VAGABOND PICNIC

Pina Palmera

2012-03-04T19:15:00.000-08:00

I am suspicious of all do gooding. I find that it is often the case the person who rounds up the needy to represent them gains much more than the needy themselves. I see United Way executives spending more time at conferences in Europe than they do building programs to help others.
So when I was invited to Pina Palmera to see their operation in the Mexican town of Zipolite (where I was staying) I had some reservations. Was there a religious component? The answer was no. OK good. Did they have a traveling executive board? No again. Were they familiar with the Paris Four Seasons Hotel? No. OK good. Pina Palmera acts as an advocacy and education group for the handicapped in Mexico. As I have said before, Mexico is in many ways similar to Canada in the 60s. It is common for families to hide away a handicapped child and keep them outside of the social realm for their entire lives. The folks at the Pina Palmera centre work to integrate the handicapped into the general population by giving them skills and a sense of genuine worth.

During my visit I saw people performing all of lifes normal tasks, cleaning,cooking, making objects to sell and generally working. The centre sends people to other communities to teach inclusion and acceptance for the handicapped. They also provide physical rehab and volunteer doctors visit to do what volunteer doctors do.

My visit to the Pina Palmera Centre was short and I don't pretend to know more than one can from a short visit but I was impressed. The thing I liked most was that I have known about this place for years and yet I didn't. That is because they go about their work quietly and patiently and they do not seek any merit points or accolades. I am impressed.
They as always are broke and here is the bite. You can donate at HSBC, Plaza Potchutla. Oaxaca,Sucursal: 0842. Account # 4032851404 key 630040328514043.

OK enough of my do gooding. I will return to my regular musings next week.

Market Day

2012-02-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

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The Puerto Escondido public market is my favorite of all the markets I know in Mexico. A city block with a tin roof, uninviting and hard to identify from the street. You walk in and, this is where the travel writer describes the smell. This is where you realize this is a good market. No smell. Pleasant cooked goods and saffron, I will move deeper unafraid. I walk to the cafe/ juice bar I attend every morning . The people who run the place are a joy. They like to see me as my only order ever is," something you think I might like". This is a safe gamble as it has never cost me more than two dollars and I have never left unhappy. They make a great Vampiro juice. Beets, carrots, celery and orange. Further in the best of fresh everything is there. The peasants who bring their product to market huddle in disintegrating trucks at the edge of the market. They have often travelled a great distance and will sleep in the back of their trucks. DH Lawrence observed that the main commodity traded at public market was the public. DH said that human contact was the main item being changed at market and that is why one must bargain. To not try to negotiate a price was to ignore the opportunity for this human market intimacy. I guess that is why I go to the farmers markets in Canada. Why else would I pay $4.00 for lettuce. Price of admission. I go in hopes of meeting old friends and having the short conversations that admit one into civil society. I suppose I could just arrive with my hemp bag asway filled with pilfered produce.
But back to the Puerto Escindido market. I can have my shoes repaired while I buy melons, I can get a new watch and there is an ancient purveyor of small goods he bought before the revolution and has yet to sell. Fish is fresh and the merchants seem happy with their lot. The peasants as always get screwed. One day I went to stall selling pineapples. The poor peasant had just sold 6 to the merchant for 5 pesos each. I asked for one and the merchant, having just bought the fruit, while the peasant stood silent, said 12 pesos. Unfair and the way it is. I hope that peasant had a good fill of human contact.

Comedy in Mexico

2012-01-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

I was having a sentimental moment in a cafe I enjoy. The waiter is deaf and the floor is a shade of cement that could use paint. Mama sits at a table and does business while the kids play with their toys. Their toys are bottle caps and two spent disposable lighters.

The scene was pleasant and comfortable. Then two guys put a table in the sand and a stool on the table. It looked like a comedy sketch in the works. They began to remove palm fronds from a large coconut tree.

Now we had a table in the sand and a stool on a table and a machete. All the elements for a good comedy sketch. I thought about the options. Stool falls, table breaks, machete causes the comedy to become more serious.
But life does not adhere to the lines written by comic actors staging plays in their heads.
I lean back in my chair to await the hilarious conclusion of the efforts of these hapless working guys. Then my chair crumbles into dust and I hit the floor. The guy with the machete laughs at the stupid gringo as machete hits a branch. The branch unleashed 6 very large bats that flew into the the face of the guy on the stool. Women with brooms start to ineffectually swat at bats the size of wombats with wings. The guy on the stool is now on the ground and the machete flies slow motion into the bedlam.
We all dust ourselves off. Dignity disintegrated but humour clearly in good shape as the deaf waiter walks over to me and in perfect english says, "will that be all sir?." I had never heard him speak english before.

