Mexico

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Of cowboys and Federales

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 in Mexico, Sayulita | 1 comment

The other day I was getting all righteous about how you can knock back a Negra Modelo or two while hanging at the beach in front of Don Pedro’s in Sayulita. And it’s true. But then there’s the other side of Mexico which is less thrilling—the heavy-handed police and military presence. I mean, you’re kicking back on the beach, waiting for the tamale lady to come by, checking out the surf and all of a sudden a couple of military guys come strolling by carrying some serious firepower.

It seems kind of ridiculous. I mean, what are they looking for? Do they think drug runners are slipping stuff in and out of the beach on their surfboards? And if some serious drug lord did show up out of the blue carrying 50 pounds of coke in his backpack, what are these guys going to do? Start shooting up the beach?

But you look at this photo and the dichotomy of Mexico comes into full focus—soldiers strolling along the beach like lovers just in front of a middle-aged surfer.

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

And then you walk across the plaza, making sure you don’t get nailed by a teenager zooming his motorbike or ATV down the narrow street, and you look up and…there’s a cowboy riding his horse into the sunset.

So strange, so evocative. And only in Mexico. 

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Beach food

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 in Mexico, Sayulita | 3 comments

One time in California I was sitting on the beach with friends watching the sun set and sipping a really nice New Zealand sauvignon blanc when a beach cop rode up on his 4-wheeler and told us to dump the wine on the sand or he’d give us all citations. Because, you know, we were obviously going to go crazy and start singing out loud or something.

In Mexico, not only is it okay to drink a cerveza or a margarita on the beach, hell, someone will go and get one for you. You don’t even need to bring your own.

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

In Sayulita, you can rent a chair and an umbrella for less than $5 and then just sit there all day waiting for the food and drinks to come around. My favorite is the tamale lady. She walks the beach with a little styrofoam chest and sells chicken or pork tamales for about a buck each. Man, those tamales are killer. Then you ask a kid to run up to Don Pedro’s and get you a Negro Modelo, and you are set for lunch.

But you can get all kinds of other things to eat and drink on the beach as well. Usually there’s someone slicing up fruit—watermellon, papaya, cantaloupe—that they stuff into big plastic cups. And there are guys walking around selling camerones on a stick or fat tortas stuffed with chicken.

Maybe the most interesting food vendors are the guys selling candy. There’s one guy who walks up and down the beach carrying a white pole studded with red candied apples. They cost 10 pesos or about $.75. Just think how many candied apples he has to sell to make a living. That’s a tough job but even worse, in my opinion, is the guy who pushes a wheelbarrow through the soft sand selling gummy worms and pastel mints, pepitas and chili peanuts. You pick out what you want and he fills a paper cone with the candy or nuts and the whole thing might cost a buck at most. Then you go back to your chair in front of Don Pedro’s and the kid comes over and nods toward your beer bottle and says, “Uno más?” and you say, Sure. Uno más. Knowing no Mexican beach cop is going to come over and tell you to spill your cerveza in the sand.

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It wouldn’t be the beach oysters, would it?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012 in Bucerias, Mexico | 3 comments

Oysters being sold on the beach. Photo by David Lansing.

Beautiful morning out. Gorgeous. Blue skies, sunny, warm. Maybe I’ll go for a walk along the beach. Or for a swim. A little exercise would do me good.

Except…except…well, I’m suddenly feeling a little queasy. Nothing major. Just an unsettled stomach. Skip the coffee this morning. Maybe have something healthy like a fruit smoothie. With yogurt. Settle things down.

Cool. Refreshing. Big glass. Orange juice, frozen strawberries, some of those little Mexican bananas, and peach yogurt. That’s lovely, isn’t it?

Except…except…now I think I’m going to ralph. Maybe just crawl back in bed and snooze until it passes. Nothing major, I’m sure. It’s not at all like that time in Bordeaux when I had very rare pigeon and my body proceeded to do an unauthorized cleanse, top to bottom, for two days. God, that was dreadful. Probably shouldn’t think about that. Not right now. Because, ohchrist….

There, that’s better. Get it out of the system. Whatever it is. Some of the strawberries were still frozen. Odd, that. You don’t suppose it’s those beach oysters I had, do you? Couldn’t be. That was, what, a week ago? Do nasty things in oysters stay in your body only to make a nasty appearance a week later? Shouldn’t think so. Still. What else could it be? What did I have for dinner last night? Oh, yes, the stuffed chile poblano at Aduato’s. With a salad. Could have been the salad. Or the chile. Or whatever was stuffed in to the chile. Shrimp, was it? Not oysters, certainly. Anyway, just get back into bed, take a little nap, and when I wake up in an hour or so, I’m sure it will all have passed.

