In conjunction with a list of a hundred "most celebrated travel books", the travel writing site World Hum included a slide show of “Five Great Travel Book Covers”.
http://www.worldhum.com/photos/slideshow/five-great-travel-book-covers
They are all nice covers, but none of them have the dramatic or evocative impact that we are accustomed to on the dust jacket of a novel.
Looking through my own bookcase, I find a similar situation. The covers are much too earnest, much too concrete to the traveler and his journey. Too many are based on photographs taken on the spot and carry the suggestion that what is important in the book is the place visited and not the writing or perhaps not even the travel in getting there. And if the writer is not someone I know and want to read -- or he didn’t go someplace that I am currently interested in -- I am unlikely to pick up the book.
Better is the approach of the Oxford cover for Abroad: British Literary traveling between the wars, by Paul Fussell, with its massive looming black bulk of an ocean liner seen from water level, like one of those 1930s posters. Or Little, Brown’s cover for Evelyn Waugh’s When the Going Was Good, showing Waugh, tweedy, with a pipe and glass of porter in an armchair, staring out impishly, as if he were thinking of something fiendishly clever and is obviously the sort of person whose stories you would like to hear, wherever he had gone.
Perhaps the cover of a travel book presents some peculiar difficulty, some restraint on the imagination not present in the cover art of a novel. Some writers, it is said, think about the design of their cover before they even write anything, much as they imagine themselves being interviewed fawningly on NPR, but I confess that I have no idea what a dust jacket for my own writing might look like, though I don't think my subject matter gives itself much to photography. That's what publishers used to get paid for.
[The link above apparently doesn't work anymore, but you won't miss much by not seeing it, which was pretty much the point I was making. But look at <worldhum> anyway; it's a nice site.]
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
A Winter Journey
Snow has come late this year to the valley of Lake Champlain and reminds me of another year when I left on a trip and there was snow in the forecast.
For years we drove from Chicago to Cleveland to spend Christmas with my wife's family, a long but not difficult day’s drive across the Interstate. Not difficult if the weather were clear, but storms blew in off the prairie and Arctic air came down from Canada across the Lakes and over the big snow mitten of Michigan, and one year our departure coincided with a forecast blizzard, so we decided that that year we would play it safe and take the train.
We had traveled by train before and -- this being the route of the Twentieth Century Limited -- we imagined ourselves Nick and Nora Charles at cocktails in an Art Deco club car, and dressed with a casual elegance appropriate to the occasion, though we also brought warm coats as we would be moving around Chicago beforehand and who knew what might await us on the frozen tundra of Cleveland. This turned out to be a fortunate precaution.
Our train did not look like the Twentieth Century Limited. It looked rather more like the old passenger cars that I had ridden as a little boy in southern Illinois. Very much like them; so much so that, had it not been so cold, I suspected they might also have smelled like them. But fortunately it was cold.
We asked about the club car, but received no satisfactory response.
But we were sure that once the train got moving things would sort themselves out and we pictured ourselves sipping a cocktail in the warmth of the club car as our train glided through woods and snowy fields beneath a wintry moon.
But our scheduled departure time came and went, and we did not. But we had a comfortable seat and it was pleasant to watch the bustle of the terminal outside our window. Snow was blowing about and the warmly-dressed travelers bustling along the platform with gaily wrapped packages made a merry Christmas scene, and we did not mind the delay.
Eventually, we began to mind the delay, but then the train pulled out of the station and we were on our way, over the hills and through the woods and across the prosperous farm country of Indiana and Ohio to an old-fashioned family Christmas.
To the south of the great rail hub of Chicago, big-shouldered hog-butcher for the world, are the rail yards, a vast expanse of parallel tracks, stretching as far in either direction as the eye could see that dark, snowy night, a sea of black and silver and industrial gray. And that is where we stopped. Our late afternoon departure had been delayed into the evening and it was now quite dark and the only light outside our window were the dirty yellow bulbs under metal shades on iron poles spaced at such intervals along the tracks as they seemed intended more to orient than to illuminate, back-lighting falling clumps of snow that seemed to pick up speed as we watched.
But inside the train there were the reassuring sound of engines and motors, with their promise of warmth and locomotion.
And then we noticed that the sounds had stopped.
A passenger making his way back from the front of the train reported that we had no engine and apparently no crew. I chose to think of this as a good sign: that they were all off busy getting us a better engine for our trip.
Of course, without an engine we were not getting any heat in the coach, but as long as we kept the doors closed I was sure this would be no problem, and I was sure that at any moment we would feel the comforting jolt of a new engine being coupled to our train.
But why go on? You know where this is going.