Thankfully for me there are no pictures today.

VAGABOND PICNIC: drug war

2012-01-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

VAGABOND PICNIC: drug war

Oaxaca

2012-01-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

At the entrance to Potchutla you pass under a dangling streetlight. I suspect that long ago an over height truck considered this street light to be an unneccesary obstacle to the proper flow of traffic. It's component parts hang from frayed wires waiting for the opportune moment to submit to the laws of rust and gravity.
Potchutla is a classic supply town. A place where you go to buy 2 miles of barbed wire, 300 kilos of rice, get your tooth pulled and try to get the hell out before the christian evangelists get you. It is a place that I suspect only exists during business hours. I would not be surprised to know that the town vanished at sunset. I am here looking for a car part. No luck with the part but lucky to get out of town early. They can't all be picture perfect mountain towns with atmospheric zocalo and trees filled with phosphorescent butterflies. No there must be the towns for utility as well. Potchutla is such a town.
I am back in Mexico. It is a country with well known problems. I drove through Taumalipas. The locals have taken to stopping long haul buses, removing the occupants and killing them after what I assume was an ordeal. I stopped in a town where the bodies of 177 bus passengers were found on a farm. It seemed a normal place. My next stop was Veracruz. I arrived the day the entire police force was fired. When you fire a Mexican policeman his government cheque stops but it is unlikely his gun and uniform are returned to the state.
Even with my jaundiced eye I continue to encounter a wonderful people here. There is a saying that the mafia use to gain cooperation. "Quiere plata o quiere plomo." Would you like silver or lead. Earlier I wrote an article called "drug war" on this blog. It stands. The people who live and work endure through this difficult time. They welcome me into their homes and we fight and argue. As ever the Christian evangelists are preying on the disorder they find so convenient.
Mexican History Lesson. After the earthquake of 1968 in Mexico city many of the churches were destroyed. In the rubble it was found that the slaves the priests used to build their monuments to imperialism had stashed Mayan and Aztec icons. The natives were standing in front of the statue of the Virgin and paying homage to the Mayan god. No god is good but it is interesting that they endure.

VAGABOND PICNIC: VAGABOND PICNIC: Paris, Living in a Dead Mans House

2011-12-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

VAGABOND PICNIC: VAGABOND PICNIC: Paris, Living in a Dead Mans House

VAGABOND PICNIC: Paris, Living in a Dead Mans House

2011-11-26T06:54:00.000-08:00

VAGABOND PICNIC: Paris, Living in a Dead Mans House

Paris, Living in a Dead Mans House

2011-11-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

Paris, Living in a Dead Mans House.
No that is not metaphor, I am in Paris, living in a dead mans house. I fold out the fold out couch and sleep amongst the dusty detritus of another mans recently abandoned life. Boxes containing the gathered personal history of a holocaust survivor attempt to interrupt my sleep. Today I took a moving mans load across Paris on the metro. I felt a bit like one of the men in Polanskis first film, "Two Men and a Wardrobe". Hobbled by goods too large for public transit in a city too large to care as we cajoled our goods via our only possible conveyance.

I came here to visit a friend convalescing. Glad to report he is doing well enough to challenge me to the daily duel that is cycling the streets of Paris. We get the "Velolib" bikes, available throughout Paris. We ride to galleries and cafes and places I am lucky to see through the eyes of my good friend who has lived here for many years. The streets are a constant movement. The streets live and breath as some being made of all the attempts, successes and failures that surround us.
Still I am not convinced. I love the history, the Paris Commune, the very birth of a socialist notion. The French Revolution and the very clear fact that none of that history is forgotten on the streets of this city. People may try to hide it but like the bad behavior of a tiresome brother whose thoughts provoke and annoy, it is never forgotten.
Oh ya, there are buildings jammed with art. But you knew that.

I have insinuated myself into the Pere Lachaise neighborhood through my friend. As in every city every barrio is a small town. Small gestures. I saw an old man having difficulty with groceries. I helped as anyone would. Gesture noticed and now I am a neighbour in a city I do not pretend to know, but a barrio I recognize as the barrio I always know.

Paris has a special place in collective memory, well deserved. Still as I dig into it's history I wonder if all here know that streets have names changed from " Scratch ass street, or, pull the sausage street to ""Rue St. Martin Rue saint no look away nothing here to see street". We once had a more colourful language.

