Thu 26 Oct 2006
Ah, Mexico! Figured this shot might gain some attention. (I don’t look like this now, do I…?! DO I…?!)
All this talk about travel and I haven’t posted a travel-based article yet. Shame on me.
I wrote this after a two-week trip to Mexico about 10 years ago — my second trip — and sold it to a magazine. Strangely enough this magazine paid me for the article, but never published it. About a month after I received the cheque (and cashed it - I’m not an idiot!), I received a letter stating that they weren’t interested in publishing another story about Mexico.
I discovered from not one, but two other writers, that this was not unique for this particular magazine. They too had written and been paid for material that was never published. Speaking with the staff at the mag they stated flatly that they never do that. I have the cash, so I have nothing to complain about!
Welcome to the central coast of Mexico.
The butter is from New Zealand, the cars are from Japan, the sugar is from Cuba, and the accents are from just about everywhere in between.
If I think I’m having trouble with my Spanish — just enough hand gesturing to get into trouble, not enough conjugated verbs to get out — the fresh-off-the-plane couple at the next table appear to have their work cut out for them. An Italiano - Españolo - Italiano dictionary is at their side, ready just in case. Good thing too. These two romance languages may share the same origins, but confuse them and you risk inviting ridicule, wrath and rejection (the three Rs..?)
I’d chat with these foreigners but they seem to be lost in each other’s eyes just now and I seem to have forgotten the small amount of rudimentary Italian I learned a year ago for that Tuscan farmhouse thing.
This is the Mexican Riviera. Relax.
My first experience with Mexico was as a hostage at a Club Med in Huatulco. I remember it now as I endured it then as one long Richard Simmons workout directed by David Lynch! I know it’s unfair to colour one’s experience of an entire country with one small lapse of travel judgment, but there it is nonetheless. My observations here in Zihuatanejo five years hence are quite different.
Zihua, as its known locally, is situated due south of Guadalajara and half-way between Manzanillo and Acapulco on the south coast.
Ask any travel agent about Zihua and they inevitably respond with a little tourism sleight-of-hand: they show you pictures of Ixtapa. But ask them about the beaches and they’ll tell you about Zihua. It’s as if they were one and the same. But make no mistake; while the two villages are only fifteen minutes apart geographically, they are completely diverse culturally.
Think of Toronto (I know its difficult, but work with me here.) Now, add a pulse and a well-worn beach and you’ve got a pretty good picture of Ixtapa.
Thriving on resort hotel traffic and nightlife, it tries its best to be all things to all people. Early morning meanderings bring you face to face with hung over masses waiting for the shopping malls to open. Hamburgers and tacos of the American fast food variety abound; video rental stores thrive. But at the first sign of darkness the entire town turns into a disco. It’s like Saturday Night Fever seven nights a week. Ixtapa is where polyester came to die!
Zihua is distinctly different. It shares a coastline and a cab ride, but there the similarities end.
Think of Tofino. (Trust me. I’m getting to the point.) Except it’s not raining. And it’s hot. Very hot. Instead of muffins at the Common Loaf, consider ‘chilaquilles’ (shredded tortillas mixed with scrambled eggs and salsa) at one of many beachside stalls.
I thought. I considered. And I decided to give Mexico one more chance.
I opted for ‘Tofino’.
This particular trip was a bit of a mental health excursion for me and money wasn’t really an object of concern, a fact my choice of accommodation reflected. I could have chosen any number of comfortable, inexpensive bungalows or small hotels dotting the landscape but I wanted to be pampered. I wanted to relax and be catered to - I wanted to spoil myself. I chose an establishment that excelled in all of the above.
Up in the hills, at the end of a serpentine road known as Camino Escéncio, lies Hotel La Casa Que Canta - The House That Sings. Understandable - a lyrical place indeed.
Cut into the cliffside on the eastern slope of Bahia de Zihuatanejo, it sits quietly, and somewhat precariously, high above the water’s edge in an area known as Playa La Ropa (Beach of the Clothes). I have no idea where this name came from. Each time I ventured down to the beach I saw nary a stitch of clothing on it. And next to none on anything, or anyone, else!
Terracotta stucco outside, white stucco within, thatched roof of dried palm fronds, wooden bench-style furniture decorated with facsimiles of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and contoversial painter Frida Kahlo: these are the things that define this multi-level resort. Although only twenty-four rooms the suites are very large - 800 square feet or more, but they actually seem larger. Perhaps it’s the high ceilings and the open-air design, perhaps just the customary anticipation of hotel chic. I’ve lived in smaller apartments.
