Mexico en Viaje Relampago

As I write this we’re heading west towards Bakersfield, having encountered Los Angeles-bound traffic on Interstate 10 and decided to jog around L.A. through the desert. With luck we’ll be home by 1 or 2 a.m., having driven 5,000 miles round trip from Oakland, California to Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico in 12 days. The boys are asleep in the back—we’ve done a lot of night driving to lessen the strain on them.

Highlights of the trip included, of course, all the perfect visits with family—no drama! There was a nice party for the baby, who was the reason we had made the drive—my suegra was crying on the phone every week saying she was afraid she’d die before we brought the baby down for her to see. They had clowns and invited all the neighborhood kids.

We also drove up Popocatepetl, the volcano that looms, quietly steaming, over my husband’s home town. Of course, you aren’t allowed to get too close, but we made it to the rarified air at Paso de Cortés, where there’s a visitor’s center. I walked some lovely interpretive trails with signs explaining the habits of the teporingo or zepache, a furtive, talkative little rabbit in danger of extinction. As I was strolling, I looked up at the normally taciturn volcano. Suddenly, a menacing belch of smoke came rolling out, tinged with brown, and I picked up the pace back to the car, where my husband and sister-in-law were waiting with the engine running. Still, I figured if it was going to blow they probably would have detected seismic activity and blocked access to the park. I would love to take a hike the next time I visit, or perhaps go backpacking there at the base of La Mujer Dormida, the dormant volcano that’s next to Don Goyo, as locals call Popocatepetl.

Another highlight was Mazatlán. We drove all night from Cuautla and got there at 9 am. The beach was fabulous, both in terms of sand/sea/sun/scenery and in terms of all the activities. People were paragliding (where you strap on a parachute attached by a line to a boat and fly over the water), jet skiing, surfing, boating, exercising, water skiing, swimming, selling things, playing with their dogs, four-wheeling, digging, spear fishing… and instead of seeming out of control, it seemed fun, like things used to be in the U.S. before you couldn’t walk your dog on the beach any more and had to wear protective gear to do any activity. Americans in Mexico don’t sign a waiver before paragliding, they just strap in and go! Also, many of the vacationers were Mexican families, so there wasn’t a sense of impropriety or destructiveness about all the merriment.

The amazing thing to see was how much Mexico has changed in the last 15 years. Our family is so much better off—and that’s not just because of money my husband has sent. Consumerism is taking over. When I first visited years ago, there was nothing extra in the house. If you wanted a piece of paper or a pen or a rubber band, you had to go make a trip to some store somewhere to get it. Now our nieces and nephews have cell phones, digital video cameras and DVD players. One of my husband’s sisters has a 2002 sedan. There’s Internet—fast!—right around the corner from my mother-in-law’s house. My husband built her a pristine second floor, which for various reasons sits empty, awaiting our infrequent visits. More recently, he built her a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe in her patio. Every year she has mariachis come and sing mañanitas to the virgencita. He also wanted a fountain in the patio, but wasn’t thrilled with the frog-themed monstrosity they chose: Surrounded by grinning minions holding jars, a fluorescent green mutant jauntily leans on a sign that says “Bienvenidos!” It does make a pleasant burbling sound, though.

A few years ago, the Comercial Mexicana burned down near their place, and it was replaced by a Mega. The store is actually part of a mall with underground parking and a few American stores. As we made our lightning tour of Mexico, we saw plenty of new malls throughout the north, east and west, all with vast parking lots.

On the whole, however, our trip showed the diversity of Mexico. Driving up to Popo, we passed fields being tilled by horse-drawn plows. In the north, from Mazatlán to Culiacán, factory farms were the rule, with American-like precision, enormous bodegas and no workers in sight. We saw smoldering shanty towns followed by shining cities, technology parks and universities. The traditional Mexican ways, say, of buying ingredients in the old mercados, still predominate. But my nieces, with tongue, eyebrow and lip piercings and factory jobs to finance their nightclubbing, dream of fast American lives. Mexico has been a strong industrial nation for a long time—but can it continue to grow without losing its character?

Perhaps it can. One classic aspect of Mexican life is the mysterious and multi-layered workings of the goverment. We had not properly imported our vehicle, as I mentioned in my previous posting, but it all turned out OK. On the way home, heading toward Nogales, Arizona, we passed myriad military, agricultural and police checkpoints, always with hearts pounding. It was on the last of these that we had trouble. We were prepared to “pay for our mistake” if need be. Sure enough, after 20 minutes of the judiciales searching our car with increasing vigor, Emilio handed over 1,000 pesos. The judicial who took the bribe wouldn’t look at me—I think he felt bad about it. “No chilles,” he told Emilio, meaning “don’t report this to the government.” But hey, Emilio’s not mentioning it, I am. Frankly, considering the legal alternative, which was for them to seize the car, I was thrilled with the mordida. More than one federale let us go without stopping us, even though you really, really need to have that import sticker on your windshield.

In the end, the main thing that preserved us from the federales and judiciales was this: We were a family traveling together in a country that reveres family above all else.

Compared to that warmth, Arizona’s antiseptic suburban settlements felt soulless. Funny thing, I got my hair done in cornrows on the beach in Mazatlán. In Tucson, I walk into a refrigerated Days Inn; the manager takes one look at my hair and interrupts the person swiping my credit card to say they can’t give us a room! That’s why in a convenience store packed with returning vacationers here in the California desert I felt a surge of love for my quirky state, where you have to work pretty hard to shock folks with your looks. Well, unless you go to that white-supremacist-run ribs joint in Mariposa outside Yosemite, but that’s a story for another day…