Paris does not fit my usual travel routine. I was asked to come here. Still every obligation is an opportunity. Paris to me is the Paris Commune and the birth of socialism. A hard task that.

There also exists a weird tourist Paris but I need not see it. I went to the wall in La Pere Lachaise Cemetery where the brave and betrayed remnants of the Paris Commune were executed. I regretted that I had not written a poem to pin to the wall three blocks and three days away. I promise to write it and tuck it in the crack that is the Paris I have come to know.

VAGABOND PICNIC: drug war

2011-10-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

VAGABOND PICNIC: drug war

Canadian Desert

2011-10-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

The frozen north with a pocket of dry west. Ashcroft British Columbia is a small town in a Canadian desert.
I last wrote of a need to earn money. I don't have money and I don't worry about it but I do what I need to do to participate in the vague notion of our current economy. As luck would have it I was hired by Brazilians to location manage a TV show in British Columbia. If you have followed this blog you may have wondered how I travel with no visible means of support. I am not a trustafarian. I organize film production and show off the Canadian landscape for movie making. I am a location manager. It was once a pretty good gig. In the new economy, I am adjusting. Today I am thankful for Brazil.

The good fortune of this illusion of a job is that occasionally I am paid to travel. The best part of this travel arrives in the form of relationships I often develop with people I would not have otherwise known. If the script has a dentist I will learn about dentists, if it is logging then loggers I will meet. So the Brazilians rented a Ford Iraq Invasion and sent me to the Canadian desert.

In Ashcroft I found the kitty litter mine. Really they mine kitty litter. As a Canadian this is endlessly amusing. The cour de bois head to the yukon, fighting cold and wild animals to pan for ...kitty litter.
Actually I suspect they may have had kitten scouts fed dangerous levels of fluids. On leash they roamed the desert in search of the ideal material to lay their scent. The miners with picks and shovels ever ready to exploit the absorbent earth.

The desert has never treated me well. I suspect that is why they call it a desert. Dry and barren. People tell me it has a beauty. To me the desert is a place that makes it clear it will not make your visit easy. You need water? Look elsewhere. You need shade, shelter, comfort...not here. Yet cultures thrive in deserts. Sadly the Bedouins would probably give Ashcrcoft a pass. This is a working class town without work. There are many towns in British Columbia like this. The mine is dry, perhaps too absobrant, but heck there is a town here, maybe the mine will reopen, my house is here, I guess I'll wait it out. Sadly that waiting out can last a generation or two.

As I have a job here I meet with the local people of authority. This is a small town area with very wealthy ranching interests. Cattle are burgers and we all want them. The folks who own the land here do well. There is a large first nations presence. They do not do as well. I did have the pleasure of working on native land. As always happens I was welcomed and got to spend a day with an elder of the Kamloops band. We drove the back roads and he taught me the ways of bighorn sheep and we talked of the youth of the band. The band provide the opportunity to see the original way but there is no pressure. "They come to it when they see it". We also went to a house the band owns that had white renters. All was not well but I was very impressed with the way the situation was handled. A kind of cordiality bankers don't offer.

Movie bear

Big Horn Sheep

Another great trip. I am amazed by what I don't know.

Vagabond Picnic at sea

2011-08-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

As you are aware the recession is over. Myself and most of my friends are unemployed but apparently we are not that necessary to a healthy economy. So the sea. I decided to venture to the Northern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. I loaded my 35 year old sailboat and on a windless morning I motored to my first stop at Lasqueti Island. Lasqueti is unique. The citizens of this special outpost voted against electricity. BC hydro offered to provide power but the curious folks on this pirate island said no thanks. This says a lot about who lives here. On my visits to this area I have heard many stories of rum running, gold hoarding cults and the general rejection of conventional forms of social order that existed on the Gulf Islands of the 30s and 40s. While most of the Gulf Islands have become hobbies for retirees who enjoy a good committee, Lasqueti seems to continue in the spirit of the originals. Original they are. There is no car ferry but there are cars. Most of the cars on the island look like they were imported from a Mexican village that used wood as a main aftermarket component. Wood does make a good fender.

As any sailor knows the best days of sailing are those spent hitch hiking on remote islands in search of the ship boneyard which you hope will have something resembling the part of your boat that just broke. At the boneyard you will meet a man named Jim or Jake. Jim or Jake will climb out of some hulk of a fluid oozing vehichle to greet you. The greeting ritual will consist of ignoring you for as long as possible. Jake or Jim cannot count to ten using his fingers. Eight, nine and a half tops.

