a tautology. Semana Santa is in full swing when our local beaches do a rather convincing impersonation of Chinese holiday spots. You know the drill. Where strands of sand disappear under the crush of semi-nude bodies.

The second is a bit more esoteric. But it is every bit as emblematic as the first robin of Spring. The ATMs are almost perpetually empty.

It seems as if the arrival of the holiday revelers has been a bit slow this year, but they are finally arriving. And our beaches are taking on the festive air of revelers while our streets sink into some of the worst aspects of Manhattan.

But the ATMs are always a great barometer. Part of the problem is the dearth of infrastructure. Banamex has one ATM in Barra de Navidad and two others at the bank in San Patricio. There is an ATM at Intercam in San Patricio that does not recognize my debit card. And another at the army base just outside of Melaque where I can never find a parking spot.

My experience is with the Banamex machines. And they have been consistently under stress for the last week.

Our ATM in Barra de Navidad runs out of cash on a regular basis -- even when tourists are not besieging the town. I have become so accustomed to seeing "Disculpe" displayed on the screen that I thought Banamex had changed ts name.

And, even though both Banamex ATMs at the bank were operating yesterday, I (along with a group of other dissatisfied customers) could not get either machine to cough up a few pesos to get me through the week.

That was bad planning on my part. The monthly payment for the staff has hit in the middle of this weekend. I was also faced with a large number of financial requests from friends.

So, here I am. Without a car. With $200 (Mx) in my wallet, and about $6,000 (Mx) of obligations to pay on Saturday.

This is when I am glad I have a bank account with Banamex. If I cannot get the ATM to disgorge at the bank tomorrow, I can take my passport and my account card inside to drain a bit out of my savings to tide me over. In something of a modified Willie Sutton adage. Because it is there.

Despite the occasional inconvenience, Semana Santa is one of my favorite times of the year. Where else can you find such a large group of people devoted to pursuing a singular goal? Having a good time.

And that is plenty evidence for me that I made the correct choice in retiring in this fascinating country.

musical chairs

"I don't pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people."

I chuckled today thinking about those words of Senator Gracchus from Gladiator with their seductive Kennedyesque parallelisms hiding their vacuity.

And why would I be mulling over third rate dialog from a second rate film? They came to me while I was on a public bus from Barra de Navidad to Melaque for an ATM raid.

We are without a car for a couple of days. My Escape is in surgery at the Manzanillo Ford dealership (a place reasonable people avoid), and we returned the Sentra this morning that Darrel rented for our Tequila journey. That left us carless for the first time in our nine years of living here. It felt a bit odd.

If I had been alone, I would have walked the eight-mile round trip. But I wasn't. And because the Semana Santa traffic has begun in earnest, we were a bit reluctant to ride our bicycles on Highway 200.

Darrel and Christy have ridden our local buses on this and past visits. I have not. I have not been in one since 2007.

It is not that I have anything against buses. The ride is always blog fodder: as it was today. I am just not patient enough to wait for one to arrive. I usually have enough appointments scheduled in each day to make bus-riding an unaffordable luxury.

But I gave in and joined Darrel on his ATM quest. And I am glad I did.

In my daily routine, I do not encounter many northerners. They are becoming a rarer breed as the month goes on. Most of the part-timers have pulled up stakes and headed home. But not all of them.

The seats on the bus we caught were full once we got on. They tend to get that way during Holy Week. Tourists and residents get packed in together.

On the trip to Melaque, most of the riders were Mexican. But there were a few northerners packed in the back. It almost looked like a negative of 1950s Selma. And we were about to experience a similar cultural clash.

An older Mexican lady got on at the next stop. There were no seats for her. I started to get up to give her mine, but a middle-aged Mexican gave her his.

Sitting across the aisle from me were four northerners. Tank-topped and tatted. When they saw the lady, they scrunched back in their seats in that self-absorbed manner that clearly communicates: "Don't even ask me to help you."

I started to offer the standing man my seat. But, before I could, a young Mexican beat me to the punch. He declined saying that his was the next stop.

