Highway Tales: Bandidos and Breakdowns
Mexico
The sparrow-sized mosquito went splat on the windshield like a ripe watermelon dropped from a 3- story balcony so I knew we were getting closer to the heat.
And I saw how suited to each other this Mexy truck and me were. She with her cracked block spewing muddy oil like a streak of bad blood down the highway, rattling like a can-collecting hobo, as we rolled along over the crazy Mexican asphalt, and me, flaking off skin grown on the cold dry desert above, sore sacroiliac and tinnital ringing in my ears like shrieking banshees on a hungry morning.
The ringing started amidst the peripetetic fire-crackers in the sky above San Miguel de Allende; crackers are a ritualized part of life in most Mexican towns of course, but, since the first revolution began right there in that town I had the sneaking suspicion that the San Miguelenses were more in love with those damn things than all other Mexicans put together. I guessed I’d awakened from sound sleep 5 out of 7 days a week, 2 or 3 in the morning, to those riot and war sounds, cussing and rubbing my ears briskly to somehow, maybe, quiet ‘em down.
Anyways, there we were, peas-in-a-pod, two travelling relics, one tin and rust, the other skin and bones, moving on down the mountain roads of Michoacan towards the coast, tired as hell of the cold weather above, sort of like startled iguanas waking up suddenly in Alaska. And, of course, salivating at the thought of fresh fish and coconut water; and sunburn and sweat…Who would’a thunk that ‘Mexico’ could be so frigid?
Then, after a 50 kilometer stretch of brand new 4-lane desert-highway, with zilch traffic on it, like a ‘Road-runner’ cartoon stuck on the third reel, there it was, in front of us, a hundred yards away, a vision custom-made to turn a Gringo cold in the groin: A handful, maybe a dozen, Mexican hombres were lounging around five oil barrels
they’d placed across the highway, a formidable barrier, supposing they were full.
“Bandidios!” came thought to brain like a pimple bursting out on to the helpless mirror in front of your face…
I mashed the brakes and rolled to an idling halt, breathing faster than normal and trying to look tough, and innocent, at the same time…
They were hard, dark men, with sad, angry eyes. They made me wish this were a movie and I was at home in a bed watching it all in a drousy stupor, beer in hand.
The leader, on the driver’s side of the barrels, came over to my window, which I’d rolled down swiftly to show my total compliance, and complete lack of fear. My hands obviously shook and I wondered if it were working.
He didn’t seem to have a gun…and I was straining to see about a knife when he started saying something. I was sufficiently unnerved to think he was speaking Afghani and failed to pick up a single word.
“Excuse me sir, what did you say?” I choked out in my best broken Spanish.
Realizing my spiffy speaking abilities, the man slowed up a bit. This was a large desert we were in and he spoke with a desert voice:
“We’ve been out of work since this highway was completed six months ago and our families and kids are hungry and… whata’bout YOU, what do you think YOU would do at a time like this? We can’t rob a bank since we gots no guns and besides, the soldiers’d just cream the hell out of us in any event so…how ’bout a little help, senor?”
I got the drift all right, and even without the barricade and his 11 cronies over there, I felt a pang of compassion and guilt, the kind I guessed better-off gringo types should feel.
I handed him 20 pesos and waited to see if his knife hand moved. Instead, he thanked me and removed the barrels from the road himself. None of his men had moved during the whole episode. I guessed they were tired of this whole long, hot, daily movie.
I drove off thinking about the incident, relaxing, but slowly. What would this world be like after the roads have been built, the water and trees about gone, more desert than the mind can imagine, and kids, the zillions of em, Dads without jobs, lots of Coke to drink but not a drop of that crystal clear wet stuff they get to go see in a museum sometimes…Probably a few bandidos would appear on THAT scene. Before
long I was back inside my original thought train: escape the damneable cold, lay out in the sun and slurp fish and pineapples.
We’d be reaching all that soon enough, hopefully. I still couldn’t believe Mexico could be so cold. After a month in the high desert state of Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende had cooled my bones off way too much and I kept that vision of warm waves and hot sand firmly in mind, hoping this shivering would stop soon.
It did, in spades: after a night in Morelia, the mountain capital of Michoacan, and a couple more frosty ones in the fair to interesting craft-making area of Patzcuaro, I rolled down into Playa Azul on the Michoacan coast with the dreamed-of perspiration beginning to roll down my forehead. I wondered if I’d complained a tad too much about the chill. Now it was HOT for crying out loud, and there wasn’t too much shade here, either a hurricane or firewood cutters had taken down most all the trees. A black Grackle chirped from one ‘em that was left but no mate answered. The air wavered and shimmered in front of my eyes. The drops of sweat stung as the salt reached my eyes.
