On the road from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido, the van shares
the road. It shares the road with roosters and chickens and donkeys and horses.
It shares the road with teams of oxen in wooden yokes and packs of could be
stray dogs. It shares the road with grazing cows and just plain ugly turkeys.
It shares the road with men with machetes and women with machetes and children
with machetes. It shares the road with people on bicycles carrying loads of
branches. It shares the road with tuk tuks and petrol trucks. It shares the
road with mud and water and boulders.
We decided on the collectivo because it was so much less
expensive than flying and so much quicker than the first class bus. The
collectivo was scheduled to leave at 12:30 and we were instructed to arrive at
12:15. We got there ahead of noon and were immediately ushered into a van—after
a few moments of hemming and hawing about our luggage. When we arranged our
seats ,we indicated we had two suitcases and two smaller bags (plus and always a
guitar), but there was still a moment of surprise until the dispatcher and
driver put their heads together and, within five minutes, our suitcases were strapped to the roof and
we were on our way. It isn’t clear to me if we had arrived at 12:15 as
instructed if our ride would have been gone…
Chris had gone early to get our tickets and we were assigned
seats 2 and 3 which was a blessing. These are the first two seats in the second
row behind the driver. Let me provide context: there are four people on a bench
seat along the back wall of the van, who can’t see at all what’s coming. In
front of them, there are two people on a bench seat and one on a fold down seat
who also cannot see what’s coming, then another row of the same. Our row had
only our two seats and, in front of us, the driver, someone in the passenger
seat and someone in the jump seat between them. Eventually, we made a stop, and
a man stood hunched over between Chris’s seat and the door for about an hour of
the trip. It turns out, all the hoopla about car sickness isn’t hoopla so much
as it is a reasonable interpretation of past events and a sound estimation about
future ones. Which isn’t to say we got sick; we’re not really throwing up in
the van kind of people. Shimons are stoic, and Chris has grown to be. When we
feel sick, we shove it down deep inside without comment and read a book to pass
the time. The first two hours weren’t so bad. The second two hours made me feel
desperately nauseous, as well as emotionally sympathetic to my friend Janna
Nobleza, who I know experiences car sickness on flat roads. I can’t imagine
anyone who suffers the way she does could do this ride. It reminded me a bit of
our driving trip through the Smokies last year, because the turns were severe
and steep but severe and steep in a Mexican context which means without speed
limits, guard rails or, in some places, pavement.
As I said, we shared the road which was, at times,
startling. The driver slowed to pass cows that are not the least intimidated by
vans, to navigate enormous potholes and spots where the road washed out a bit.
Since arriving, we’ve heard about the recent hurricane which no doubt played a
part in the mud sliding into the road in places. It made for a slightly longer
than the advertised six and a half hour ride. So did stopping in the fourth hour
at a roadside service station for 45 minutes so that all the tires could be
removed and rotated. If you’re picturing a Firestone, you’re not picturing our
experience. This is the panamerican highway and there isn’t a lot on it but for
publico sanitarios every 1500 meters or so and I’ve come to understand that sanitario
might not be a cognate. We arrived at an oasis which had a choice of two
different publico sanitarios (one unmanned and thus free but also thus without
toilet paper), a roadside comedor complete with a television blaring a
telenovela and this corrugated tin tire shop upon which a spray painted sign
alerts customers it is open 24 hours a day. In addition to rotating the four,
the driver also traded in his spare which had zero tread at all. I might
mention, too, that the driver communicated nothing about this stop to us. He
did say “sanitario” when he stopped the van and then all of a sudden he was
eating his lunch, kicking tires and never said another word to us about when we
might leave. So we stood at the side of the road and considered ourselves lucky
he wanted good tires at least for the last two hours of the trip.
There is a point where the foliage subtly changes and palm
trees polka dot the mountainside and flowers bloom in more lustrous colors. And
the air changes from mountain crisp to ocean muggy. And it gets exciting
because, after not knowing anything about how close or far you are in the hours
that precede the moment, you know that finally you are close.
There was a flurry of activity as the van dropped us of in
the middle of the street in the middle of town and the driver scurried to the
roof and hefted our bags off of it and we hailed a cab and climbed in and hoped
for the best about our accommodations. The collectivo took about eight hours
after all so it was dusk by the time we arrived and difficult to assess the relationship
between where we were picked up by the taxi and where we were dropped off but
it was clear we left the bustle of town for the quiet of a dirt road. We were
nervous and tired and hungry.
Nina is the property manager here. She’s originally from New
York and has been living in Puerto Escondido for nine years and currently lives
on the second floor of the property with her boyfriend and her granddaughter
who is staying with her for the summer. Nina is one of those redheads whose hair,
skin and eyes all seem to be the same color. She reminds me a bit of Melissa
Leo and sounds like her, too. She is clearly shaken by the recent hurricane.
The building’s palapa (thatched roof) was destroyed in some places and she said
water poured into their apartment from above. Trees were down, the road was
washed out. Her boyfriend Steve said that the Mexican government gave everyone
three sheets of corrugated tin roofing and a 5-gallon bottle of water by way of
reparations.
Nina kept saying the place was a disaster and apologizing in
advance for things but the property is lovely even if it has been damaged by
the storm. There is a large pool, sun deck and lanai. The building is circular
and every room has a wall of sliding screen doors so wherever you are, you are
looking out on something beautiful and you can see the Pacific Ocean from the bedroom,
living room and kitchen windows.
We took a cab to Zicatela for dinner, though in the light of
today realized it is within walking distance, and we strolled up and down the
street side of the beach before returning home to bed. The bed is huge and comfortable,
and it was good to crawl into.
This morning, Steve offered to drive us to town so that we
could get the rent we owed him and we ran into a bit of trouble. We used an ATM
at the supermarket and the transaction registered and the machine spun like it
would deliver our pesos but it did not. A further frustration was that after
the failed transaction we were unable to get any additional money because we
had reached our withdrawal limit. So we spent most of the morning trying to process
a claim at the HSBC here in Mexico and trying to call Chase in the States to
process a claim at that end, as well. That involved visiting what can best be
described as a phone store but—again, if you’re picturing a T-Mobile, you aren’t
picturing our experience. There was a bank of wooden phone booths and an
operator. You present the operator with the number you wish to call, she enters
it and then a phone in one of the booths rings for you. If Chase didn’t have a
toll free number, I doubt we could have facilitated this. In the end, it is
more likely that we were successful starting a paper trail with Chase over the
phone than we were at HSBC where the woman we spoke with in person was kind and
patient but didn’t actually write down anything we said. If you love us, hope we
aren’t on the hook for that transaction because it was over 6000 pesos.
We went back to the supermarket to get some groceries for
our stay and returned home where we felt like interlopers at the least and
criminals in moments of extremity because we still hadn’t paid for our stay. It
didn’t stop us from dipping in the pool and sitting in the sun, but still it
felt wrong. Our internet here is shaky so after lunch we walked back to
Zicatela to look for wireless and transferred rent money to our host’s account
which made us feel like we were back on the right side of the law. On our way,
we dipped our toes in the ocean and walked along the shore before having
margaritas which were short on lime juice and long on tequila. We came back to
watch the sun set from our lanai and Chris just a moment ago realized that he
wasn’t playing his harmonica and thought he probably should. For all of its
financial upsets, today was good and I expect tomorrow will be better.
Did I
mention there’s a lizard on the ceiling right above me?
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