It was interesting to watch a culture where traditional manners are given something more than lip service. There is still a social hierarchy here that is honored in practice. Men defer to women. The young defer to their elders.

On the trip back to Barra, the bus was just as full. We were standing when another northerner in a tank top stumbled aboard the bus reeking of some sort of alcohol. At the next stop, he pushed an older Mexican woman out of the way to dash to a seat.

And then something interesting happened. A group of older northerners boarded the bus at our traveling market. Even though they were on in years, no one offered them a seat.

I had to ask myself whether we northerners have completely forgotten how social hierarchies work in our benighted belief that there are no differences between men and woman or between the young and elderly. Whether chivalry is just another word in the dictionary for something that requires no commitment. And that we pay the price here in Mexico for not showing what my mother would call "simple good manners."

I don't know. What I do know is my Mexican friends carefully watch our manners -- and often comment on them. Including one of my favorites. A waiter asked me: "Why do you Canadians dress like poor people?"

Manners on the bus is not a hard one to remember. The rules are exactly the same as the ones we learned from our mothers when we were four.

"Share everything."

Ronald Reagan once said: "There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."

Even on a bus.
   

taking the citizenship test

Well-placed sources tell me this is question number 234 on the Mexican citizenship test. I will translate it into English for your convenience.

"You are in a hurry. But you need a bottle of mineral water. So, you stop at your local Kiosko.

"There are two cashiers. Seven people are waiting in one line, each holding one or two items. There are only two people in the other line, each looking at his telephone and holding a piece of paper.

"Which line do you join?

"A) The line of two people.

"B) The line of seven people.

"C) It doesn't matter; you are going to be late either way.

"D) Who cares?"

The cynic in me would pick either C or D. But, I know the correct answer from experience based on personal field studies.

The temptation is always to join the shorter line. After all, two people with no merchandise in their hands at a convenience store has to result in quicker transactions than a line of seven people -- all burdened with goodies.

But it is a trick question. There is no certainty, but the seven people will be processed and out of the store before the first guy in the other line is done.

And why is that? Because this is a convenience store, more than goods are sold there. Convenience is. And one of the conveniences in Mexico is the ability to make a myriad of payments at the equivalent of a 7-11 counter. (Or an actual 7-11 counter. The stores are prevalent is certain parts of Mexico.)

Land line telephone bills. Electricity bills. Wiring and receiving money. Additional time for a cell phone. And all matter of other transactions that once were handled by pharmacies in the 50s up north.

There is a high probability the two guys standing in line are buying telephone time. That is why they have their telephones in their hands. For some reason, the purchase of cell minutes can vary from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

But that is only half of the clues in the citizenship question. The other is the piece of paper each holds. It is undoubtedly a list of telephone numbers of family and friends who have asked the intrepid buyer to purchase minutes for them. Those transactions always take a long time. It is like adding an additional seven people in line.

Based on a perfectly unscientific analysis, the seven customers will complete their purchase in 1 minute and 13 seconds. Total. The second of the two cell time buyers will still be at the cashier when the stopwatch creeps past the 5 minute mark.

The answer is B.

The Mexican citizenship test is replete with such cultural questions. And the best way to get the answers correct is to get out there and experience the mysteries of the culture we call Mexico.

While you are in there, could you buy me a package of those Bimbo cinnamon rolls? The ones with the topping.
     

the road not taken

I would like to tell you a tale about how the shaft tomb culture of western Mexico evolved into one of the least known major cultures in Mesoamerica.

How that culture reached its peak in the Formative period (about 200 AD) at Los Guachimontones. And how the civilization simply disappeared in the Classic period (around 900 AD) leaving behind circular mounds that only hint at its complexity.

I would like to tell you that having visited the site (as I told you we would last week), but I can't. Because we didn't.

We got an early start on our day last Friday. Our plan was simple. We would leave Tequila and head east then south then west to Los Guachimontones. Both Darrel and I had programmed the route into Google maps on our telephones. The route was a bit convoluted, but we knew where we had to go. 
As we were driving along the cuota (Highway 15D), both of our telephones recalculated the route. There is a relatively new bypass that connects Highway 15D to Highway 54D heading south to Colima.