We were stranded in the darkness in a blizzard on a cold train in the frozen wastes of the Chicago rail yard with no engine and no crew and no indication that anyone knew we were there. For all we knew, there were wolves prowling outside. And there was no damn club car.
We sat there for hours as the temperature inside the coach converged with that outside. We wrapped ourselves in everything in our luggage. We found a package of crackers and discussed which of the other passengers we should eat first when it came time for breakfast.
Eventually, someone noticed we were there -- or perhaps they found they had to move us to make way for another train -- and a bit before dawn we were underway and had a quite pleasant trip on a bright, sunny morning across the snowy fields of northern Indiana and Ohio.
After Christmas, we flew back.
For years we drove from Chicago to Cleveland to spend Christmas with my wife's family, a long but not difficult day’s drive across the Interstate. Not difficult if the weather were clear, but storms blew in off the prairie and Arctic air came down from Canada across the Lakes and over the big snow mitten of Michigan, and one year our departure coincided with a forecast blizzard, so we decided that that year we would play it safe and take the train.
We had traveled by train before and -- this being the route of the Twentieth Century Limited -- we imagined ourselves Nick and Nora Charles at cocktails in an Art Deco club car, and dressed with a casual elegance appropriate to the occasion, though we also brought warm coats as we would be moving around Chicago beforehand and who knew what might await us on the frozen tundra of Cleveland. This turned out to be a fortunate precaution.
Our train did not look like the Twentieth Century Limited. It looked rather more like the old passenger cars that I had ridden as a little boy in southern Illinois. Very much like them; so much so that, had it not been so cold, I suspected they might also have smelled like them. But fortunately it was cold.
We asked about the club car, but received no satisfactory response.
But we were sure that once the train got moving things would sort themselves out and we pictured ourselves sipping a cocktail in the warmth of the club car as our train glided through woods and snowy fields beneath a wintry moon.
But our scheduled departure time came and went, and we did not. But we had a comfortable seat and it was pleasant to watch the bustle of the terminal outside our window. Snow was blowing about and the warmly-dressed travelers bustling along the platform with gaily wrapped packages made a merry Christmas scene, and we did not mind the delay.
Eventually, we began to mind the delay, but then the train pulled out of the station and we were on our way, over the hills and through the woods and across the prosperous farm country of Indiana and Ohio to an old-fashioned family Christmas.
To the south of the great rail hub of Chicago, big-shouldered hog-butcher for the world, are the rail yards, a vast expanse of parallel tracks, stretching as far in either direction as the eye could see that dark, snowy night, a sea of black and silver and industrial gray. And that is where we stopped. Our late afternoon departure had been delayed into the evening and it was now quite dark and the only light outside our window were the dirty yellow bulbs under metal shades on iron poles spaced at such intervals along the tracks as they seemed intended more to orient than to illuminate, back-lighting falling clumps of snow that seemed to pick up speed as we watched.
But inside the train there were the reassuring sound of engines and motors, with their promise of warmth and locomotion.
And then we noticed that the sounds had stopped.
A passenger making his way back from the front of the train reported that we had no engine and apparently no crew. I chose to think of this as a good sign: that they were all off busy getting us a better engine for our trip.
Of course, without an engine we were not getting any heat in the coach, but as long as we kept the doors closed I was sure this would be no problem, and I was sure that at any moment we would feel the comforting jolt of a new engine being coupled to our train.
But why go on? You know where this is going.
We were stranded in the darkness in a blizzard on a cold train in the frozen wastes of the Chicago rail yard with no engine and no crew and no indication that anyone knew we were there. For all we knew, there were wolves prowling outside. And there was no damn club car.
We sat there for hours as the temperature inside the coach converged with that outside. We wrapped ourselves in everything in our luggage. We found a package of crackers and discussed which of the other passengers we should eat first when it came time for breakfast.
Eventually, someone noticed we were there -- or perhaps they found they had to move us to make way for another train -- and a bit before dawn we were underway and had a quite pleasant trip on a bright, sunny morning across the snowy fields of northern Indiana and Ohio.
After Christmas, we flew back.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
I meet the Condessa
After we had recovered from our long drive down, I went with El Patrón to visit the Countess at her small villa in a nearby village. An elegant lady, of graying blond hair, dressed in a loose cotton shift, her only companion a monstrous Great Dane the size of a small horse, who lies at her side on the couch, his great head, mournful-eyed, resting on her lap.
El Patrón had come to consult about servants, as he has fired the staff at his house, accusing them of having planted scorpions in his bed and a viper in his bath. The Condessa clearly knows of such things. She is plainly an aristocrat, despite the unpromising appearance of her present estate.
