HASTA LA VISTA MEXICO!

            We headed for the coast.  Our route took us through the mountains and past fields of blue agave.  Tucked up in the rugged hills is the town of Tequila, the birthplace of its namesake liquor.  Our trip up the West Coast began at Playa de los Cocos, a beautiful wide beach on the Pacific Ocean.  We set up camp just a few feet from the surf amid coconut palms at the foot of a steep bluff. 

 We were not alone.  On this beach and the many others where we camped, there were Mexican families on vacation or a weekend outing.  They brought picnic lunches or bought from the many vendors who plied their goods from bicycles, motorcycles and small trucks.  Roving mariachis provided entertainment.

            Even on the coast, the mountains are not far away.  The flat coastal plains spread quickly to the foot of the Western Sierra Madres.  Tucked away in these rugged mountains are small communities.  Some date back to colonial times.  A few miles from our beachside camp at Hautobampito is the small artsy town of Alamos.  Many of its buildings were built during the 17th and 18th centuries.

 Its church is a magnet for art students who come to draw its doors and walls and domed roof.  Families gather in the square across from the church to play and socialize with friends.  The narrow cobblestone streets are lined with colorful shops and exquisite doors set in the brown adobe walls.

 Our final “beachside” camp was at San Carlos, just a couple of short days from the US.  San Carlos is “Mexico Lite.”  You can enjoy Mexican cuisine and music at the many restaurants and bars.  Most of the signs are in English and many people speak a flawless English.  The main streets are wide, smooth and clean.  Even the air seems different.  

            We felt like we were already back in the States.  San Carlos is more a retirement community for Norteamericanos than a Mexican village.  It is surrounded by sea and sand.  On the one side is the Sea of Cortez and on the other the Sonoran desert.  Just a few miles from the sea, the desert plains give way to raw mountains and rugged canyons that defy civilization.

            Our final night in Mexico was spent at Ana and Edgar’s Punta Vista RV Park.  Ana was having some health issues but Edgar was more than willing to spend some time with us.  He has led a colorful life.  In the Sixties, he traveled throughout Mexico with his Rock and Roll band.  He learned to speak English by singing American Rock and Roll.  It was while he was with the band that he met Ana who is from Mississippi.  He became a local hero when he rescued someone during a flash flood.  Sadly, he was injured in a motorcycle accident.  He wasn’t wearing a helmet and his head struck a concrete wall which caused brain damage.  The left side of his body is paralyzed.  He gets around amazingly well in spite of the handicap.  He and Ana have run the park since 1984.

            It was with a certain amount of sadness and an equal amount of relief that we bid goodbye to Mexico.  We spent over 6 weeks and traveled over 3300 miles in some of the most arresting scenery in the world.  We swam in the Pacific Ocean, met a lot of wonderful people and put to rest the myth that Americans harbor about Mexico.  We will miss the colorful and often whimsical ways that people decorate their homes.  We will miss the tropical flowers.

Of course, we aren’t home yet and still have lots to see.

SWITCHBACKS, WATER AND FUN

We heard conflicting reports about road conditions between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta.  So we headed back towards Colima and Guadalajara.  I’m sure we made the right choice.  Even if the reports of bad roads were wrong, we were still in the middle of Semana Santa and Puerto Vallarta would have been crowded with vacationers.

As it was, we returned to the Chimulco Water Park about 20 miles from Guadalajara.  The trailer park there is beautiful and comfortable.  It is full of bougainvillea and other flowering plants. The Jacaranda trees were in full bloom, their lavender colored flower petals covered the ground underneath their branches. 

 The park is located on the shores of a shallow lake.  So shallow that we watched a four wheeler doing doughnuts in the water!

  There was plenty of room at the trailer park, but the water park was crowded with 1000s of holiday travelers every day.  They arrived by the carload and busload.  The picnic areas were filled with people, laughter and the squeals of happy children. 

 Charcoal smoke carried the aroma of roasting meat.  The swimming pools brimmed with bathers who waited impatiently for the big bucket of water to fill and splash down on them.  The streets in town were filled with vendors of pollo asado and fruits and water toys.

We took one day to go to Tonalá, a Guadalajara neighborhood known for its arts and crafts.  Tonalá is crowned with a beautiful hillside park.  At the summit of the hill is the Piedra del Sol (stone of the sun).  Native Mexican lore says that it marks the spot from which the sun rises.  Tonalá is the modern word for the Indian name “Tonatiuh” Land of the Sun. 

Beneath and around the hillside, Guadalajara spreads out, filling the plains between mountains.  Since people were still celebrating Easter Week, the streets were filled with stalls which displayed everything from pants to flip flops to toys to ceramic skulls (that Mexican obsession with death!).

The fascination with death is carried over to the graveyard.  Mexican cemeteries, "panteons" (buildings where the illustrious dead are buried or buildings dedicated to all the gods) are fabulous places.  Often, the deceased occupy spaces more luxurious than they did when alive!

So far, the Mexico we’ve seen consists of broad plains and valleys surrounded by rugged mountains.  We would soon learn how rugged!  We were advised to visit Tapalpa, a small community perched high in the Sierra Madre.  We drove about 35 miles on a decent blacktop road.  Then we turned onto a narrow blacktop filled with potholes.  We continued on that for about 18 miles to Chiquilistitlan, a small rural town.  We saw the name of the town spelled several different ways in the town itself.  The streets here, like in most small towns (and some big ones), are paved with cobblestones.  They are so rough that it is impossible to go more than 10 MPH.  You have to wonder why they even bother to put topes (speed bumps) across the road.

The cobblestones gave way to dirt as we continued our climb into the mountains.  We negotiated a series of switchbacks that allowed us to look down on the road that we had covered just moments before.  The steeper climbs were paved with cobblestones.  The road was narrow, so we approached each turn with trepidation.  We met a surprising amount of traffic headed the opposite direction.  Tapalpa is evidently a weekend destination for folks from Guadalajara. This week being Semana Santa, the crowds were impressive—especially when you consider how remote this place is. 

 The big attraction is the piles of huge boulders in the fields before you get into town.  Each boulder easily dwarfs the people who climb on them. What piled these boulders on top of each other in the middle of these fields?  The town of Tapalpa is a tourist town that attracts tourists who stay in the cabañas and bungalows that cling to the side of the mountain.  Its remote and difficult to reach location make it an unlikely location for such a tourist center.

We’ve been asked by many people, “Why on earth would you want to visit Mexico?”  “Isn’t it dangerous?”  I can only say that we love to travel.  We love to see places where people live life differently.  We’ve been privileged to travel to many places in the world.  We’d never been to Mexico.  The more that Kathleen and I learned about it, the more we wanted to visit.  We are not sorry that we did.  The country is filled with friendly people who are eager to help and who are proud that we have chosen to visit their country. 

The countryside is awesomely beautiful and the beaches are fantastic.  There are beautiful churches.  The streets are a riot of colors.  Everywhere you go there is laughter.

Yes, there are places where it might be dangerous.  You simply avoid them just as you’d avoid dangerous places in the US.  The population of Mexico is a bit more than 122 million.  The vast majority of those people enjoy life, they love their families,

They spoil their children, they go to work, they shop at local markets, WalMart (and, for what it's worth, the WalMart supermarket in Mexico is far better than the WalMart supermarket in the US), and Costco, they are honest, and they value friends and are proud of their heritage, including their Native Mexican heritage.  Very few of them ever experience the crime that Americans love to attribute to Mexico.