The bypass has two virtues. It is new enough to have the feel of an autobahn with very little traffic. Best of all, it completely skirts Guadalajara and its suburbs.

So, we followed the advice of the competent-sounding woman in the telephone. We should have looked at full route she was suggesting before we made the turn.

Being new, the bypass has no exits. None. Early on, we passed over the top of the highway that would have taken take us directly to Los Guachimontones. But the bypass would not free us from its grasp until we were just south of Guadalajara. Then, the suggested route ran us through the heart of Guadalajara -- on the Friday before Semana Santa.

For those of you who do not know, Semana Santa (Holy Week; the week before Easter) is one of the big, if not the the biggest, holiday in Mexico. To those of us who live in beach communities, it seems as if all of Mexico shuts down to spend the week in the sybaritic pleasures of beach life. Darrel had no desire to drive through that type of traffic. I concurred.

So, after the three of us conferred, Los Guachimontones lost out on this trip. The concern about traffic was the deciding factor.

It turned out that we based our decision on faulty intelligence. Just as the allied forces found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we found no Semana Santa traffic on our trip to Barra de Navidad. In fact, we almost had the cuota to ourselves.

While we were in Tequila, our distillery guide and the clerk at our hotel both remarked how small the crowds have been leading up to Semana Santa. The distillery guide particularly noted the dearth of northern tourists.

Barra and Melaque looked almost normal. There were a few more tourists on the Barra malecon. But not many.

I talked with a couple of merchants who said they were a bit concerned that the early visitors did not seem to be here. One said more people would arrive on Monday. Another said Wednesday.

They need to be optimistic. The revenue they raise during Semana Santa goes a long way toward rounding out annual revenue. For many of them, it is the equivalent of Black Friday in The States.

Personally, I have no income dog in the fight. But I have always liked seeing our town fill up with people. It brings new life to the place. The beaches throb with bodies in and out of the water. As if a human grunion run had descended on us, but with less spawning. After all, this is Mexico, not Florida.

Los Guachimontones is still on my visit list. Darrel and Christy would like to go before they return to Oregon. And I would like to add a stop at the shaft tombs in Tampumacchay just outside of Colima -- another site that has been on my tour list for almost ten years. They seem to be a natural combination.

So, stay tuned, as my late blogger pal John Calypso used to say. We will get there eventually.

After all, life in Mexico is not a destination to be reached. If it were, I would probably take the wrong tour.

cashing in on agave

Today was our day to learn about the details of distilling tequila. Darrel and I thought it would be helpful to develop some transferable skills for the next inevitable economic collapse.

I suspect the genes are already there. The Cotton genes can be traced back to the 1700s in the hills of North Carolina and Virginia. We would not have to dig too deep to find a little anti-revenuer in our DNA.

The big dog of tequila is right here in town. Don Cuervo is both the oldest and largest producer of tequila. And its distillery is right down the street from our hotel.

I have no truck with tequila. Or with any alcohol, for that matter. But I do enjoy seeing experts at work in any field.

Let me get this out of the way first. Touring the Don Cuervo distillery is a bit like sauntering through any other mass market beverage manufacturer. Glenfiddich. Budweiser. Heineken. Moet & Chandon. Smirnoff.

And, even though the distillery we toured, La Rojeña, produces nothing but premium tequila, once you have seen one process elsewhere, you pretty much know the others.

There are plenty of articles on the internet that can far better describe the details of the distillation process. So, I will let you read about them there.

How tequila is produced solely from the heart of the blue agave. How the heart of the agave (the pineapple) is roasted for hours before its juice is extracted. How the juice is then distilled twice and then allowed to age in steel tanks or charred barrels until it is ready to be bottled. That the resulting drink cannot be labeled as "tequila" unless it is produced in Jalisco or in a limited number of municipalities in four other Mexican states.

I am not going to tell you all that. But this article will.

