Thursday November 21, 2019
“The flags of piracy flew from my mast, my sails were set wing to wing
I had a jukebox graduate for first mate , she couldn’t sail but she sure could sing…”
- Bruce Springsteen
The tiny harbor here is full of a dozen or more water taxi’s. There is not enough business for all of them to be here so they mostly stage in this area and go out in the mornings in search of customers. The boat drivers loiter about the road near the small concrete pier and when we walk down to the cafe they immediately begin jumping up offering their services and ‘special discounts’.
It is the way of Mexico. Colleen points out this is a nation of entrepreneurs. You have to be here. The gap between the wealthy and poor is vast. As in other countries we have visited there is an underground economy where locals work very hard to make enough money to get by.
Some of this effort is not directed at tourists but serves the local area. Little tables are set up with fresh tortillas, gorditas, or tamales that cater to locals with cheap filling food.
One of the more unusual is the two men who make their living trimming coconuts. The reason they have a market is the enormous fruit grow heavy and fall striking houses and people and it can be lethal. However, what these men do is equally dangerous, if not more so. These trees are often 100 feet high or more. The man scales it barefoot with no safety harness to the canopy where he secures himself by standing in the sharp fronds. He then has his partner rope up a machete and he proceeds to hack away. It is easy to imagine him falling to his death.
It took a couple of hours for him to trim everything in the tree above our balcony and later that night there was a knock on our door which was unusual. We opened the door carefully to see the same man in the dim light wearing torn shorts only offering to sell us some of the very coconuts that he just risked his life to obtain.
“How was your day at work?”
In a very real sense this is subsistence farming and westerners are the prize fruit. Whether or not you actually have money, it is felt that you do and you are solicited or ‘Touted” a lot. It is usually not aggressive. It is no where near as intense as India but it is a persistent part of traveling as a westerner here.
Today we decided to take a water taxi to one of the many beaches near here. The taxi’s not only ferry people to and fro here but everything else as well. The jungle roads are twisty and unreliable so it is often faster by boat.
As we set out today, it was trash day. Boats piled high with trash bags were coming into the harbor to be met by a waiting dump truck to make the drive to Puerto Vallarta. As we approached the pier, unsurprisingly, we were immediately touted. The man spoke good english and wanted to know where were were going. (This is a common tactic). We were headed to a small dock for the public (cheap) boat to be ferried to our location.
“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” he said reasonably (We braced for it — Here comes the pitch)
“My boat”, he gestured to his small outboard floating nearby, “My boat is much smoother and that boat will not be here for almost an hour and I can take you and this couple now. I will give you good price.”
I admired his hutzpah looking at the bobbing boat and telling us that despite the laws of physics his boat would be a better ride. But we were ready to go and he wanted only a few more pesos than what the other boat charged. We never did find out if he was telling the truth about the time we would have to wait for the other boat.
Off we went. It was a beautiful day and the 15 minute ride along the coast was , oddly enough, fairly smooth. This beach (Los Animas) was a little different. Unlike where we are staying, there was no river going into the ocean, Even though the river appears clean, the confluence stirs up the sediment and the water is cloudy. You can only reach Los Animas by a walking trail or by water taxi.
Here at Los Animas the water was a brilliant aquamarine. it was warm and clear and you could see numerous fish in the waves. The beach was lined with cafes and seats and relatively empty. It was perfect. We selected some beach chairs and resolved to spend the day here. The water taxi tout was right. He had a better idea.
For about an hour it stayed that way. We enjoyed the water and the waiter brought us food and beer. I never wanted to go home.
Then it started.
Our first clue was the boat that arrived with three men. One was carrying a table, another a large bag of ice, and the third an accordion. The local entrepreneurs started to arrive and over the rest of the afternoon everything walked by and stopped to sell you something.
There was a man who had a full wheelbarrow full of assorted nuts pushing through the sand, sunglasses for sale, a lady who carried a plate of pie slices on her head, watch salesman, trinket salesmen, several different jewelry hawkers who when they opened their cases you were blinded by the sun reflecting off the fake silver.
There was the fellow with a horse who rode up and down right in front of you offering rides repeatedly. And then the chap carrying a dinosaur sized iguana who offered to let you take a picture while holding it.
But this was just the pre invasion bombardment. As we gazed out to sea looking in between the frequent hawkers who stood in front of us, the first of the ships began to arrive. Another small boat arrived with a man carrying a tuba. It was strange to see him walking down the pier wearing that enormous instrument.
Larger boats arrived and unloaded hundreds of tourists. The beach began to fill and the locals were now mobilized in full force. The horseman worked his way through them in the surf, the dinosaur man was getting business and the lady was selling her pie slices. Out of no where men assembled on the beach and where there was nothing a few minutes before, a parasailing line was formed where customers were launched in the sky and recovered right from the shore.
There in the distance, the final wave approached. We already knew there was a mock pirate ship at Puerto Vallarta. In the sun, that is what this vessel looked like.
It was a pirate ship of sorts. An enormous catamaran, flying the largest Gay Pride Flag I have ever seen, dropped anchor. Then, like the helicopters in Apocalypse Now, the support vessels from the mother ship launched one after another.
Small craft each with exactly 16 men sitting two by two came ashore like D-Day. The precision was astonishing. Wave after wave of beautiful young men some with sparkling tank tops and most with speedo trunks.
They hit the beach, turned right, paraded in front of us as they walked two by two down the shore. Perfectly coifed beards and tan backs that shone in the sunlight as they marched by.
The ship was playing a soundtrack. It took me a minute to identify it. It was not Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries” made famous by the movie.
Instead it was from Gilbert and Sullivan.
“I am a Modern Major General”
Another glorious day in Mexico.
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