On the wall of the next room is a large oil painting which I guess to be of the Condessa, it being sufficiently modern in style that such identification must be guessed at. Yes, says the Condessa, it was painted when she was a dancer. Did I know of Martha Graham? She had danced with her. The film “Black Orpheus”? Yes, the Brasilan film. The Condessa did the choreography in that film and was herself responsible for introducing the Bossa Nova into the United States.
Which led to a story. One of many. Of how she brought the first Brasilian Bossa Nova dance troop to New York, children she had found in the slums of Rio, and how the ungrateful rascals, despite her many and explicit warnings, had smuggled in twenty kilos of marijuana hidden in their instruments, for which she had vouched in customs. When she found out she let them do their performance and then, three hours after they had finished, she had them on a plane back to Rio, smarting under her curses and tongue-lashing, for her father and grandfather had been admirals and she knew how to speak with the voice of command.
Then more stories. Of a local magnate who for his malefactions had been expelled from Europe by his family and sent, with scarcely a million to his name, to the most distant place they could think of, which was of course here, where the fellow had grown rich by dint of hard work, lies and ill-doing. The Condessa admired his piratical skills, but condemned him as ungenerous. One may forgive all sorts of villainy, she explained, if accompanied by a generous nature. But this pirate was a tightwad, for whom she had nothing but contempt.
Cold beer was brought and the Condessa took time to admonish the two young men who were working on her house and the young woman who was listlessly sweeping the floor. The house was small, under construction as Mexican houses seem always to be, with building litter in the yard, piles of tile and bags of cement scattered about. The Condessa was planning a water tank and -- when funds permitted -- a swimming pool.
Money, one gathered, was a problem at the moment, but one so formidable a woman would solve as she had solved other such problems in the past. An American admirer, whose name is a household word, had recently given her the automobile of his former wife, which the Condessa’s son was driving down from the States, along with twenty cartons of the Condessa’s favorite cigarette, a brand unfortunately unavailable in the Republic. Twenty cartons, said the Condessa, he is a fool, as are all twenty-year-olds. They will think he is a smuggler. It is always for the innocent offenses we are caught.
Our conversation then turns to the chronic misbehavior of Latin men. Mexican men are awful, said the Condessa. They cheat on their wives and if they are caught they arrogantly say ‘so what?’. Not at all like an Italian man. He will cheat just as much, but will lie about it and claim to be ashamed of himself. Whereupon the Condessa launched into a long and amusing story of the time she caught her Italian lover in flagrante delicto, and of the preposterous and operatic exertions he made to redeem himself, by sleeping five nights beneath her window, with gifts arriving hourly -- jewels, candy and flowers -- accompanied by florid and abject protestations of his love and remorse. After five days of course, she relented. Who could not?
El Patrón had come to consult about servants, as he has fired the staff at his house, accusing them of having planted scorpions in his bed and a viper in his bath. The Condessa clearly knows of such things. She is plainly an aristocrat, despite the unpromising appearance of her present estate.
On the wall of the next room is a large oil painting which I guess to be of the Condessa, it being sufficiently modern in style that such identification must be guessed at. Yes, says the Condessa, it was painted when she was a dancer. Did I know of Martha Graham? She had danced with her. The film “Black Orpheus”? Yes, the Brasilan film. The Condessa did the choreography in that film and was herself responsible for introducing the Bossa Nova into the United States.
Which led to a story. One of many. Of how she brought the first Brasilian Bossa Nova dance troop to New York, children she had found in the slums of Rio, and how the ungrateful rascals, despite her many and explicit warnings, had smuggled in twenty kilos of marijuana hidden in their instruments, for which she had vouched in customs. When she found out she let them do their performance and then, three hours after they had finished, she had them on a plane back to Rio, smarting under her curses and tongue-lashing, for her father and grandfather had been admirals and she knew how to speak with the voice of command.
Then more stories. Of a local magnate who for his malefactions had been expelled from Europe by his family and sent, with scarcely a million to his name, to the most distant place they could think of, which was of course here, where the fellow had grown rich by dint of hard work, lies and ill-doing. The Condessa admired his piratical skills, but condemned him as ungenerous. One may forgive all sorts of villainy, she explained, if accompanied by a generous nature. But this pirate was a tightwad, for whom she had nothing but contempt.
Cold beer was brought and the Condessa took time to admonish the two young men who were working on her house and the young woman who was listlessly sweeping the floor. The house was small, under construction as Mexican houses seem always to be, with building litter in the yard, piles of tile and bags of cement scattered about. The Condessa was planning a water tank and -- when funds permitted -- a swimming pool.