‘El Colibri’ - numero cinco. The rooms are traditionally numbered but you are known around here, and sometimes even referred to, by each room’s individual name - nice touch.
Although a foreign hotel can gain a reputation for both its attention to detail and its eccentricities, I find it strangely true that its telephone can be our first indication that we have arrived in a foreign locale. Sometimes it’s the design, as in the UK; sometimes it’s the efficiency, as in the US; always its distinctive ring. In this case, one long, one short; one long, one short. Such is the sound of room service translated into Mexican Morse code. It’s amazing what a little limejuice, capers, tomatoes and a few bits of Jalapeño and Serrano can do to raw Turbot.
I must not rub my eyes after eating seviche. OUCH!
From my vantage point in the open-air terrace bar I can’t tell where the pool ends and the ocean begins. This was the desired effect of the designers no doubt: paint the pool the same colour as the ocean.
What colour is the ocean here…?
Let me see… blue ocean… blue pool… hmm… I’ll take The Rosetta Stone for five hundred please, Alex.
These architects must either have inside information or been blessed with divine intervention.
The pool. A central point of any tropical hotel surely, but here it is an extra special place. Even the swallows fancy it, treating it as if it were their own communal birdbath when unencumbered by hotel guests. They’ve perfected their own variation of the ’swan dive’, their sorties monitored and occasionally upstaged by larger, less frenetic frigates gliding on thermals. No wonder birds fly south.
This hotel wouldn’t seem out of place in an Ottmar Liebert video. The Mexican pottery, the bougainvillea, the hibiscus, the cacti of every size and description, meticulously following the flow and eddy of the stairways. The stairs! There are stairs everywhere here. Stairs leading up, down, around, inside, out…. I feel as though I’m lost in an Escher lithograph!
Where’s my room…? Where’s my El Colibri…? Where’s my Sherpa guide?!
The philosophy of Mexican food at La Casa Que Canta is a challenging concept.
The Spanish word for bad or even mediocre is of no use. Bueno, muy bueño, is more the order of the day. At dinner my choices were always unexpected. Among other items…
- • Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup
• Fettuccini with Venison and Ginger
• Roast Chicken with Tomatillo, Onion and Lime Salsa
• Chilled Curried Chicken and Coconut Soup
Mexican perhaps, but distinctly influenced by French and Southeast Asian spices and methods.
The primary mode of transportation around here is taxicabs. There are many of them in all manner of shape, size and road-worthiness. I have experienced first hand their driver’s grasp of highway etiquette, and witnessed on more than one occasion what must surely be the local motorsport of choice: Hit The Iguana! Seatbelts are an absolute necessity, but in most of the taxis I was a passenger in they were buckled behind broken seats to keep them in an upright state.
Down the road, before you even begin to reach Zihua’s town centre, you come upon two restaurants situated across from each other. They are separated by a narrow stretch of paved road and yet strangely joined by a bright yellow speed bump, one of many in the area. These traffic governors are supposed to slow traffic and limit accidents. Unfortunately for the locals, and some tourists no doubt, the placement of this particular speed bump, situated as it is in a bend in the road at the top of a hill, has been the cause of many an accident it had hoped to prevent. In a taxi you are left with the opinion that these speed bumps present nothing more than a challenge to second gear!
On the east side of the road, and up two flights of steep stairs (Escher’s been a busy boy!) is Kon Tiki, a large and varied establishment serving just about anything imaginable. While traditional Mexican fare is featured prominently, pizzas with a twist are this eatery’s prime claim to fame. Against my better judgment I ate one and I have to admit I would return.
Like most of the restaurant/bars in and around town, Kon Tiki has its requisite satellite dish for those wishing to stay in touch with their acronyms (“CNN, the worlds most important network!”), or those wishing to stay in touch with the point spread (“Today on ESPN2, Aussie Rules Cheese Juggling!”), or those who have just plain lost touch (“Welcome to A-BOR, All Bill O’Reilly, the worlds most important network!”)
On the odd night when I did watch television at the Kon Tiki, I did so after dark otherwise I missed one of the best views in the area, that of the bay and the town proper beyond. Since from this vantage point I was already facing west, the setting sun reflecting off everything in sight provided me with a superlative-inducing palette of fiery colours.
I came here a number of times, mostly to partake of their two-for-the-price-of-one ‘Hora Feliz’, or happy hour, and the clientele proved as varied as the menu.
