April 15th, 2010
Easter for Gringos, in Mexico
A Mexican Picnic
Bruce and Mary are in México for Easter for the third year in a row. They’re not very religious and certainly not Roman Catholic as is most of this country. Let’s see what Easter weekend is like for this zenner couple.
Good Friday is weird, here. We are working our shifts, holiday shifts as it were, since for our Canadian firm this day is an official holiday. Our Canadian friends are surprised to hear that it is not in the States. As this relates to our jobs, most of the posters to the online forum that we moderate are at home, not working, which means that they’re not at their work desks informing the whole world of their awe inspiring insight to every story that hits our Canadian news website. In other words it is a slow day and only a skeleton crew is in place.
We log off and I make some online chess moves in the games I am playing with Kevin D, Sammy our hijo major, and his old chum Josh, who is almost a member of the family. Then we figure we’ll head out for a bite. There is no traffic and it is eerily quiet. We don’t even hear any music in the distance which is really weird. At the corner of the block we find our favorite bar El Lucero del Alba closed. Hmmm. We reverse directions and walk a couple blocks to our favorite cantina, La Gran Lucha. Closed. We walk over to El Choperia, a nice Brazilian/Mexican fusion restaurant/bar. Closed. We walk further down Calle 56 to the Jazz Club. Closed. And that is when we give up and head home for our own botanitas while we watch a couple of movies.
Saturday starts promisingly with a bright sky and warm temps, it seems we may be getting back to normal after all these nortes. We do our usual routine, working out at the California gym where I make a couple more friends, Ramon and Roberto. Ramon is pretty impressive, doing front squats with three plates.
Then we do our weekly shopping at Wal-Mart (we never shopped at Wal-Mart in the states for the reasons that people don’t, but it is different here) and the rest of the day we just relax. We’re saving ourselves for tomorrow, Easter Sunday, beach day for us. We took Monday off because we have to finish up our FM3 visas renewals but what that means in this story is that Monday we can sleep in.
Sunday dawns the gorgeous day we were hoping for and after we fool around on our computers, drink a couple gallons of coffee, and have some breakfast we are out the door for the beach. The last time we took the Progreso bus to the beach on a Sunday morning, they had, because the bus terminal is on the Mérida en Domingo biciruta, bicycle route which is closed to traffic, temporarily staged buses on a nearby street with personnel manning card tables selling tix. But we can’t remember exactly where that is, so we ask the cabbie if he knows where the Mérida en Domingo Progreso bus terminal is set up and he says, “Si, si.” So we hop in and take off.
Well after we have gone in a complete circle I am starting to get angry and the cabbie starts making excuses because of the biciruta. So we just get out, in the vicinity of buses we can see staging, pay the 30P taxi fee and hoof our way down the block to the staging area. Well, this ain’t the place, one of the drivers tells us and the directions he gives us are to the regular Progreso depot. We walk the two blocks and sure enough, people are lined up down the block to buy tix inside the depot. I guess the Progreso buses don’t care about the biciruta anymore.
We stand in line for probably about 20 minutes and spot our friend Bob, owner of Las Vigas, one of our favorite joints downtown, and wave at him. At Mary’s suggestion I butt in the bus loading line while she stays in the tix line and just as she gets to the window, a heavy set local gal butts in front of her and then takes forever to buy her tix. Meanwhile they are holding up one of the buses for me and Mary who are the last to board and wouldn’t you know, Mary gets the last seat and I get to stand the whole way to the beach. By this point you could grill a T-Bone steak, medium well, on my bald head. The whole point of coming to the depot was to guarantee seats, as we knew that hopping the bus at our usual stop on Av. Cupules, it would be standing room only. So we wend through town and by the time we get to the aforementioned bus stop I calculate that if we had stuck to our normal M.O. we’d be sitting on the beach right now. Grrrr!!
Well, the bus keeps on adding people at every stop and by the time we hit the superhighway, the bus is completely stuffed. But finally we do hit the depot and we debark into the hot sun with our beach gear and it is a good day once again.
We weave our way on the packed sidewalks to our cerveceria on the corner of the malecon and it is wall-to-wall people. The malecon is closed to traffic and there is a soundstage with live music going and beer and food vendors are filling the street.
Mary stops to get us a litro of Superior while I go on ahead with our gear to stake out our spot on the beach and it is busy, the beach is packed with middle class Yucatecans. The upper class is sitting in the shaded palapa restaurant/bars that line the beach. As I am getting out our portable beach chairs and beach blankets I see all manner of gerry rigged wind (it is breezy) and sun shelters. Families are setting up picnics on blankets and short legged collapsible tables.
Mary joins me and the first thing I do is take a dip in the green water. It is warmer than I thought it would be
Bruce Enjoying a Cohiba
and there is a genuine surf, in fact as the waves break I can actually feel a mild undertow pulling me back into the ocean. Back on shore, Mary pours Superior into our plastic glasses and after toweling off I light up our Cohiba cigar. We are right where we want to be, physically, mentally, and spiritually. What a perfect day.
Mary and I make small talk while enjoying the incredible people watching. I am caught up by the 12 yr old, sunglassed entrepreneur right in front of us. He has a big box of kites which serves as the anchor for the half dozen Styrofoam kites he is flying. The kites are in the shape of airplanes and spinners, wings with cores like an old fashioned lawnmower that spin at about 10,000rpm. This kid is cleaning up and looking so cool in the process.
Posing Amateur Body Builders
I go for a refill and when I get back I find Mary with a bag of popcorn from a beach vendor. The popcorn is drenched with hot sauce and for 15P we have the best popcorn we have ever had in our lives.
The afternoon is waning but the beach and the malecon are just getting busier and busier. However, we are starting to burn and it time for a real meal. I return our litro for the 5P deposit, while Mary packs up, and it is 3 people deep at the counter and everyone is drunk and not very polite. People behind me are putting their empty litros in front of my face for refills. Finally I get my 5P back and find Mary on the beach. We decide it is just too busy at the beach side restaurants so we head back towards the bus depot and we remember a place along the way that looked kind of cool. We find it quickly and sit down in the shade.
Nick, fluent in English, having been raised in CA shoots the breeze with us as he takes our order. The beers are reasonable at 20P but the food is a little pricey. Finally we decide to split a 95P chicken burrito. It’s the perfect amount of food and after settling up we hit the road and arrive at the depot just as they are loading a bus for Mérida. We are one of the last ones to board but at least we both get a seat this time.
Forty minutes later we are debarking at Calle 47 to hoof the remaining 4 blocks home. We are beat but quite content; it has been a great day.
Thanks for visiting gentle reader. Feel free in sharing your Easter 2010. Bruce would love to hear about it. Hasta Pronto!