So yes I had a major breakdown on my first stop. Being at the mercy of a local and unknown community is a good way to measure a place. You are easy picking, the low fruit dangled in front of the mechanically inclined. I met most of the wrench wielding philosophers on Lasqueti. Never was I asked for a penny. Indeed I was invited to everything and felt like an unexpected guest more than anything else. I saw a woman walking down the road with a wheelbarrow full of hard to identify items and asked if the wheelbarrow was the island equivalent of the the downtown eastside shopping cart. Her wry response "everything I own is in here". No paucity of wit on this island. You will also find a bakery that is a kiosk of cookies with a cash box running on the honour system. Make your choice and deposit your coinage. Several fruit and egg stations work the same way. I was drawn to one vegetable stand by the plaintive wail of old time country music being played on battery powered radio. A note informed me that I must leave the radio on and tuned to this deer repelling station.
I was glad to discover a small rebel island in my midst and I hope to return with a new engine aboard. My mechanical issue insists that I visit a bigger place with a shipyard.
To do that I will have to solve the employment issue.
Next up: A trip to the interior desert to pay for the time at sea.

Americans in between

2011-04-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

After a few days of furious driving through northern Mexico I hit the US border. It is quite a shock to be in the US again. I do enjoy traveling through the US although I can never figure out who votes for the dangerous right in this country. I guess I just instinctually avoid that lot.
I often stay in the Motel 6 chain in the US as they don't argue about the dog and they are cheap. The parking lots in these places are always filled with rusted and overloaded cars, some with Uhauls, heading west or south. Not traveling for pleasure but desperate traveling. Traveling in hopes of never finding out why they failed at everything else everywhere else. The recession may be removed from the headlines but it clearly continues on the breadlines.
There has always been a bit of America that is transient in nature but as I have said these people are not the wandering souls of noble fiction. They are economic refugees. They are an insular group. They stay to themselves. Petty crime is not uncommon. Roadstops and refueling at the truck stops the kids run wild as parents load up on junk food and gas to a achieve another days mileage.
I already miss Mexico. For all it's problems the family situation remains strong and neglect is never seen.

I am back in my little hideout on Gabriola Island. I will continue to share these musings on this site. I am organizing some pics to post soon.

Mexico Snapshots

2011-04-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

These are some snapshots of everyday Mexico. You can click on photos to enlarge.

Rural Chiapas

Palenque

Reno in old town Mazatlan

Government make work project. A better way to fight a drug war.

Every day in every town people rise early to sweep their streets.

My favorite movie house.

Lemonade vendor

Scout

Charcoal

General thoughts and observations on Mexico today

2011-03-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

Despite all the excited news stories Mexico remains much as always. It is more militarized. In my last months traveling around the country I have been through a wide variety of roadblocks, military, police, special police, drug enforcement and my favorite, fruit and vegetable inspections. To a one I was treated with respect, even courtesy as they would look through the van. The funniest one occured in Oaxaca. An ice cream hand cart was just leaving the military shelter as I entered. All the armed troops had their automatic weapons in one hand and ice cream cones in the other. They of course waved me through rather than put down their ice cream cones. As I drove through they were all smiling and laughing amongst themselves and I realized they were children. Teenagers who were still anticipating first dates and pleasures that a teen anywhere dreams of.
The country is under the thumbs of the military but most people I met were going about life as always.
I was in one of those great old barber shops having a shave when I saw a picture of Andres Obrador on the wall. This was the second time I heard that he was the real winner of the last election. He is a socialist and many Mexicans I met believe that he won the election and the gringoes put in Calderon as they would do anything to keep a Chavez like government out of Mexico. This story was repeated many times. Obrador will run again in 2012.
All in all I was treated with the warmth and generosity I have always encountered in Mexico.

Last Mexican history lesson

Malinche: Malinche was Cortez' native concubine. She is considered a great traitor in Mexico. She also began a curious assimilation between Spanish and native Mexicans. The Spanish bred freely with the natives. One result of this was that an estimated population of 25 million Native Mexicans at the time of conquest was reduced to 1 million 2 years later. Mostly through disease.

Lastly, Mexico prevails.

