MeIt is time for another installment of my riveting ravings from the roads traveled south of the border. (for you that are clueless, hapless and map less, I am referring to the Republic of Mexico). (Author’s note: you may want to print this page and save reading it for a night when you are having difficultly sleeping)
This adventure actually started several weeks ago when I traveled on business to the sleepy industrial town of Del Carmen on the southern gulf coast of Mexico. This town did not have decent hotel accommodations until just a couple of years ago, but due to the oil boom, which much activity is handled in this town, the selection has doubled. Now there are two hotels!
The area is definitely tropical. There are lizards roaming around everywhere. They vary in size from tiny pinkie finger size ones to giants that are the size of house cats. They probably dine on house cats. And why not, since house cats taste like chicken.
I was amazed at the enormity of some common vegetation found here that we use for houseplants in the U.S. Everyone has probably owned and eventually killed a potted Ficus tree. They usually are a few feet tall and look green and lush until you bring them home from the garden center. Then they promptly loose their leaves and die. Well here, the Ficus grow to enormous proportions. Three grown men holding hands would not be able to encircle the trunk of some of these specimens. Why three grown men would be compelled to assault a tree in this manner is for others to contemplate; I shall go no further into speculating on that activity. It rained every morning we were here and the street flooding was common. Eighteen inches would accumulate in the intersections. I was told the area has good drainage and I guess it is true since the water seems to readily drain into the street.
I saw professional landscapers at work everywhere. Since we know that all good landscapers are of Mexican heritage, I was hoping to learn firsthand how they perform their duties. It seems their tool of choice is the machete. Their form of grooming and shaping plants might appear to the uninformed as hacking and slashing. But it is amazing what a good, sharp machete, a skilled arm, and liberal doses of Mescal will do to brush and weeds. These are dedicated workers. I watched in amazement as one young man, on cleanup duty, wielded a professional looking stick with a professionally sharpened nail in the end. He wielded this professional device as if he were a majorette leading a marching band.
I saw him spot an offending bit of debris on the side of the road, a plastic soft drink bottle. He repeatedly jabbed at it, as if it were a flounder he was gigging. The plastic bottle would just recoil off of his pointed stick and bounce a few feet forward.
I am not making this up, and I would swear on Dave Barry’s syndication check, that the young man, rather than show to be an amateur and bend over and pick up the bottle with his hand, chose to use his professional tool and trail the offending bottle all over the area. He chased this debris until he was no longer in sight. I had more culture to absorb so I walked on and never saw the outcome of his endeavor. I can only hope he was successful.
Fast forward a few weeks to my current trip to Mexico City. Ahhh, the metropolitan exuberance of big city life! There are 25 million citizens living here where 45 years ago there were only 1 million. And they all share one slightly stick of deodorant. Wait! Shame on me. I forgot for a moment that I was not in the Middle East. That comment was uncalled for. I am SURE there is more than one deodorant stick in this city, but I digress…
Twenty five percent of the entire nation’s population is in this one city. I guess Catholics everywhere are prolific breeders, not just the Kennedy clan. The traffic congestion is like LA or Houston on a bad day. It took us an hour of fighting and dodging other vehicles to get to one meeting. And this was at a building which was close enough that I could see it from my hotel before we left.
After my work was done, I had time to engross myself in the culture of this ancient land by going to the Anthropology Museum. It is a vast store house of knowledge telling the tale of the development of the peoples of the world. It is a wonderful showcase which begins with the origins of early pre-humans on to our evolution to modern man. I learned that when man learned to cook meat, this softened the texture of the food and helped him gain more protein per meal. Raw meat would take five hours to chew whereas cooked meat could be eaten in one hour. This gave him more time for leisure activities such as picking lice off of neighbors. I never knew the evolutionary benefit of cooking food until now. I just thought it was invented by Al Gore in order to give us something to do at tail gate parties.
Other strange and wonderful facts about this country that I bet you thought you would never learn: The official national vegetable is the Mexican Jumping Bean, the official bird is the pink flamingo, the official medicine is Maalox, the gross domestic product is measured in cubic feet of flatulence, the largest export item is “guest labor”, and coincidentally the official sport is swimming, by doing the wetbackstroke. (and you thought reading this would be a waste of time).
My secret intention for the trip to the museum was to repatriate the Texas flag which was taken from the Alamo after the Mexican siege during the war in 1836. The Mexican Government has refused to give it back to Texas for over 150 years now. My plan was to challenge the Curator of the Museum to feats of strength with the winner being able to keep the flag. However, negotiations broke down when I could not understand the language. The entire population of this country talks in some odd gibberish, comically referred to as “ES PAN YOLE”. I did, however, comprehend the not-to-subtle message given to me on my forehead by a museum guard’s nightstick. It left an indelible impression on me. I have decided it makes me a better man to allow Mexico to continue housing the Texas flag until such time as my language skills improve or my skull gets tougher.
For anyone wanting reprints of the full catalog of Intrepid Traveler Reports, you should be psychologically evaluated. Then send only $49.99 to “DaveBarryWannabe”, attn: Inmate number 14435, Texas Prison System, Huntsville, TX. Or just ask the author for a freebie.