On my first full day here, a particularly hot and humid day, I stopped in at the Kon Tiki for some liquid refreshment, the first of many that day and many since I must confess. In another time and place the gentleman sitting at the centre railside table quaffing piña coladas could have been mistaken for a gangster from the 1930s. But for the absence of a pinstripe suit, spats and snap-brim fedora this man was the spitting image of George Raft. A fact the blonde moll he was sharing his drinks with would undoubtedly attest to. I had no desire to get caught in a hail of gunfire should Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon show up in drag so I sat in the back.
With my thirst quenching and my imagination subsiding I found that although he really didn’t bear that much of a resemblance to old George, he did command the room. Dressed only in shorts, a pair of thongs and sunglasses it was his voice, his manner of delivery, that was intriguing. He didn’t so much talk as deliver movie-style dialogue.
However, all thoughts of syntax and manner disappeared once he stood up. There, just behind his right knee, was a tattoo the size of a baseball card - a Japanese symbol of some kind. I had no idea of its significance but I ventured a guess that it was not the Kanji translation of a happy face. Another tattoo, this one much larger and far more ornate, began at the top of his right knee. It was the south end of a northbound ceremonial dragon, one that evidently sought out protection in the confines of his shorts for that’s where it disappeared. Whether the large head with flaming tongue (I had to assume!) turned left or right once hidden, was certainly none of my business and a question I had no intention of asking. One I didn’t want answered either quite frankly. (Don’t go there!) Perhaps I was right in the first place: maybe he was a gangster. Whatever. I averted my gaze and had another beer.
One evening I engaged in some good-natured ribbing about the Vancouver Canucks with a couple from Seattle. A foursome displaying distinctly American southern accents were holding court at the next table. They appeared to be having a fabulous time, due in no small part to the bonus imbibing of Hora Feliz. Since they were having such a fabulous time, well then gosh darn it, everyone had to share their joy. Peachy.
One of them, the one with the most empty glasses in front of him (he must have been their leader) leaned over and asked where we were from. My acquaintances offered Seattle and I made the mistake of saying Vancouver. “Oh, Vancouver,” he says. “My brother-in-law lives up that way.” Keeping up my end of the conversation I took the bait. “Oh yeah. Where abouts…?” “Ketchikan,” he says. I stared blankly. “You know, Alaska,” he says. I awaited the rim shot followed by the laugh track. There was none. This was not a bad scene from an even worse sitcom, this man was quite serious. I responded with a snappy retort. “Yeah, I know where Ketchikan is.”
I was travelling without my requisite gazetteer, but I was sure Ketchikan and Vancouver were about a thousand miles apart as the dork flies! I would have continued parry and thrust, perhaps appealed to his sense of geography, his perception of reality, but clearly had left those in his other pair of Sansabelt slacks. Instead I ordered another beer. Hora Feliz was quickly giving way to ‘no mas’.
On the west side of the road and lower down is Ziwok, an amalgamation of the words Zihuatanejo and Wok I guessed. As the name would indicate, and indeed as a small sign outside confirmed, stir-frying was this establishment’s proficiency. However, it was another small sign denoting its secondary specialty that caught my eye. Sushi. In Mexico. This I had to see.
What appeared to be no more appealing than a tiny, ramshackle greasy spoon from the outside, revealed itself as a clean, cozy, well lit restaurant with modern sushi bar and cooking island once I stepped beyond the garish red and green entranceway. As fishing is still the numero uno employer in Zihua at least the seafood can be counted on to be fresh. In fact the sushi was some of the best I’ve had outside Vancouver (just south of Ketchikan!) The sushi bar was part of the liquor bar and a short local dressed in Japanese style jacket dispensed teko maki and Dos Equis with equal dexterity. (Say that three times fast!)
The cooking island and accompanying containers of veggies, seafood, chicken and beef looked extremely Chinese. The smells emanating from it bore this out. Three woks, no waiting. The Szechwan Shrimp was excellent. While eating it I found that a small white cat with a black toupee had become my newest best friend. He doted on the stuff.
After a few days here you catch the rhythm. There are places in the world where it’s the other way around; it’s all you can do to keep up. Not here. The spirit of mañana is alive and well. Time passes slowly - the beer does not.
I’ve often said (and demonstrated countless times) that a written article cannot be complete without a run-on sentence. Here’s this one: It seems to me that the big problem with ordering food in the restaurants of foreign countries when you don’t have a grasp of the language, is that if you are foolish enough to attempt it in the native tongue, the waiter or waitress will probably assume that you do speak the language. (Big breath here…) This is a mistake everyone would do well to steer clear of. I wish I had.
