During the holidays, many folks looked back, examining what last year meant. Being perched on a rural foothill of a mountain facing the rain and the winds of December and early January, the new year prompted a look back on warmer times. And to experiences further back chronologically.
There was that time when a fresh wave of U.S. citizens, snagged by the allure of Mexico, began arriving here after World War II. Mostly, these veterans were looking for an easy-paced, quiet venue that was barely a dot on the map. Even a few teenagers, who would too soon become vets themselves, joined this southern exploration. They were prompted by publications suddenly calling attention to Mexico’s dramatic history and its near invisible cultural boom. The first version of Octavio Paz’s revelatory and artful examination of Mexican culture and character, “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” appeared in 1950. In California, cinematic “art houses” featured documentaries of the “modern” history of la corrida de toros. Hemingway’s novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was still selling well. Hemingway’s short story, “The Killers,” was made into a film (Burt Lancaster’s debut) in 1946, prompting re-issues of the author’s earlier work (“Farewell to Arms,” and several short stories about those who fought in World War II).
In 1950, a young Spanish American, whose father owned a popular Los Angeles eatery, was driving down the west coast route. At 24, he wanted to become a novillero (professionally facing young bulls; one step before becoming a matador). He’d told his parents he was going to visit his mother’s Mexico City family. We had met at a Culver City park, where we both practiced the basic strategies of the corrida. (I had agreed to pay for half the gas.) When we stopped to rest, I intended to find cheap lodging; no one was financing my tauromachian dreams. Unfortunately, we had a falling out. Coming from a background of money, he evidently was used to dealing with people who were not so lucky in a manner politely termed “haughty.” About the third time he did that, I told him to knock it off, using simpler, coarser, language. By the time we paused in Topolobampo, Sinaloa, conversation had become awkward. The hotel I chose was adobe with a teja (tile) roof. Chickens – featured on a menu scribbled in misspelled Spanish – grazed everywhere: the bare “yard” around the building, on the roof, in empty rooms where doors were left open. My room had a bare bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling, and hard-worn, but clean, sheets and towels. There was a scarred sink with the inevitable dripping, rusted faucet, and in two windows rusted out screens. The toilet and shower were in the back.
When my companion left in the morning, I stayed to figure out money and travel readjustments. Topo-by-the-sea was frying, smotheringly humid, and I wanted to leave quickly. That night, still pouring sweat, I went to a cantina patronized by Mexicanos that was said to never charge strangers “gringo” prices.La Concha’s proprietor was a eminently practical. He kept a snake, a Ilamacoa boa constrictor, to scare wandering poultry out of the cantina, rid it of rodents, and to amuse his customers. Ilamacoas were easy to tame, the cantinero told me, picking up the snake, whom he called Lula (diminutive of Lourdes), and handing her to me. That surprised, but did not shock, me. I grew up in rural areas where snakes were common members of a large wildlife population. Lula was small for a boa, pale and very somnolent, as if she’d just eaten.
“A gringo with a Ilamacoa. “Qué raro, how rare.” A man at the end of bar grinned and raised a glass of mezcal he’d just ordered. He’d been working at the docks, I guessed. With his shirt tail, he carefully mopped his face. “Are there many snakes where you come from?”
“There were many where I grew up. Poisonous cascabeles and water moccasins and others, but no boas.”
“Where was that?”
When I told him he grinned.
“I have been there.”
“Really? Most of the towns are small. There aren’t many folks from Mexico.”
“During the war.” He spoke good English. “Your government had what it called a bracero program. They allowed us to go up there and work legally. We planted and harvested sugar beets. Sugar cane had to be imported, and all their ships were used to freight war supplies. Sugar was rationed. That’s what they said.”
“It’s true.”
He saw that I had a map out on the bar. “Where are you going?”
“I was going to Mexico City. But things changed. Do you know Guadalajara?’
“Once, when I got back from your country, I went. A good city. Big, but a ...” His English hit a curve. “It is a very peaceful place to be the capital of a state like Jalisco. No rush there like Los Angeles. And no snakes.”
We laughed. I bought him another mezcal. He raised his glass, saying “Salud!” It was good talking with someone who wasn’t arrogant. Arrogance was too tiring.
Looking at my map, I asked, “When does the first bus south leave tomorrow?’
He came over to look at the route I was marking out.
“You should stop at Mazatlan. Una playa grande y Bonita. Many Americans like the Hotel Freeman. It has an old reputation – of many years – the food is said to be not bad and the price, your paisanos say, is good.”
My new friend, Miguel, rose early the next morning to get me a delicious breakfast at his sister’s fonda and to the bus on time.
“Oje,” I almost forgot. Someone my wife’s cousin, Sara Lopez, knows has a posada in Mazatlan.” He pushed a piece of paper into my hand.
“Her address. It’s a little expensive. The most expensive place is the Hotel Aqua Marina.” I frowned. He grinned.
“Pos, medium priced and the most expensive. It’s a choice.” I was gong to miss Miguel.
At that time, Mazatlan was exceptionally popular with gringos. It was also a fishing and shipping port. The cousin’s friend ran a becoming, efficient “posada,” a word that then often meant a place that was cheap because it was shabby. La Canoa definitely was not. But I got an affordable room by speaking glowingly of Miguel and his sister, implying that we were old friends.
The place and the rooms were surrounded with palm, banana and other fruit-bearing trees. There were parrots and paraquetes, among fleets of other birds, a couple of burros, a pool with alligators. The bar had inviting prices. Its patrons, all Mexicans it seemed, were polite, if not down-right friendly, and several clearly well-heeled, judging from the parking lot.
But, like La Concha, this inn had a surprise for first-time guests. I was in the bar, celebrating the good accommodations, and giving a Salud to friend Miguel, with mezcal and beer – a rough combination if over-done – when a well-dressed, dark-complected macho-seeming Mexican shot out of the “Hombres” W.C, sweating way too much for an evening flourishing a rare and welcome refreshing breeze. With churning, but short steps, he was headed for the door when he hit a table, bounced into two chairs, and came to a stop at a lecho occupied by three of his paisanos.
Though I hadn’t seen him, Maximiliano, an obvious, vigorously mature Ilamacoa, dutifully – and selectively noting all other pets – patrolled the posada’s interior. (Never outside.) One of his favorite spots was the new toilet in the men’s room of the bar. There, when he was overheated or exhausted, he curled himself around the cool base of the commode. He wasn’t hard to notice. Max was about nine feet long, thick as an NFL lineman’s calf, with a large, if surprisingly friendly looking head. He seemed to be harboring an amusing secret.
“We can’t do without Max,” Fedrico, the proprietor, said as waiters cleaned up the broken glasses and scattered furniture. “But we loose a number of visitors because of him.” He looked at me with a quizzically. “Is that a matter of bigotry?”
Escorted by grins, the frightened guest, his family and his luggage went out the door and into the darkening evening.
The next day was the time to set out for an encounter with the unknown, thus still secret, treasures of Jalisco.