Money, one gathered, was a problem at the moment, but one so formidable a woman would solve as she had solved other such problems in the past. An American admirer, whose name is a household word, had recently given her the automobile of his former wife, which the Condessa’s son was driving down from the States, along with twenty cartons of the Condessa’s favorite cigarette, a brand unfortunately unavailable in the Republic. Twenty cartons, said the Condessa, he is a fool, as are all twenty-year-olds. They will think he is a smuggler. It is always for the innocent offenses we are caught.
Our conversation then turns to the chronic misbehavior of Latin men. Mexican men are awful, said the Condessa. They cheat on their wives and if they are caught they arrogantly say ‘so what?’. Not at all like an Italian man. He will cheat just as much, but will lie about it and claim to be ashamed of himself. Whereupon the Condessa launched into a long and amusing story of the time she caught her Italian lover in flagrante delicto, and of the preposterous and operatic exertions he made to redeem himself, by sleeping five nights beneath her window, with gifts arriving hourly -- jewels, candy and flowers -- accompanied by florid and abject protestations of his love and remorse. After five days of course, she relented. Who could not?
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
On the Road to Mexico, Part 4
We assist a child in defrauding the government
By the second day, everyone but the driver dozed. Beyond the closed windows of our air-conditioned car Mexico unrolled, with her heat and dust and sun and churches and shacks and cactus and fields and cattle and flashes of preternaturally purple and scarlet flowers growing out of hard, dusty ground flickering dream-like between snatches of sleep.
At one point, on a hypnotizingly straight highway, I fell asleep while driving and went off the road, but it was one of those places where you could run off the road for quite a distance and not hit anything important.
Late in the evening of the second day we stopped at Tepic, south of Mazatlan. As we sat in the restaurant a little Mexican boy, maybe ten years old, watched us and tried to get our attention. When we left he came to our car and asked for our toll road receipts. In Mexico, toll roads appear to me indistinguishable from any other sort of road, except for the presence of toll booths, where is collected some arbitrary amount bearing no discernible relation to the length or quality of the road. It would appear, in fact, that these are just ordinary highways on which the government has erected toll stations. And unlike traffic offenses, tolls are not negotiable.
I gave the boy a handful of our toll receipts, thinking to myself how the poor lad must be collecting receipts in lieu of stamps or baseball cards or some more expensive boyish hobby.
He sells them, explained Roger, to other motorists. A driver need only pay a particular toll once a day and then may go back and forth as many times as he wishes, merely by showing a toll receipt for the day. So, my little muchacho was defrauding the government. Admirable initiative for a lad so young.
Then south again, Mexico seeping through the cracks of our car. Cattle on the road, bats flitting through the beam of our headlights. At one point frogs hopping across the road, at another, small snakes slither. A red glow in the night sky from a burning cane field. Mexican music on the radio to keep the driver company while his companions sleep.
It was sometime past midnight when we entered Puerto Vallarta, the car bouncing on the cobbles. Colonial buildings and shop fronts of the restored town, artificially constricted by the bright overhead street lights, looking like a scene from a dream. Then across an arched bridge and south again, the road through a tunnel of trees with scarcely-seen shapes fluttering out of the darkness. We start counting the kilometer markers. No elation: just tiredness.
At 5:30 on our third morning, forty-nine hours after leaving home, we arrive. Even El Patrón, for all his enthusiasm for his new house, just wanted to go to bed. I shake out the bedclothes, for El Patrón has told us that on his last visit the staff, who are soon to be let go, had put a scorpion in his bed to discourage him from buying the house. There was a spider, large and brown but unaggressive, and I chased him off the bed. I was dirty and my feet were swollen, but I could worry about that later. I slept all through that day and following night and through the morning of the day that came after. I would sleep for thirty hours. We were in no hurry and there would be time enough to deal with Mexico.
By the second day, everyone but the driver dozed. Beyond the closed windows of our air-conditioned car Mexico unrolled, with her heat and dust and sun and churches and shacks and cactus and fields and cattle and flashes of preternaturally purple and scarlet flowers growing out of hard, dusty ground flickering dream-like between snatches of sleep.
At one point, on a hypnotizingly straight highway, I fell asleep while driving and went off the road, but it was one of those places where you could run off the road for quite a distance and not hit anything important.
Late in the evening of the second day we stopped at Tepic, south of Mazatlan. As we sat in the restaurant a little Mexican boy, maybe ten years old, watched us and tried to get our attention. When we left he came to our car and asked for our toll road receipts. In Mexico, toll roads appear to me indistinguishable from any other sort of road, except for the presence of toll booths, where is collected some arbitrary amount bearing no discernible relation to the length or quality of the road. It would appear, in fact, that these are just ordinary highways on which the government has erected toll stations. And unlike traffic offenses, tolls are not negotiable.