I’d planned this night for a couple of days. A traditional Mexican peasant dinner in one of the top-rated eateries in all of Mexico. La Fonda (no relation to Jane) at the Sheraton Ixtapa Resort. After I’d spent the better part of fifteen minutes memorizing what I wanted for dinner, the waiter arrived at my table. He paused, pencil above paper, tilted his head just so and fixed me with a stare that could only mean one thing. This was the international symbol for ‘May-I-take-your-order…?’ I understood this. Phase one completed.
With the menu closed (nice touch) I spouted my memorized dish as he scribbled hastily. The mere fact that I’d gotten this far and he’d actually taken my order (I hoped) was grounds for success (I thought.) He finished writing and asked me something in Spanish (big surprise!) and very fast. I wasn’t expecting this. Why would I? He’s thinking, ‘yobbo tourista,’ I just know it. I stared blankly back at him afraid to utter a word. He repeated it again. What he’d just said, I realized later, was, ‘And-how-would-you-like-that-cooked…?’ As far as I was concerned he could have just said that the man at the end of the bar wanted to buy me a drink (Ketchikan again…?) let alone, ‘Sorry, we’re all out of quesadillas.’ More blank stares on my part.
Then he did to me what surely every tourist this waiter had ever encountered in the past had done to him. He said the same thing again only m - u - c - h - s - l - o - w - e - r - t - h - i - s - t - i - m - e and a LITTLE LOUDER! Still in Spanish too, the nerve! This didn’t help in the slightest.
Wait a minute. I’ve seen this before, I thought. I’ve somehow found myself stuck in a long lost Fawlty Towers episode…! (No. There wasn’t one.)
OK. In that case I am still in an expensive Mexican restaurant with my head planted firmly up my own ass! (Just checking!)
What do I do?
There’s no time for damage assessment. I must act. Genuflect, that’s the answer. This is a very religious Catholic country, they know from genuflect.
Just as the waiter began to realize that he’d been talking to a yobbo (see!) and I sensed he was about to smack me up side the head with his writing pad, I did what I should have done in the first place. I took the menu back, opened it, pointed to the dishes I wanted and ordered by number, Spanish numbers too I’ll have you know. A hollow victory perhaps, but the food lived up to its advance billing and hand gestures won out over conjugated verbs once again.
One morning I watched a cruise ship arrive. The Star Princess. A love boat! Weighing anchor at the mouth of the bay it expectorated white, flabby tourists at a rate of fifty per launch load. Once deposited on shore, clutching just-converted pesos, they roamed in cliquish packs assaulting the gift kiosks at will. T-Shirts, necklaces, silver, pottery, more film, postage for the postcards that depicted the assaults of last year’s cliquish packs. A cerveza here, a photo-op there and its time to board the launch for the return trip and dream about the next port of call. Zihuatanejo: been there, done that, got the t-shirts!
I just read the last paragraph. Perhaps I should lighten up a bit. Maybe take a cruise, a short one just to test the waters, so to speak.
Nah!
Cruise ships, maybe not. But small planes that fly to ancient Mayan ruins like Palenque in Eastern Mexico, definitely!
People come and go here. Most stay only a few days and then they’re off. I seem to be a bit of an exception - two weeks.
As I approached the end of my stay I became aware that my sense of space and proportion had changed dramatically. I was finally relaxing and enjoying myself and it had as much to do with Zihuatanejo and Mexico as it did La Casa Que Canta. It is quite conceivable that the hotel could be sold out and you would rarely run into anyone else. On the day I arrived the hotel was full. A week later I was the only one there, I would have been hard pressed to tell the difference.
On my last day, a film crew arrived for a final scout. They were taking over the entire hotel for three weeks later in the year for the production of a romantic-comedy-erotic-thriller-action-adventure-musical picture. There were sixteen in the entourage. It seemed crowded. Hollywood will do that to you.
The Italian couple I had noticed earlier were taking the late afternoon sun by the pool. They were alternating sips from an obese, hollowed-out melon containing a mélange of liquors, fruit, and the kind of bamboo scaffolding one expects from such cocktails. They wouldn’t have looked out of place in a travel brochure except for the Coppertone SPF 45 they were schmearing on each other. I was thinking the terracotta stucco clinging to the walls of this hotel would do the same job and probably cost half as much!
Although I have a plane to catch in the morning, right now I couldn’t care less. I’m in Mexico and I love it! The breeze is warm, the beer is still cold, and the pool is inviting. In a little while the birds will return for the dinner show, just in time for the fiery colours and a quick dip.
I’m not moving.