Tepic

2011-03-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

The US government has an extreme travel warning against any travel toTepic. Also some Mexicans I know warned me that it was a very violent place and I should never go to Tepic. So I went to Tepic. This wasn't some kind of danger quest. The Toll road I wanted to take lies ten k north of Tepic. I thought I would just find a way to go around the town to my road. As it turns out this was not possible. In my attempt to find a way around Tepic I briefly found myself driving the wrong way on a one way street. The first car coming the other way was a police car. He stopped me. Now these guys are not like cops you see in other places. They are very heavily armed and well trained. I rolled down my window and said. Very sorry about that but I am lost. I thought to myself I really don't want to see the Tepic jail. They started telling me I was on a one way street. I said I realized that and thats' why I turned down this street. They asked me where I was going and I said "Mazatlan" They gave me directions and wished me a good day. Three blocks later I am headed straight downtown. I hear sirens and 4 pickup trucks with four cops in the back of each came wheeling around the corner with automatic weapons drawn. They were clearly looking for someone as they pointed weapons at the people who always crowd a Mexican street, They pulled into a light manufacturing plant and joined 3 similar trucks as they continued to aim around as if on a rabbit hunt. I was stuck at an eternally red light. It turned green before the suspects were found. Dodged another bullet. Now in the centre of the town I've been so correctly warned about I find myself in a police road block. These police were special forces called Fuerzas contra la corrupcion. I thought wow a police force looking for corrupt politicians. But of course they are another anti crime outfit. They waved me trough.
Finally I see the sign to Mazatlan. I was very happy when I hit the toll booth. After 2 months of bouncing around mountain roads and pot hole filled little towns I am on a super highway northward bound.

I always talk to the people I shoot but this one was hard.

Church in San Cristobal

Always use your sunblock

blue shoes

2011-02-08T09:44:00.000-08:00

Blue shoes scatter the casual sidewalk I encounter on this distant morning. Blue shoes looks at me from a cafe across the street. A woman, a concern she investigates my mood. I decide on a swim. In the ocean that is.

So in my lazy days here I met a couple who were in a combi of older vintage but much like mine. I suspect they were trustafarians but I could be misjudging. So I took them to see a film in a theatre that was a converted garage run by a gringo who likes movies. He was screening Harold and Maude. When I was 20 I loved that film. Now it showed its age but the kids loved it. They kept at me for days in thanks of seeing this little film in the garage. Even the Cats stevens soundtrack was to their appeal.

So my last missive was a bit bleak. Drug war. I thought I had to discuss it. But on a brighter note. Mexico continues to enthrall as the people I meet are generally a delight. I read some B. Traven in Spanish that was good for me to do. Traven is an inspiration and he was writing in a second language. So it was good for me to read. To secure me in another language.

I have been meeting a lot of young people as I seem to be of their ilk but not like them. That is I am old they are young. When I met the trustafrians I was reminded of a story by Robert Hunter. He wrote all the lyrics for the grateful dead. He said that on a tour he was in Paris and wrote box of rain and three other songs in a day fueled by a case of wine and the pleasure of Paris. He said "those days will be back, not for me but for someone".

Ah the youth and their pleasures.

drug war

2011-01-30T22:48:00.000-08:00

No pretty pictures on this one. The drug war in Mexico is a colosal failure. I have unfortunately seen this before in Colombia with different twists and turns but the reults look similar.
The practical on the ground problems are not what a well intentioned and ill studied foreigner might anticipate.
If you give immense power to a poorly paid village policeman he will settle every score. If you give immense power to a military consisting of young uneducated men they will do what they are told. I have talked to these young guys in fatigues as I encounter them in villages I have have had the good fortune to visit and these young soldiers know not what they do. They are currently kicking in the doors of poor farmers and small business people under orders. That these victims may own land that belongs to their Ejido that does not want Monsanto in or will not sell to the local official is simply swept aside as the local official is fighting a drug war. The rubric of the drug war allows for much score settling. Small villages that support the the left are called drug strongholds. Doors are kicked in as pigs squeal from the dirt floor to the freedom that has now vanished for the human inhabitants of this squalor.
The people are living in fear as any neighbour can call any politico, call you a drug dealer and after your arrest your property is up for grabs. That your property consists of twelve corn plants and half a hectare makes it a good enough score.
Rural Mexico exists as it has for centuries. Small town politics run horribly awry when the little shit kid you grew up with just got a handsome "reward" for turning in all the "drug dealers" in his town. The norm would be to deal with the problem locally but when a foreign government disasociated from local mores comes into play the community will often just give in. The heroic notion of a community conquering all obstacles is a distant possibility to many communities that have suffered foriegn (Spanish) control for many generations. Statistics speak volumes to those who from a foreign land (USA) create budgets that support this wretched conniving. They need to make arrests to justify expense. Easily accomplished on the ground, round up the usual suspects and collect on both ends.
That the usual suspects are union organizers and womens coalitions seems hardly to register as a curious anomoly.
There are some very bad people involved in the drug business but this governments aim is not true.

