Sept 22-27, 2006: Ajijic - Mazatlan
After three delightfully relaxing days availing myself of Jim & Bettina's hospitality, catching up with family news, being taken out for breakfast, lunch and dinner, drinking more fruit & veg juice than I had previously done in my entire life and generally being spoilt, it was time to move on. It was clear from my woeful 'planning' (yeah yeah, Iwan, cork it sonny!) that a complete lap of Mexico was a little bit unrealistic. Instead of biting off more than I could chew, I decided the Pacific coast and Baja California Sur were destinations 'A' & 'B', mainly as I was looking for some high quality and intense loafing along with a chance to go diving and this plan seemed to fit the bill. After all, this section of the trip had been earmarked for 'wind down', right? (Errr...which bit of this trip is earmarked for intense activity and hard graft?)
So off I set by bus again heading for Mazatlan (not to be confused with Matalan, a whole different kettle of fish altogether). It's a Mexican (as opposed to being overrun by Americans) resort town on the middle of the western coast. It's also where I could get a ferry over the Sea of Cortez to the Baja peninsula. The descent from the central highlands north west towards the coast was impressive and you could see the vegetation and landscape change from upland temperate to coastal tropical, Mazatlan being on the Tropic of Cancer. I'm sure, had it not been for the teeth chattering air con, I could have felt the skip in the thermometer too. [Memo to self: take sweatshirt on air conditioned buses in future for fear of hypothermia.]
I had a day to kill in Mazatlan waiting for the next ferry so wandered around the town with a view to setting my eyes on the Pacific Ocean for the very first time. I was excited. Following my guide book map of the town I headed west through the colonial quarter. At the end of the street (Flores) was the wide Pacific Ocean in all its glory. There it was, this amazing cobalt blue strip in the distance, a quite uncommon colour, especially given the leaden sky. I was amazed. And above the fantasic coloured sea there's a dirty grey streak, perhaps that's the Baja peninsula in the very distance. But the Baja's 18hrs away by ferry, surely that can't be right? And sure enough it wasn't. The eye catching blue strip was the concrete promenade and the dirty grey smear was the Pacific Ocean. I sat down to take in the majesty of it all anyway and a giant cockroach dropped from nowhere onto my leg and got me all dancing about and slappig my thigh like some crazed latino Bavarian. Ah well.
Sept 21, 2006: Mexico City - Ajijic, Guadalajara
I woke up early, bright 'n' breezy, full of beans and vigour as I usually do after drinking too much the night before. Robert & Anne, not content with chaperoning me around the city the night before had agreed to escort me to the bus station. I think they were convinced by the cunning cloak of vulnerability that I don in these situations to attract assistance. So after breakfast of huevo ranchero (fried eggs and soggy tortilla smothered in chilli sauce - always good to challenge your stomach the morning after the night before), off we set.The bus ride to Tio Jim's in Ajijic south of Guadalajara was an eye opening eight hours! This gave me plenty of time to stare out of the window, feeling queezy and regretting my spicy & greasy breakfast. Mexico is a big place and I think I may have underestimated its size. I mean Mexico City to Guadalajara looked like a short hop, barely over a thumb's length in the Collins Atlas of the World. Eight hours! Bloody hell.Still, I made it OK and without peeing myself which was a bonus - there was a loo on the bus which I have to say was state of the art (mainly the bus, not so much the loo) complete with video screens showing a western. The gunfight scenes were particularly painful on my strangely sensitive ears and head.So Tio Jim, who is he and what does he do? Strictly speaking he's my second cousin i.e. my mum's cousin. I don't know how old he is, maybe my mum's age, mid-60s. He left Britain after studying law at King's London and seemed to have a serious case of wanderlust. Jim had always wanted to be a farmer not a lawyer but that career is a little bit closed to someone coming from the suburbs of Liverpool and without the prerequisite land to farm. After a stunted attempt to be a Common Market lawyer in Paris courtesy of de Gaulle giving the UK the thumbs down on Euro entry, he traveled about the place, to start with working in law firms but later on just journeying. Part of this journey was undertaken in a Chrysler Apline from Vancouver, Canada down through the United States, Central and South America ending in Santiago, Chile. Apparently at one point Jim was sleeping in the car in the Zocalo of some fragile banana republic when a military coup happened all around him. Very considerate not to wake the slumbering Limey. The wee British sports car was then freighted back to the Chilean Embassy in Washington. I didn't get to the bottom of why that was, perhaps someone was wondering where it had got to.From there Jim travelled to South Africa, up through Africa, over to India and through what is now Afghanistan and Iran, ending in Jordan. All this was undertaken using boat, train, bus, camel train and hitched ride in a Rolls Royce Phantom. Through a university contact Jim found himself back in Mexico in the early seventies doing something with sugar cane. I presume processing it and exporting sugar rather than twisting it into animal shapes. From this point it was only a short hop to starting up his own strawberry processing and export business and like a lot of organic things, it grew.
So Jim's not really a strawberry farmer as much as a buyer, processor and seller of frozen strawberries, blackberries, concentrated lime juice and more recently fresh mango. You could call him Jim 'Man From Del Monte' Rigby.
Jim's the one on the left by the way
Jim & wife Bettina. Jim is caught in rare moment of banana worship. He would be ruined if word got out.
Jim at the centre of strawberry operations - Strawberry Towers (or should that be Fields?)
This is where Jim del Monte relaxes, as did I.
One for the dog lovers to go 'Aaaaah' over - Negro (as in Spanish for black!?), the massive black Canadian Labrador.
Bettina's life giving blend of fruit and vegetable juices - the secret to Tio Jim's uncanny vitality and super human strength.