Except…except…ohshit.

Well, that was nasty. Always worse the second time around. Odd the body can even contort itself like that. Need to get back in there and clean up the floor a bit. Attract flies otherwise. After I get my strength back. Climb in to bed. Turn on the overhead fan. Close my eyes. And try not to think of beach oysters.

Except…except…ohdamndamndamn.

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Tacos on the windshield

Monday, November 19, 2012 in Bucerias, Mexico, Punta el Custodio

Me cleaning taco sauce off the windshield of the Blue Whale. Photo by David Lansing.

I dropped Jeff off at the airport today. As I was driving back to Bucerias, I thought about the last time Jeff was down here and I somehow convinced him to do a roadtrip with me from Puerto Vallarta to Los Angeles. What I remember is that the night before we left, Jeff suddenly came down with an intestinal problem and he wasn’t able to eat the carne asada we’d ordered at a restaurant in Bucerias. Not wanting to waste it, he’d asked the waiter to wrap it up in aluminum foil.

The next day, we stop to get gas before heading off into the jungle. While I’m paying for the gas, Jeff gets the foil-wrapped steak tacos from dinner and puts them on the windshield, held down by the wipers.

Me: What the hell are you doing?

Jeff: Heating up my tacos. It’s a hundred degrees outside. They’ll be warm by the time we get to Mazatlan.

Me: The windshield wipers aren’t going to hold them! Those babies will go flying off in two minutes.

Jeff: They’ll be fine. Just go slow.

So off we went through the jungle. With two big aluminum foil packets of tacos underneath the windshield wipers. At one point the tacos de parabrisas started to creep up the windshield but I found that if I kept my speed around 40-45, they were okay. Although some of the sauce leaked, making salsa rivulets down the hood of the Blue Whale.

Just before we got to Mazatlan, Jeff hopped out and grabbed the tacos. They were a little soggy but heated through. We had them with a couple of orange Fantas we bought at an Oxxo.

The next morning when we gassed up before leaving Mazatlan, Jeff went into the quickie mart and got two $.69 hot dogs. He stuck them under the windshield wipers where they stayed as we crossed the Sonoran desert. I think this may become a regular thing with him.

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To eat or not to eat the dorado

Friday, November 16, 2012 in Mexico, Sayulita

A panga in Sayulita with a dorado painted on the front. The fish used to be prolific in these waters.

The other day I was talking with Dennis, who owns Gecko, the rental car company here in Bucerias. Dennis does all the work on the Blue Whale and I wanted to see when I could bring her in for some scheduled maintenance work. Dennis is also a big fisherman so I asked him how the fishing was in the Bay of Banderas. He said it was good—lots of tuna and marlin.

“How’s the dorado catch?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “Not good,” he said. “It’s all fished out. Too many long-line boats.”

I found that shocking to hear. The dorado catch a few miles off the coast has always been phenomenal. And now, according to Dennis, there just wasn’t much out there anymore. Which explained why, the day before, when I’d gone to Mega, hoping to pick up some fresh fish to grill for dinner, and had specifically looked for dorado, they didn’t have any. Which really surprised me at the time. Now I knew why.

I bring this up because last Sunday, when Jeff and I spent the day in Sayulita, we saw one of the fishing pangas coming back from an excursion with several tourists, all of whom got out of the boat holding dorado. They weren’t particularly large dorado, but dorado none the less. So evidently they’re not completely fished out. Still, it made me wonder if the tourists knew that they had caught fish that are becoming increasingly rare along this part of the Mexican coast. Probably they had no idea.

Late that afternoon, as we were preparing to leave, we wandered down to the little fish market close to the bridge. A couple of fishermen were cleaning some shrimp they had brought in that day. Just out of curiosity, I asked them if they had any dorado. One of them nodded and went behind a curtain, coming back with an ice cooler. He opened it up and showed me several filets of fresh dorado.

Now here was my dilemma: I knew that dorado were being over-fished. But I was really lusting after one of those fillets. So part of me was going, Don’t buy it; the fishery here isn’t sustainable. The other part of me was going, They already caught the dorado; if you don’t eat it, someone else will.

In the end, we bought it. And it was even better than I’d hoped. But I can’t honestly say that I really enjoyed it.

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