I gave the boy a handful of our toll receipts, thinking to myself how the poor lad must be collecting receipts in lieu of stamps or baseball cards or some more expensive boyish hobby.
He sells them, explained Roger, to other motorists. A driver need only pay a particular toll once a day and then may go back and forth as many times as he wishes, merely by showing a toll receipt for the day. So, my little muchacho was defrauding the government. Admirable initiative for a lad so young.
Then south again, Mexico seeping through the cracks of our car. Cattle on the road, bats flitting through the beam of our headlights. At one point frogs hopping across the road, at another, small snakes slither. A red glow in the night sky from a burning cane field. Mexican music on the radio to keep the driver company while his companions sleep.
It was sometime past midnight when we entered Puerto Vallarta, the car bouncing on the cobbles. Colonial buildings and shop fronts of the restored town, artificially constricted by the bright overhead street lights, looking like a scene from a dream. Then across an arched bridge and south again, the road through a tunnel of trees with scarcely-seen shapes fluttering out of the darkness. We start counting the kilometer markers. No elation: just tiredness.
At 5:30 on our third morning, forty-nine hours after leaving home, we arrive. Even El Patrón, for all his enthusiasm for his new house, just wanted to go to bed. I shake out the bedclothes, for El Patrón has told us that on his last visit the staff, who are soon to be let go, had put a scorpion in his bed to discourage him from buying the house. There was a spider, large and brown but unaggressive, and I chased him off the bed. I was dirty and my feet were swollen, but I could worry about that later. I slept all through that day and following night and through the morning of the day that came after. I would sleep for thirty hours. We were in no hurry and there would be time enough to deal with Mexico.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
On the Road to Mexico, Part 3
Don't worry: this is Mexico.
If Mexican traffic enforcement is warm and personal, the same cannot be said for PEMEX, the state petroleum monopoly. Coming from a free market country where there often seems to be a filling station on every corner, it is an unpleasant change to come to a country where stations seem to be a hundred miles apart, stations that open late and close early. And at one point the rascals even tried to overcharge us, but as they claimed to have sold us more gasoline than our car would hold they got nowhere with their villainy.
Late at night I found myself nervously watching the gas gauge as we passed closed stations with signs advising that the next station, which might also be closed, was 40 or 80 km away. But I was thinking like a gringo, for Roger explained that if things got bad we had only to stop at some village and ask around to find someone who had gasoline to sell. Don’t worry: this is Mexico.
And indeed, that was how we found gasoline that night. We had found no station open and it had gotten dark and there was a little village off to the west of the highway that looked as if it scarcely had electricity, but Roger walked up to some people sitting outside a house in the cool of the evening, who directed him to another house where we bought a few litres of gasoline, that took care of our concerns until we could find an open PEMEX station. See, said Roger, I told you not to worry: this is Mexico.
If Mexican traffic enforcement is warm and personal, the same cannot be said for PEMEX, the state petroleum monopoly. Coming from a free market country where there often seems to be a filling station on every corner, it is an unpleasant change to come to a country where stations seem to be a hundred miles apart, stations that open late and close early. And at one point the rascals even tried to overcharge us, but as they claimed to have sold us more gasoline than our car would hold they got nowhere with their villainy.
Late at night I found myself nervously watching the gas gauge as we passed closed stations with signs advising that the next station, which might also be closed, was 40 or 80 km away. But I was thinking like a gringo, for Roger explained that if things got bad we had only to stop at some village and ask around to find someone who had gasoline to sell. Don’t worry: this is Mexico.
And indeed, that was how we found gasoline that night. We had found no station open and it had gotten dark and there was a little village off to the west of the highway that looked as if it scarcely had electricity, but Roger walked up to some people sitting outside a house in the cool of the evening, who directed him to another house where we bought a few litres of gasoline, that took care of our concerns until we could find an open PEMEX station. See, said Roger, I told you not to worry: this is Mexico.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
On the Road to Mexico, Part 2
Mexican traffic law, explained
Driving south through the Central Valley of California we came upon Mexico in bits and pieces. A rack of Mexican comic books in a convenience store. At a truck stop the only music tapes are Mexican. More Spanish-language radio as we scan the dial. Advertising signs in English and Spanish, then later only in Spanish. And finally, advertisements for Mexican auto insurance. But still only pieces of Mexico. Latin embolisms in a northern matrix.
We crossed the frontier at Calixico. It looks very much like a border town, but still an American border town. For all the dark faces and Spanish signs, the visual clues confirm that we are still in gringoland.