It's amazing what people leave behind on the beach. A pair of arse cheeks, just nonchalantly discarded without a care in the world. Really! Joe, you're a brave man for picking them up.
...I think. Some spoddy human geographer sort (like Dan) can correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's 22 million, which makes it a big old place and probably the biggest city in the world. So what do you do on a flight to a megatropolis like that, a heaving throng of foreign bodies, all jabbering away in a different language with a different culture; in short a daunting place to land at 10pm? What I did was get drunk on the plane. Yeah, nice one Pants!As always it wasn't really my fault. I mean at $5 a sniff, drinking booze on United can be an expensive business. But I wasn't paying, I was simply availing myself of the free wine that was coming back from first class and being redirected to my fold down tray courtesy of a charming air stewardess (or whatever they're called these days). I think she was conducting some social experiment or something because I don't recall asking for it. Result: I got a bit pished.Oh yeah, this was after I came as close to wetting myself as I ever have without actually doing it. I mean, I have actually wet myself a few times. Haven't we all? In fact I've probably done it more than most - laughing so hard whilst staying at Cameron Allen's house I spat Golden Nuggets out of my nose and wet my PJs; another time trying not to show myself up in front of Perrin McCormick I decided not to pee in the street coming back from the student union bar only to pee myself when I got scratched by a cat she had stopped to stroke - impressive. And I'm not the only one, I later learnt that Will Anderson wet himself in his sleep on his first night in Mexico City (allegedly), he claimed it was from jet lag...hmmm, and as for John 'The Baptist' McCann his self-peeing stories are legendary so I was in good company. No this near miss was on the plane and was simply a product of too much coffee and water at Washington airport and the pilot not turning the seat belt light off until about an hour after take off. I should have simply got up out of my seat and explained that my back teeth were floating but I seem to have an overt and probably unhealthy respect for authority.I digress. So Mexico City airport, by now about 11pm and I'm a bit giddy. I was having trouble filling in my immigration form - the print was so small and badly printed I think and someone had clearly coated the form in butter or something as it kept slipping out of my hand. At this point I met two French assistants in the form of Robert & Anne who, having been to Mexico City before, helped me fill out the form, guided me onto the underground, took me to my hotel that I had had the foresight to pre-book and then we all went out for...errr...some more drinks that were strictly a little unneccessary for me. I've always liked the French. Robert & Anne, I can't thank you enough! Robert bore an uncanny resemblance to Robert de Niro as well, which entertained me greatly...for some reason.
For even the most trusty old friends the time inevitably comes when you have to say 'I'm going to have to let you go'. In this case it's the Old Dogs - my New Balance, chocolate brown, nubuck, old skool trainers. So long dear chums, but we've had some good times though haven't we? Do you remember that nightclub in Prague when Radar was asked to get down off the bar and stop dancing as that space was reserved for beautiful people? Genius. And what about the bike ride from Frome to the Isle of Purbeck when we saw the Cerne Abbas (i.e. the giant with the big knob)? You were great. And tramping around the streets of Seville at night with Claire, lost for about two and a half hours? Yeah, good times we shared. So long, I'm going to miss you guys. Be free.
What can I say about the visit to my brother's in Atlanta? Well, not too much other than I realised David Bellamy was right, bug hunting is the way forward. I shall never again discount a poor bearded fool that worships the slimy trail of the snail or the miniature knitted mound of a worm cast. It's good fun, simple and wholesome - that's it. No no no, you don't kill anything, just snag and release. Don't believe me? Try it you doubter! Get a little lunch box sized container and go bug hunting. In the words of Dr Pepper, 'What's the worst that can happen?'[Errr...eaten by a radio actively deformed centipede that gets the hump over the fact you're looking up his/her skirt with a powerful magnifying glass? The disclaimer: David Bellamy accepts all responsibility for those that are 'taken down' by some member of arthropoda as a result of Pants 'I think they're made of Crimpolene' Spratt's incessant bleatings.]
So there I was on United 919 bound for Washington DC, USA. The trip had finally begun! Here let me make some observations about United Air. Now, for me flying is flying, there's little point in paying a premium for a more fluffy blanket or for staff with a more jazzy uniform. Planes get you there. However United really are a bit crap. OK, I can put up with paying $5 ('...and I'm sorry we do not accept currency other than US dollars') for a can of beer but I do think toilets that work are essential on flights over 45mins!All this was on top of getting upgraded to Economy Plus or some such nonsense. In reality all this meant was that the seating was less full of people than in true economy. Quite frankly, you can keep your Economy Plus and give me a working dunny!The ying to this yang is Channel 9 on in-flight entertainment. This lets you hear what the pilot is saying on the radio to air traffic control and also all the other banter on the air waves. Quite a natty feature, even if it's a bit nerdy. I was amazed by air traffic control and how absolutely frenetic it is. As we took off you had this sweet voiced angel of an air traffic controller commanding seven or eight planes, giving them vector and altitude requirements along with weather reports and tips for the 3:45 race at Chester, at a talking speed that would put a cattle auctioneer to shame.There's also another benefit of Channel 9. As someone that gets a little bit anxious when the plane hits turbulence, generally thinking it more sinisiter than it actually is, you have direct accesss to any MayDay call that the pilot might make. No MayDay - no problem as far as I'm concerned. Obviously there are situations where you may not want to hear exactly what's going on.Pilot: 'United nine-one-nine'
ATC: 'Go ahead United nine-one-nine'
Pilot: 'It seems one of our wings has fallen off'
ATC: 'Oh dear, that's a shocker!'Being privvy to that type of information has its downsides, quite literally. I think ignorance would be bliss in that situation. Still, Channel 9 eh?