Our tour group was small. Seven of us. The other four were from Vancouver. (The one in Canada; not the one in Washington.) Two of them were professional bartenders on a quest to polish up their patter with customers in that ever-elusive attempt to maximize tips.

Our guide, Leo, did a very good job of slathering on numbers and giving us an impression of just how well-honed the distillation process is. He was also an expert about taking seriously the silliest of questions. Like "where are the fields where the agave is grown." The answer was actually quite a bit more complex than I anticipated.

For the other six in our group, the highlight was the tasting of four premium tequilas. And the presentation was just as pretentious as any bourgeois wine-tasting class I have attended.

Swirling for body. Sniffing for exotica in the bouquet. Clearing the palate with bread and the nose with coffee beans. Associating the nose with cinnamon and lime and the tongue with baked agave. Deep inhale, washing the tequila through the mouth, deep exhale.

Leo pointed out there are many ways to drink tequila. Like right out of the bottle when a love is lost. But these were sipping tequilas. Not lovelorn swill. The final one, the most highly-aged, was even served in a brandy snifter.

.

I paid for the tasting because I wanted to see the process. But there are few things more uncomfortable in life than being the sober person in a room while the rest are slowly losing their senses. That was not pleasant.

But I would gladly recommend the tour. It is educational enough that its patina of pretention can be easily dismissed.

Due to a very odd incident, I spent the rest of the day in bed. Whatever it was, I am fine now. Some wag would undoubtedly say that I did not drink too much. But I said it before you could.
And tomorrow, what are we going to do? I don't know. There is an archaeological site at Los Guachimontones that I have wanted to see since I moved gto Mexico.
There is no better time than now to see it. Who knows when we will pass this way again -- you, dear readers, and I. 

tequila without the tequila

Tequila. I have avoided it for ten years.

The town, that is. The drink has never interested me. And I suspect that is why I have never steeled myself to drive the four hours into the highlands to visit it. But Darrel and Christy convinced me to join them on a visit while my Escape is in the Ford hospital for the remainder of this week.

There is an old saying that we find what we are looking for. And it is true when it is; but it is not when it is not.

One reason I avoided the town is its reputation as being the crown prince of tourist traps. And there is a lot of that. Starting with the little boys that dart into your car's path while entering town to present you with the card of the world's best ever guide of distilleries.

But the evidence that the town is designed primarily to suck lots of pesos out of tourist pockets is legion:

There is the schmaltzy tour bus in the shape of a guitar.

Tourists posed before the large doors of the church. Posed by me, in this instance.

Or posed in front of the Don Cuervo crow.

You can buy expensive tequila.

More expensive Bustamante sculptures.

And even more expensive Pineda Covalin scarves.

Or walk down streets that are just one degree short of being a Disney reproduction of what an upper middle class Mexican street should look like.

I was in danger of slipping into a cynical coma (I think it was Oscar Wilde who said a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything -- and the value of nothing), when I fell into one of those Mexican moments that gives meaning to the label Magical Pueblo.

We had heard that there was a mural in the courtyard of the government building that should not be missed. When we walked in, a film crew was moving furniture around in front of the mural.

Contemporary furniture. Furniture that very well might fit in a Barragan style house in Barra de Navidad.

I chatted with the designer. And he just may be able to help me finish the living spaces of my house. At least, the library.

That, of course, did not change the fact that even though Tequila is a vaguely charming colonial town, it is a one trick pony. This is the capital of tequila production. And the symbols of that industry surrounds visitors.

There are agave-inspired street grills.

Abstract agave forms on fences.

Even the benches wear the brand of the source of tequila, like some odd Medeval cult.

Considering the amount of tequila being gulped on the street, I suspect several revelers wondered if they should have had that last drink when they ran into this swarm of becostumed children. Dumbo dreamed in fewer colors.

And, thanks to the Don Cuevos ticket office, I can pass on one of my favorite sentences in pun-ish Spanish. "Necesito una taquilla para ver el tequila."

Tomorrow, we are going to put that joke to the test by visiting a distillery or two. Even though I have no love for tequila, I am interested in seeing anything done well by an expert.

We will see what happens.