And then we cross a few yards of border and we are in El Norte no more. With the abruptness of walking onto a stage set we are in Mexico, and all the clues of sound and color and proportion and surface -- all signs of spirit visible and invisible -- have changed and we are gone from the protestant North into the Latin South.
We cross into Mexico in the late evening and turn east on Route 2, to drive through the desert at the mouth of the Colorado River. To our right, far out of sight, the river empties into the Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortéz.
The pattern of Mexican traffic begins: few cars but many trucks, wide and ponderous, and huge buses, also wide, all hurtling themselves down the highway as if pursued by devils, their draft in passing almost knocking us off the road, itself a long, straight, two-lane blacktop stretching off into the eastern darkness. Behind us, a desert sunset, beautiful of course, but it’s late and it is too much trouble to turn around and look. And what’s ahead of us is more interesting: Mexico.
For several hours we travel parallel to the border and then, at Sonoyta, we turn south and east and begin our descent into the Republic.
The map is non-committal on the condition of our route, which is in places fine and modern, and in others rough and broken and shared with cattle. El Patrón and I are dozing as Roger drives. It is quite dark outside. We are on a rough stretch of road, but the bouncing of the car, now familiar, goes unnoticed. Then lights flash and Roger says “Oh, oh,” and pulls to the side, this being one of those stretches where there seems to be no actual road to pull off of. A Chevrolet pickup with a great deal of optional chrome stops ahead of us and two men dressed like parking garage attendants climb out and come back to our car. La Policia.
Papers are examined and there is much serious talk as Roger and the police stand back from the car. At length, Roger sticks his head through the window and announces that he needs 15,000 pesos (approx. US$5) to settle an illegal passing offense. They had originally wanted 50,000 pesos, but Roger had chatted them down. And he had passed a bus illegally, so the whole thing was quite fair. And there would be no concern over a bad mark on his driving record, as this was a cash transaction.
At Hermosillo we stop to eat at about four in the morning at a very North American-looking truck stop. Sunrise comes near Ciudad Obregón. The land changes from desert to irrigated fields. Children walk along the road to school. There are men on horseback and men on rusty bicycles. There are poor little villages with grand and beautiful names.
Outside the window of our car is Mexico, but inside is still the air-conditioned order and comfort of the United States. Soon enough the heat and dust of Mexico would wash away the residuum of our gringoism, but for now we are tired and content to take Mexico in small doses.
At Los Mochis a policeman waves us over. This time I am driving. I smile and Roger does the talking. This, it turns out, is pure fraud. The fellow is just supplementing his income. He and Roger talk long and philosophically, and at length the policeman comes back and shakes my hand and wishes us a good journey. Roger has convinced him that we aren’t going to pay. As I drove away I saw him pull over another car, apparently at random, to try his luck again.
This is how Mexican traffic law works, explained Roger. The police are paid a pittance and must do this in order to make ends meet. It is a sad thing, but necessary. The fellow is embarrassed to have to do it, but that is how things are. It is no more than an informal tax assessment to pay police salaries. And besides, this way you know your money is going to someone who needs it, and not being paid to the government where it will be wasted or stolen by some politician.
Warming to his subject, Roger continued: Mexican justice is not a cold, bloodless affair as it is in the protestant North. Here it it is warm and personal -- one might say it is Catholic. A policeman stops you, claiming that you have done something which at that particular moment you may or may not have done, but almost certainly have done sometime in the past, and announces that you must pay some exorbitant fine. You protest and for a while argue facts and legalisms, but this is just an opportunity to size each other up. Then talk may turn to where you are from or such like, and at length the policeman will mention his great concern for, say, the Sinaloa Police Youth Slow-Pitch Softball League, a most deserving movement to help poor orphans, but, alas, sadly in need of funds to buy gloves and shoes for the impoverished muchachos.
Formidable, you exclaim, for only that very morning you had remarked to your wife that you had been wanting to find some way to assist the poor orphans of the district to engage in wholesome sport, but, alas, you knew of no way to do this. Would it be possible for the officer to convey for you a small donation to this worthy organization?
Well, now, of course. How it pleases the heart to find a gentleman such as yourself so generous to these poor children. It would be a great honor to convey your contribution in small, unmarked bills to the cause of these worthy youth. And as for that trifling infraction, please think no more of it. Have a good journey.
(to be continued . . .)
Driving south through the Central Valley of California we came upon Mexico in bits and pieces. A rack of Mexican comic books in a convenience store. At a truck stop the only music tapes are Mexican. More Spanish-language radio as we scan the dial. Advertising signs in English and Spanish, then later only in Spanish. And finally, advertisements for Mexican auto insurance. But still only pieces of Mexico. Latin embolisms in a northern matrix.