This adventure actually started several weeks ago when I traveled on business to the sleepy industrial town of Del Carmen on the southern gulf coast of Mexico. This town did not have decent hotel accommodations until just a couple of years ago, but due to the oil boom, which much activity is handled in this town, the selection has doubled. Now there are two hotels!
The area is definitely tropical. There are lizards roaming around everywhere. They vary in size from tiny pinkie finger size ones to giants that are the size of house cats. They probably dine on house cats. And why not, since house cats taste like chicken.
I was amazed at the enormity of some common vegetation found here that we use for houseplants in the U.S. Everyone has probably owned and eventually killed a potted Ficus tree. They usually are a few feet tall and look green and lush until you bring them home from the garden center. Then they promptly loose their leaves and die. Well here, the Ficus grow to enormous proportions. Three grown men holding hands would not be able to encircle the trunk of some of these specimens. Why three grown men would be compelled to assault a tree in this manner is for others to contemplate; I shall go no further into speculating on that activity. It rained every morning we were here and the street flooding was common. Eighteen inches would accumulate in the intersections. I was told the area has good drainage and I guess it is true since the water seems to readily drain into the street.
I saw professional landscapers at work everywhere. Since we know that all good landscapers are of Mexican heritage, I was hoping to learn firsthand how they perform their duties. It seems their tool of choice is the machete. Their form of grooming and shaping plants might appear to the uninformed as hacking and slashing. But it is amazing what a good, sharp machete, a skilled arm, and liberal doses of Mescal will do to brush and weeds. These are dedicated workers. I watched in amazement as one young man, on cleanup duty, wielded a professional looking stick with a professionally sharpened nail in the end. He wielded this professional device as if he were a majorette leading a marching band.
I saw him spot an offending bit of debris on the side of the road, a plastic soft drink bottle. He repeatedly jabbed at it, as if it were a flounder he was gigging. The plastic bottle would just recoil off of his pointed stick and bounce a few feet forward.
I am not making this up, and I would swear on Dave Barry’s syndication check, that the young man, rather than show to be an amateur and bend over and pick up the bottle with his hand, chose to use his professional tool and trail the offending bottle all over the area. He chased this debris until he was no longer in sight. I had more culture to absorb so I walked on and never saw the outcome of his endeavor. I can only hope he was successful.
Fast forward a few weeks to my current trip to Mexico City. Ahhh, the metropolitan exuberance of big city life! There are 25 million citizens living here where 45 years ago there were only 1 million. And they all share one slightly stick of deodorant. Wait! Shame on me. I forgot for a moment that I was not in the Middle East. That comment was uncalled for. I am SURE there is more than one deodorant stick in this city, but I digress…
Twenty five percent of the entire nation’s population is in this one city. I guess Catholics everywhere are prolific breeders, not just the Kennedy clan. The traffic congestion is like LA or Houston on a bad day. It took us an hour of fighting and dodging other vehicles to get to one meeting. And this was at a building which was close enough that I could see it from my hotel before we left.
After my work was done, I had time to engross myself in the culture of this ancient land by going to the Anthropology Museum. It is a vast store house of knowledge telling the tale of the development of the peoples of the world. It is a wonderful showcase which begins with the origins of early pre-humans on to our evolution to modern man. I learned that when man learned to cook meat, this softened the texture of the food and helped him gain more protein per meal. Raw meat would take five hours to chew whereas cooked meat could be eaten in one hour. This gave him more time for leisure activities such as picking lice off of neighbors. I never knew the evolutionary benefit of cooking food until now. I just thought it was invented by Al Gore in order to give us something to do at tail gate parties.
Other strange and wonderful facts about this country that I bet you thought you would never learn: The official national vegetable is the Mexican Jumping Bean, the official bird is the pink flamingo, the official medicine is Maalox, the gross domestic product is measured in cubic feet of flatulence, the largest export item is “guest labor”, and coincidentally the official sport is swimming, by doing the wetbackstroke. (and you thought reading this would be a waste of time).
My secret intention for the trip to the museum was to repatriate the Texas flag which was taken from the Alamo after the Mexican siege during the war in 1836. The Mexican Government has refused to give it back to Texas for over 150 years now. My plan was to challenge the Curator of the Museum to feats of strength with the winner being able to keep the flag. However, negotiations broke down when I could not understand the language. The entire population of this country talks in some odd gibberish, comically referred to as “ES PAN YOLE”. I did, however, comprehend the not-to-subtle message given to me on my forehead by a museum guard’s nightstick. It left an indelible impression on me. I have decided it makes me a better man to allow Mexico to continue housing the Texas flag until such time as my language skills improve or my skull gets tougher.
For anyone wanting reprints of the full catalog of Intrepid Traveler Reports, you should be psychologically evaluated. Then send only $49.99 to “DaveBarryWannabe”, attn: Inmate number 14435, Texas Prison System, Huntsville, TX. Or just ask the author for a freebie.