The sea wasn’t much anything special either, a dull brownish blue monster-puddle licking sudsy lips over the edge of the tan rusty frying pan of beach, not even coming close to the few palm trees left up only to shade the few business ventures around: two not very hygienic-seeming taco stands and a Coke and candy stand, both looking like last chance out-houses.
So I drove on down South, and East, along the coast, happily swigging coconut water and remembering to stop every hour to check on the oil level.
I’d had this Mexican-made VW van now for more than two years, and had almost stopped worrying about the leak. After dropping the engine 7 or 8 times, replacing dried seals, gluing up the hole again, and hoping maybe the leak would slow up, or even stop. Yeah right. I’d resigned myself to the reality of a perpetual leak from a cracked block and just made sure to carry an extra six quarts of oil at all times, and to stop often to keep filled up. I also thought there weren’t too many other cars you could do this with…drive with a cracked block for two years!?!
South some more and we were in Ixtapa and then Zihuatenejo, both so touristy I couldn’t even locate a decent place to camp for the night. On towards Acapulco I finally reached Pie de la Cuesta, where I’d had my first rude awakening to Mexico’s Yang side some years before.
Then, of course, we were wild young hippies in those middle years of the 60′s, spoke no Spanish, were self-absorbed, and mostly noticed very little of the culture around us. But still we were stunned and unhappy when the ‘federales’ planted the pot on us, confiscated my motorcycle and trailer and trap drums, put us on the first plane to
Texas, and said “adios”, with large grins on their mugs.
And here I was, 30 years later, reminiscing and taking relative note on how much things change in the world. At least Mexican police were paid enough nowadays to buy their own motorcycles…
It was a relaxing week in a sparkling clean hotel on the beach with foaming white waves breaking through cobalt-blue seas on to creamy white sand, and for $10 a day.
I finally and forever forgave those cops, and even hoped they hadn’t hurt themselves, too much, on my fast Japanese bike that they probably drove around recklessly and too fast…
Then on down the Guererro coast to Oaxaca state we went, through many fewer towns, one of which had a little surprise in store for me, one of the speed-bump ilk. All over Mexico it’s the custom of the people of a newly grown village to construct from 10 inch to 2 foot high speed bumps, ‘topes’, to slow the traffic down enough to keep their kids and livestock from becoming vehicle-fodder. Mexicans love to drive as fast as possible and the only way to ensure respect for village foot-traffic is to build these mini- mountains throughout the town, beginning usually a few blocks out from the city limits.
This one was unmarked, and worse, was in the shade of a huge banyan tree. I hit it good, straight on, bump-crashing several feet in to the air before landing abruptly, first on the front wheels and finally back to all four. I uttered the usual curses at myself and the gods and continued along for a few blocks. I thought I saw in the rearview mirror an ominous black trail behind on the road so pulled over for a closer look. That was
fortunate, sort of, since my regular leak had now become a veritable black waterfall running down from the engine to the concrete. I cut the engine, laid down on my rear couch, smoked a ‘Delicado’, and thought about it.
I wondered if I could carry enough oil to compensate for this new, and obviously much faster rate-of-flow. Fortunately, on the map, I could see that a larger town was only a few more kilometers down the road, so I headed off after pouring my last three quarts into the greedy, empty motor mouth.
I just made it, stopping at a shop at the entrance of town to buy and add another three quarts. Next I found a palm-thatched cabin on the beach right downtown and began to feel a genuine sense of relief for not being out on that hot jungle highway any more.
There’s probably no place in the world better for breaking down in than Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. It’s a beautiful and sweet Pacific coastal beach town. A surfer’s paradise with giant (and dangerous for us land-lubber mid-westerners and other non-surfer types) waves the size of small mountains some days, and merely huge hills on others. Apart from the gorgeous white sands, blue waters and fresh fish galore, there turned out to be a highly-professional Volkswagon mechanic named Pedro up-town, who proceeded to rebuild my sick old engine after locating a new block for her. Four days later she was ready to roll but I couldn’t tear myself away from this delightful village for another three weeks, mostly of fish-sucking and senorita skin-observation. A highly recommended spot of hot, sayeth the kid…