We crossed the frontier at Calixico. It looks very much like a border town, but still an American border town. For all the dark faces and Spanish signs, the visual clues confirm that we are still in gringoland.
And then we cross a few yards of border and we are in El Norte no more. With the abruptness of walking onto a stage set we are in Mexico, and all the clues of sound and color and proportion and surface -- all signs of spirit visible and invisible -- have changed and we are gone from the protestant North into the Latin South.
We cross into Mexico in the late evening and turn east on Route 2, to drive through the desert at the mouth of the Colorado River. To our right, far out of sight, the river empties into the Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortéz.
The pattern of Mexican traffic begins: few cars but many trucks, wide and ponderous, and huge buses, also wide, all hurtling themselves down the highway as if pursued by devils, their draft in passing almost knocking us off the road, itself a long, straight, two-lane blacktop stretching off into the eastern darkness. Behind us, a desert sunset, beautiful of course, but it’s late and it is too much trouble to turn around and look. And what’s ahead of us is more interesting: Mexico.
For several hours we travel parallel to the border and then, at Sonoyta, we turn south and east and begin our descent into the Republic.
The map is non-committal on the condition of our route, which is in places fine and modern, and in others rough and broken and shared with cattle. El Patrón and I are dozing as Roger drives. It is quite dark outside. We are on a rough stretch of road, but the bouncing of the car, now familiar, goes unnoticed. Then lights flash and Roger says “Oh, oh,” and pulls to the side, this being one of those stretches where there seems to be no actual road to pull off of. A Chevrolet pickup with a great deal of optional chrome stops ahead of us and two men dressed like parking garage attendants climb out and come back to our car. La Policia.
Papers are examined and there is much serious talk as Roger and the police stand back from the car. At length, Roger sticks his head through the window and announces that he needs 15,000 pesos (approx. US$5) to settle an illegal passing offense. They had originally wanted 50,000 pesos, but Roger had chatted them down. And he had passed a bus illegally, so the whole thing was quite fair. And there would be no concern over a bad mark on his driving record, as this was a cash transaction.
At Hermosillo we stop to eat at about four in the morning at a very North American-looking truck stop. Sunrise comes near Ciudad Obregón. The land changes from desert to irrigated fields. Children walk along the road to school. There are men on horseback and men on rusty bicycles. There are poor little villages with grand and beautiful names.
Outside the window of our car is Mexico, but inside is still the air-conditioned order and comfort of the United States. Soon enough the heat and dust of Mexico would wash away the residuum of our gringoism, but for now we are tired and content to take Mexico in small doses.
At Los Mochis a policeman waves us over. This time I am driving. I smile and Roger does the talking. This, it turns out, is pure fraud. The fellow is just supplementing his income. He and Roger talk long and philosophically, and at length the policeman comes back and shakes my hand and wishes us a good journey. Roger has convinced him that we aren’t going to pay. As I drove away I saw him pull over another car, apparently at random, to try his luck again.
This is how Mexican traffic law works, explained Roger. The police are paid a pittance and must do this in order to make ends meet. It is a sad thing, but necessary. The fellow is embarrassed to have to do it, but that is how things are. It is no more than an informal tax assessment to pay police salaries. And besides, this way you know your money is going to someone who needs it, and not being paid to the government where it will be wasted or stolen by some politician.
Warming to his subject, Roger continued: Mexican justice is not a cold, bloodless affair as it is in the protestant North. Here it it is warm and personal -- one might say it is Catholic. A policeman stops you, claiming that you have done something which at that particular moment you may or may not have done, but almost certainly have done sometime in the past, and announces that you must pay some exorbitant fine. You protest and for a while argue facts and legalisms, but this is just an opportunity to size each other up. Then talk may turn to where you are from or such like, and at length the policeman will mention his great concern for, say, the Sinaloa Police Youth Slow-Pitch Softball League, a most deserving movement to help poor orphans, but, alas, sadly in need of funds to buy gloves and shoes for the impoverished muchachos.
Formidable, you exclaim, for only that very morning you had remarked to your wife that you had been wanting to find some way to assist the poor orphans of the district to engage in wholesome sport, but, alas, you knew of no way to do this. Would it be possible for the officer to convey for you a small donation to this worthy organization?
Well, now, of course. How it pleases the heart to find a gentleman such as yourself so generous to these poor children. It would be a great honor to convey your contribution in small, unmarked bills to the cause of these worthy youth. And as for that trifling infraction, please think no more of it. Have a good journey.
(to be continued . . .)
