Tonight in Cuyutlán

Before anything else, let me say how happy the Patient is to be here. Although he is very thin, tires easily, coughs and spits and burbles and makes other odd and inappropriate noises, he will get better now that he is here, I am convinced. Even the trip down, which was exhausting for us both, was a big lift to his spirits. I intend to encourage him to rest as much as possible -- he's not always an easy patient -- and to make the most of the laid-back style of this seedy little Mexican beach town. I am deeply grateful that we can be here for awhile, with people we love in a place we love.

Breakfast in Cuyutlán: after starting the coffee, get out the mango. Lunch in Cuyutlán: before opening the first Indio of the day, get out the avocado. Dinner in Cuyutlán: after the salsa and chips and the first Margarita, who cares about dinner.

Below are the jottings of the few days it took to get here. There are other things to say about the trip so when it's slow on the action front in town I'll dredge up some other travel bits.

Thursday in Tucson

Another totally uneventful drive, from San Diego to Tucson, 423 miles of straight freeway. We left Vic and Tom’s house at 6 AM, got on to I-8, set the cruise control for 75 and woke up in Tucson 7 hours later. It is usually dark when we start this leg of the journey, in November. Now we could actually see what was whizzing by. There was snow in the Laguna Mountains in east San Diego. Then we dipped down into the Imperial Valley, the salad bowl of the nation. Acres of irrigated cropland; lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, and the rain birds busy in their circular route keeping everything nice and fresh. Into Arizona at Yuma where the “landscape” becomes a “moonscape” with rocks, scrub land, some cactus, but mainly just flat, dry acreage as far as the eye can see. Two years ago when we drove that route in May the desert was in full, glorious bloom. Everything looked so healthy. Last year it appeared the desert had undergone a terrible drought. I think the same will be true this year when we return. There were some blooming plants, and the sequaros didn’t look as shriveled as they had in May, but everything is very dry.

Friday to San Carlos

When you run the border gauntlet you go through two checkpoints. The first is right at the border. When you drive through there is a red/green light: if it turns red you stop and get everything you own fingered and commented on and (sometimes) confiscated; green light and you breeze right on through. Those who are traveling on into the heart of Mexico – or beyond the 30-mile limit – get checked again, issued a visa, a car permit, and have passports checked (but not stamped). Again there is the red/green light cliffhanger. This morning we blew right through the first checkpoint, green light flashing. At the second spot we got all of our business done in record time, about 30 minutes. And we got through a second green light! This trip is blest! It can be a real hassle, but we were in and out and headed for San Carlos without so much as a comment on the pink plastic flamingoes, the boxes of syringes, the flats of liquid supplement, or all the other odds and ends that we would have had to lay out like a giant garage sale. We got through Hermasillo easily, although the roads are still under construction; I think this is the third generation of workers on this stretch of road. We got to our favorite hotel (this was the view from our balcony/porch) by 1 PM, stripped off the warmies we had been wearing since leaving Davis, and pulled on shorts, T-shirts and sandals. I went to the bar and bought beer and we sat out on the balcony overlooking the garden and beach, and sighed with deep contentment and pleasure. The Patient was warm for the first time in many months.

Saturday to Culiacan

We were out of San Carlos and the Fiesta Real by 6 AM and on the road to Culiacan. We enjoyed the remnants of a big whipping cream dollop of a full moon and on the other side of the autopista a beautiful sunrise. We had read about a fine hotel in the town of Guamuchil, so we turned off Mex 15 to look for it. Couldn’t find it. We got back on the toll road and decided we’d go to Navolato instead. This time we couldn’t even find the town. (Mexican road signs are notoriously (a) misleading and (b) nonexistent.) So we bagged that plan and stayed instead on the outskirts of Culican in a very adequate, clean and cheap motel ($35 for two). It has a very acceptable restaurant right there so we just parked, unpacked, ate, and slept. This place has the kind of beds you frequently find in Mexican hotels and homes; a cement slab with a mattress on top. Bruisingly hard. I love them.

Sunday to Tepic

The Patient got up at 4:30 to take a shower before we hit the road. No hot water. So he was ready to roll. I, on the other hand, was certain there would be hot water so let the tap run for about 3 or 4 minutes and BINGO! And a fine shower it was. We were packed and out by 5:30 AM. This stretch is the worst part of the trip. The road between Mazatlan and Tepic is two lane, can be heavily crowded with long distance trucks, and is dangerous as all get out. Since it was Sunday the traffic was a little lighter, but there were still some hair-raising moments of passing long lines of trucks and only hoping nothing was going to suddenly appear coming the other direction. There is a new four-lane autopista going in parallel to the current road, but none of us will live long enough to drive it. We’ve been watching its construction for years. We arrived in Tepic at noon, checked in to our usual hotel, went out for lunch, had a wonderful siesta, ate dinner, and went to bed trusting that tomorrow would bring us safely to Cuyutlán.

Bienvenidos a Cuyutlán

We left Tepic at 6 AM and arrived here at 1 PM. It is warm, sunny, the sea is sparkling. The house had been readied for us, beds made, beer in the fridge, some basics on hand – pineapple, mango, avocado, salsa, garlic. It usually takes us two or three days to find everything, unpack and put things where they belong. This year Chouy and Fernando did it all for us. It’s as though we’ve been gone for the weekend instead of for 9 months. The minute it was spread around that we had arrived the phone started ringing (reminding me of when one or another daughter would blow into town, the phone would immediately start. How did they know?). The garden needs some immediate attention. Basically the bougainvillea in the front has not been tended to very closely and the elephant ear philodendron looks terminal. On the other hand, the palm tree in the living room needed a machete; we could hardly sit at the dinner table without getting a mouthful of frond. But we are getting settled, my WiFi is working perfectly (thank you, John Nelson!) and we are happy and thankful that we can be here for these next two months.