Drug business. Drugs are bad. Business is worse. I am not the first to say, take the business out of drugs and at least we have a start. The vast amount of money spent on the drug war could be put to much better use. Sadly I know this is naive. I so miss my naivite. No one ever got a Haliburton contract to open a free clinic.
The tear gas currently being used in Egypt comes from... You all know this.

To live and drive and, Ole'!

2011-01-26T19:27:00.000-08:00

Welcome

Driving in Mexico is different. Here are some thoughts and observations.

People will say that the most important thing about driving in Mexico is, never do it. It can be a confusing challenge but it has it's rewards.

A long row to hoe

Passing signals. The truck or car ahead of you is driving slowly and you want to pass. He turns on his left turn signal and you think, ah good he's going turn up here. No, this common understanding does not apply here. In Mexico he is signaling that in his opinion it is now safe to pass. He is probably trying to be courteous and help you to arrive at your destination sooner, but he could be in a homicidal mood or simply have poor driving skills or be drunk. There is also a small but real possibility that he could be turning left. This "rule" does not apply in cities.

Do not drive at night. Really, don't. Aside from all the normal hazards, add stray animals, unmarked construction sites, roads that drop or rise a foot or two for no reason you can see in the dark and bandits. Yes, bandits or more romantically "highwaymen". They are active in many areas but Sinaloa province is especially bad. They may have official looking roadblocks and may be in uniform, borrowed, stolen or just putting in an extra shift. All in all it is not worth it to drive at night.

San Cristobal herb market at closing

Road or rollover. Most Mexican roads do not have shoulders. Avoid the urge to turn onto the shoulder if you have a flat tire or some other malfunction. You will end up in the ditch or worse. The road edge ends abruptly and the off road topography is the same 1 foot or one hundred feet from the road.

Topes. These are speed bumps Mexican style. They range from a normal speed bump you may have encountered in any city north of the border to something so vertiginous that you will certainly bottom out at more than stop and proceed speed. The "tope" marks the entrance and exit to every place attempting to imitate a town. The "tope" is hard to see. They are built by locals and are arbitrary in their placement except for the fact that they are usually built in the shade. If you were spending the day building a tope you would want to work in the shade as well. Unfortunately on a scalding sun drenched highway the tope is perfectly camoflaged by the cooling shade that the long departed workers once enjoyed. Of advantage to the community a tope forces a near stop of traffic and therefore it is a good place to sell your fruit, hammock, tacos, whatever. You will find a tire and rim repair shop on either side of the tope.

Despite these issues with a modicum of local knowledge (check with locals re mountain passes etc.)

you will have the pure enjoyment of visiting small places where the bus won't stop and you will drive through some incredible scenery. The road over the pass from San Cristobal to Palenque passes through a valley that throws at you a colour of green that shouldn't exist. It is carved with waterfalls, rivers and villages from another time. John D. MacDonald said something like "Mexicana Airlines doesn't fly airplanes it flies time machines. "

San Cristobal morning

any small town

Palenque

Now this is where it gets interesting

I have spent the last while in the mountains of Chiapas. In 1995 the Zapatistas held a revolution here. They managed to take over Ocosingo and to a lesser extent San Cristobal. They are still very powerful in the region and they run cooperatives and schools and yes tourist shops. In fact in Chiapas they refer to the phenomena of western visitors to the region as "Zapatourismo". The Zapatistas are very media savvy and have done well to keep the innocents out of harms way.

Mexican history Zapatista episode. In 1995 when the Zapatistas blocked the road to Palenque (A famous ruin) a swiss passenger on a bus tour got very upset and started berating these balaclava wearing machine gun toting guerilla fighters saying that he had paid a lot of money and had come a long way to see the ruin at Palenque and must get through. According to the story an armed insurgent went up to the man and in perfect English said "we understand your concerns but ...this is a revolution".

Mexico in Hiding

2011-01-16T05:35:00.000-08:00

click on photos to enlarge

night in Tampico

San Cristobal Chiapas

Toto goes to work

San Blas sunrise

Mercado Zihuatenejo

Zapatista cooperative Chiapas

Tampico

Sunday morning sunrise. Even the dogs are quiet. Soon men will be dragged to church, along with their hangovers, by women who will attempt to pray their way out of poverty. Then as all is forgiven the "dia dl pueblo" will commence at the beach. A stunning array of baggy t shirts as bathing suits crowd the beach. Children cover their groggy fathers in sand. Sundays in Latin America are true family days. The tanga wearing vacationers from Mexico city or Europe are pushed from the beaches by the squat catholic families sporting 3 children for each adult. The families will throw sand at each other, drink beer and enter the water to their knees only. It is a wonderful thing to see. The beautiful people will retreat from the beachhead. Defeated, they will make their way to the civilized calm of the sidewalk cafe.