Saturday, November 19, 2011
On the Road to Mexico, Part 1
Ever since I was a little boy and first looked at a road map, I have been fascinated by the notion that you could get into your car and pull out of your driveway and, by turning at the right places and driving far enough, you could get to Mexico. And then you could just keep going.
For a long time I never got around to doing that. Then one day I did.
Part 1. A quite manageable plan.
My friend had bought a house in Mexico. Not some modest vacation bungalow -- for he was not a modest person -- but a luxurious compound perched on a cliff overlooking an unspoilt and unpopulated stretch of sandy Pacific beach. A great house with servants’ quarters and guest houses. Three pools and a tennis court and a landing strip -- though as a result of some misunderstanding with the authorities there was at the moment a line of palm trees planted down the center of the runway.
He insisted that we watch over and over the realtor’s video of the property as he each time pointed out more amazing features of his new home. As befitted the owner of such an estate, my friend had shed his former persona and now wished to be referred to simply as “El Patrón”.
When word came up from the South that the papers had been signed and seals affixed he would of course waste no time in assuming his new estate and insisted that we should immediately depart for Mexico. As there were three of us, we could drive straight through. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested it would be about a 48-hour drive from San Francisco to his new property south of Puerto Vallarta. Divided three ways, that would be two eight-hour stretches apiece. Quite manageable.
Besides El Patrón and myself there would be Roger, a nice young Mexican fellow whom El Patrón had recently met and who, in a moment of rashness, had lent El Patrón $50,000 of his family’s money. I was unclear what the purpose of this had been and thus far all that had come of it was that El Patrón, in one of those bursts of enthusiasm so typical of him, had purchased with some exorbitant amount of Roger’s money an elderly Renault amphibious automobile, whose leaks, he was sure, would be easy to fix. The Amphi-Car was probably the first of a number of small incidents that had caused Roger to fear that his business with El Patrón was not going to go as he had expected and so he had arranged to be constantly at El Patrón’s elbow and would of course be going with us to Mexico.
We left early in the morning, hours before sunrise: Three Caballeros in a Jeep Cherokee. We took turns driving, though it soon became clear that El Patrón -- despite his claims to the contrary -- did not see well in the darkness, and duties were divided accordingly. He also mentioned to us in passing that the police were “holding his driver’s license for him,” but soon we would be in Mexico where such Anglo legalisms will be no problem. It was my impression that “Anglo legalisms” were no small part of his reason for wanting to spend more time in Mexico in the first place.
(to be continued . . . )
For a long time I never got around to doing that. Then one day I did.
Part 1. A quite manageable plan.
My friend had bought a house in Mexico. Not some modest vacation bungalow -- for he was not a modest person -- but a luxurious compound perched on a cliff overlooking an unspoilt and unpopulated stretch of sandy Pacific beach. A great house with servants’ quarters and guest houses. Three pools and a tennis court and a landing strip -- though as a result of some misunderstanding with the authorities there was at the moment a line of palm trees planted down the center of the runway.
He insisted that we watch over and over the realtor’s video of the property as he each time pointed out more amazing features of his new home. As befitted the owner of such an estate, my friend had shed his former persona and now wished to be referred to simply as “El Patrón”.
When word came up from the South that the papers had been signed and seals affixed he would of course waste no time in assuming his new estate and insisted that we should immediately depart for Mexico. As there were three of us, we could drive straight through. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested it would be about a 48-hour drive from San Francisco to his new property south of Puerto Vallarta. Divided three ways, that would be two eight-hour stretches apiece. Quite manageable.
Besides El Patrón and myself there would be Roger, a nice young Mexican fellow whom El Patrón had recently met and who, in a moment of rashness, had lent El Patrón $50,000 of his family’s money. I was unclear what the purpose of this had been and thus far all that had come of it was that El Patrón, in one of those bursts of enthusiasm so typical of him, had purchased with some exorbitant amount of Roger’s money an elderly Renault amphibious automobile, whose leaks, he was sure, would be easy to fix. The Amphi-Car was probably the first of a number of small incidents that had caused Roger to fear that his business with El Patrón was not going to go as he had expected and so he had arranged to be constantly at El Patrón’s elbow and would of course be going with us to Mexico.
We left early in the morning, hours before sunrise: Three Caballeros in a Jeep Cherokee. We took turns driving, though it soon became clear that El Patrón -- despite his claims to the contrary -- did not see well in the darkness, and duties were divided accordingly. He also mentioned to us in passing that the police were “holding his driver’s license for him,” but soon we would be in Mexico where such Anglo legalisms will be no problem. It was my impression that “Anglo legalisms” were no small part of his reason for wanting to spend more time in Mexico in the first place.
(to be continued . . . )
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