For this day is "El dia del Pueblo".

vagabond picnic

2011-01-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

I found a shell on the beach

I'd been hearing about this plane on a beach for a while. I couldn't find anyone who had actually seen it. I was in Zipolite and most people there found the trip from the sleeping bag to the bong to be an adequate days adventure. So I went looking and found it in another small village 10 k away. Then I discovered why not many people had been to the site. It was easy to find, it was just a long hot walk on a deserted beach. I saw one campesino on the trip. He was walking with the two things every campasino always takes along. A machete and a skinny dog. The stories on the plane were the usual. Spy plane,drug plane, cia plane, cia drug spy plane. As usual in these matters there is a truth commonly held, an official truth and the things we will never know for sure. Kinda like the Queen of the north.

(You can click on the photos to enlarge.)

Toto the clown in his room

Toto the clown was staying in the rooms behind my campsite in Puerto Escondido. He is studying in Mexico City and works the streets as Toto to pay tuition. He is in his early twenties and acts like he has seen a lot in the time that his age allows. I think he will do well.
I suspect this to be a small representation of the victims of Puerto Escondido surf

Puerto Escondido. Best described as a place where something always seems to be going on in the background. You can't quite figure it out but things seem to be not as they seem. I am trying to figure this out but I only ever get the surface of things here. I don't know that this is not a good place to stop.

I met the most boring man in the world the other day. We were camped in the same place. I said a polite hello and was treated to a long story about doing his taxes. I waited for the interesting part but there was none. No witty element or tragedy, just filing taxes. The next day he approached me and started to tell me about loading a pickup with gravel. The gravel loading story was equally bereft of drama or entertainment. I thought, I've been polite enough and just walked away. Yes he was a Canadian.

I think the beach version of this trip is about to end. It is nice and all but I'm off to Oaxaco city soon.
I'm in Mazunte at the moment. It is the slightly more sane neighbour of Zipolite. Zipolite is tired. It is an old hippy hang out currently occupied (and that is the right word) by heavily tattooed European street vendors. If I needed a dreamcatcher I would have stayed on Gabriola. Mazunte also offers a beach that you can actually swim at. The beach at Zipolite is treacherous. Huge waves and rip tides.

Canadian building project in Zipolite. Could someone call worksafe?

Campsite and eurovan

It is great to see these little traveling circuses still working. They bring in a good crowd.

I was thinking about how it came to be that Mexico came to push Colombia out of top spot in the drug trade. Looking at the history of both countries, aside from the ready market, they both share a history of extreme violence that is both recent and I suspect unfinished. Colombia endured a period simply known as "LA Violencia". This was a bloody civil war that lasted from the 30s into the late fifties. Mexico had a bloody revolution. It was marked by extreme cruelty and a breakdown of social order that has never really recovered. Various governors have built replicas of the Parthenon and country homes sporting horse racing tracks and exact copies of Studio 54 from that era. That is the obvious stuff. The simple trappings of corruption. But the corruption moves down the line and soon the corner store guy is kidnapped for a ransom of $75.00. You better have that $75.00 or Daddy is gone. In the 80s in Colombia the kidnapping got so bad that a radio station was founded to deal with kidnap issues and send messages to the kidnapped. If you have land or a business in Colombia that the bad guys want they say "quiere plata o quiere plomo." Would you like silver or lead. In Mexico it is much the same. Everything has a price, even if the price is death.

2011-01-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

The trip so far. I left Vancouver 3 days ago. I should be in Mexico by now. Instead I am in a car repair shop in suburban LA.

I drove hard and fast the first day and night. I spent the first night in the Eurovan at a highway rest stop in Northern California. There are some very nice people who frequent these places. I saw a woman there who very much resembled an overloaded donair spit with an oddly shaped head. Another man was trying to dry a festering wound on his leg. Actually the donair girl was doing the drying. She waved a soggy t shirt at the weeping wound as the injured party moaned his gratitude.

Back at the repair shop. It is December 19th and there are xmas carols being played on a television that has been adjusted to maximum colour saturation. Green people singing green and red songs on a deep grey day. Merry xmas. The car shop guys tell me I need a VW dealer. They don't charge me and let me use the phone. An hour later I am on the LA freeway...parked at a callbox as speeding trucks shake the VW with their wake. Of course it is pouring rain.

It ain't all bikinis and Coronas.

Meeting lots of new friends in LA. Many of them drive tow trucks or work in auto repair shops. I believe I may have accidentally become the best xmas present a mechanic could ask for. They sure seem to enjoy my company and do whatever they can to keep me hanging around.

I wake in my edge of town motel to a bit of a commotion. I step from my room into the parking lot and count 8 police cars, all parked at weird angles. Why do cops always park like this. It looks like the worlds worst assistant director set the background for the worlds most boring crime. I return to the relative peace of my basic motel room.

Another day another repair shop. They assure me I will be back on the road I can no longer afford, by late afternoon. My plan, if it can be called that, is to press on.

Indeed they get me on the road just in time for LA rush hour,which of course is any hour at all but in this instance it is just getting dark. I crawl out of town with the automotive horde and drive through another rain filled night to the edge of Tucson. Happy to be out of LA.

Mexico. I am in Celestino for xmas eve. There are 4 RV parks here and three are completely empty and the cheap one has 6 rigs. I guess most people are heeding the warnings about Mexico. They tell me 2 years ago if you didn't have a reservation you were out of luck. Today I have my choice of waterfront spots for $8.00. I feel sorry for the Mexicans who set these places up. I suspect it will be a while before the tourist economy recovers. I spent the 80s in Colombia working on a dive boat. After the cartel blew up the Hilton it took more than ten years to recover. The drug business did not stop. It was not won in a "drug war". They simply became a proper business and the cowboys were cut out. I'll spend some more time on this topic later but for now...

Mazatlan xmas. I took a bus into the old city today and was reminded why I love Mexico. It was xmas day and the bus was filled with people dressed as elegantly as their social position allowed. Men in nice suits and women with 2 hours makeup and all as happy as people ever get. Of course this scene was interrupted by a one armed drunk behind me who decided to remove an offending hair from my neck. Even he seemed happy. It was just a pleasant way to see xmas.

San Blas. I found a spot on the beach for the Eurovan for $4.00 a night. I need a break after LA. Swimming, boogie boarding, a jog on the beach that closely resembles a pregnant duck waddle.

I read a bit of telling Mexican history today. A Mexican President General named Santa Anna was overthrown in 1844. Before this he had a leg hacked off in battle. He sent men to retrieve the lifeless appendage from the battlefield. Later he held a full state funeral for the leg. He then built a mausaleum to house the leftover limb. When he was overthrown the people dug up the leg and used it for sport. Soccer I presume. Whether it was used as striker or ball was not clear.

Malaque Mexico Dec.30/2010

This place is interesting. There a lot of Canadians here. It seems a good place for the 50 plus canuck to get through the winter. I am as always in the Eurovan. There are 3 places to stay in the caravan here. Two are somewhat expensive and a little too civilized for my liking. The third is a weird hobo village
on "ejido" land. The ejido system is basically communally held land to be used as the community sees fit. Often it is distributed amongst families and farmed. The concept of private land was a hard sell to native Mexicans. It still is. Many Gringoes buy land here that they will never own. They can go years without understanding this but if the day arrives that their beach getaway serves a higher, or stranger purpose that deed is just firestarter. The hobo village is filled with Quebecois, BC folk and Mexicans. No spots reserved, no electricity, no rules beyond common courtesy. Seems to work pretty well.

For todays Mexican history lesson.
This one might sting a bit. In an essay by John Mraz titled "Mexican History in Photographs" he tells the background story of the famous Photograph known as "Adelita". You've all seen it, the brave woman looking up the track from aboard the train as it leaves the station. Turns out that image is quite severely cropped. The whole image shows the young woman amongst a group of presumed "working girls". The actual Soladaderas usually(always) rode atop the train. The woman in the photograph was there with the others to entertain the troops. This probably tells more about photography than Mexican history. I found this essay in a book called "The Mexican Reader". Look it up.

Family picnic at the Ejido campground

Zihuatenejo.

Olibando,the last beach photographer in Zihuatenejo

Zihuatenejo has changed over the years. Not in a bad way. It's just grown as we all have. As always it is a good place to recharge. The city market is great (photos soon) and the downtown is still gratefully lacking in "Senor Frog".

Teresa on the beach

I saw Teresa on the beach. She told me she has been coming here for twenty years. She said "you should have taken my picture then". I told her she was looked great now.