Another one bites the dust...

And so it comes about that I too have fallen victim to the inevitable Mexican ear infection.  I awoke to a throbbing ear "headache", with the occasional "someone is stabbing me with a needle" pain.  After Eric had his recheck at the doctor this morning, we decided that I would be diagnosed similarly, and we bought a spare set of his antibiotics and ear drops for me.  Unfortunately, later that afternoon, ear aching persistently causing me to whine incessantly, I visited the doctor.  Surprise, surprise - I should take the same drugs as Eric!  Good thing I had already started them this morning.

Welcome to the circle of love Jen...

Palabras

After one stomach-wrenching lurch, the plane landed in PV. I was finally here and after the events from the last couple days (quitting a toxic job to try working on my own...from Mexico for the next couple weeks), I was feeling pretty good. I stepped through the sliding "exit" doors, tinted white, to be received by a throng of taxi drivers and tourist officials, clamoring for my business, any business. "You want a taxi-I give you good price" "Where you going, pretty lady" "You need a bodyguard, senorita?"

I smiled, No gracias. Pienso que estoy bien.

Creo que si. Buenos suerte y buenos tardes, senorita.

I wait for the bus and practiced chatting in Spanish with the man who guessed I was headed to Sayulita and very formally wished me a "most magnificent time", in carefully practiced English. As we sped past crumbling bulidings, new construction and pickup trucks full of dusty laborers, I practiced talking to the woman who sat down next me after I smiled to her and carefully said, Este asiento esta abierto." I practiced talking to the man with a portly Corona-belly, who reclined in a lawn chair in the middle of the road, halfway up the steep hill I'd trudged up, searching for the Casa Suenos Del Mar. He pointed up further up the road to a woman who spoke English. Together we pieced together some direction that involved me descending and climbing up another hill. There I practiced talking to a man who pointed me in the right direction, all in Spanish. Again and again I stop, confused by the nameless streets that force me to trade palabras with people of all sorts. Perspiration drips from my forehead by the time I arrive at the house where my friends are staying. Hot, sleep deprived, lost -- but happy. I made a lot of mistakes, but I revelled in the beauty of a language shared, even if it takes a couple (or 14) tries to get it right. The simplicity of shared smiles amongst strangers, as we fumbled to put words into sentences that could be understood and passed around.

Somewhere in my head, tumbles the words of that one poem I learned in 10th grade. Now I can only remember the first couple lines in Spanish, en el muro calor, paloma de cemento, sin embargo, tan vivido... The last couple lines I could only paraphrase, "Isn't it time we started thinking that just being alive demands something of us, big things maybe, or perhaps some simple thing would be enough...words for one thing, household words well worn with warmth."

Jen makes two plates of delicious nachos, piled high with manchego and guacamole (made from perfect avocados purchased for $.20 that morning). Mechanical fans swirl, mariachi blares from a passing car, we talk about nothing in particular as the sun sets and tiny, tan geckos end their day by scaling the ceiling above us to congregate, within the terracota light shade, near the warmth.

That big package from the store.. Jose's Fed up Too

You might think we are joking as to the culinary delight known as our tasteless crackers, but we are not. To prove our point further, we present you Jose, our starving Sayulita begger dog, who now refuses them also. He'll take them in his mouth and just stare at us with a look in his eye which says "Really? This is the best you can do?". Sometimes he breaks them up a bit, but in the end very little gets eaten by our canine pal, so we really have to start digging into your suggestions.


We were in the grocery store again today and I still spied an alarmingly large supply of the giant cracker bags, so someone, somewhere, must find these palatable.


PS. We actually found out a few days ago that Jose's real name is Max. Apparently he followed some of the renters on the ground floor to a village a few miles away. Upon arrival the locals of that village knew Jose/Max and that he was from Sayulita. We still prefer calling him Jose, perhaps for the same reason the villagers prefer calling him Max, he just seems more exotic with a foreign name.

Two Down

I had my own visit to the Doctor today due to some nagging ear pain that was getting worse instead of going away. My ear canal far too swollen for a diagnosis, I have been relegated to anti-inflammatories and a mess of other pills. Worst of all is the request that I too keep my head above water and I'm not allowed to drown my sorrows with any alcohol. So, now begins stage two of my vacation trying to enjoy Sayulita sans surfing and cerveza. I think my goal will be to try my best to match Joya's photographic prowess about town. Perhaps in a couple days I will try and venture back out in the water for a bit with the help of some ear plugs.

If nothing else, I will enjoy sitting on the beach watching my travel-mates tear it up on the waves ;)

Playa de Los Muertos

Thanks to Nic's aural injury and Jen and I growing weary of our own brand of surfing, we spent some time exploring a neighboring beach to the south of Sayulita. We found directions online and also got some pointers from our neighbors on how to get there.

However, that didn't seem to squelch our touristic ability to get lost. Well, lost is probably a pretty strong word considering the Pacific Ocean is always within walking, and to a lesser extent hearing distance. Along the way we got to see a bit of the underbelly of Sayulita. Apparently all the homes aren't has plush and comfy as the one we are renting. In fact, many don't even have walls. We were able to witness a second floor kitchen conversation between a mother and child due to the lack of a western wall on their building. This definitely caught my eye, and if not for already feeling like I was intruding on their privacy by just walking on the road, I opted to not raise my camera.

In the end we found that our wrong turn simply amounted to walking two to three times the distance necessary to arrive at our destination. Somehow after multiple forks in the road we managed to take a path leading directly to Playa de Los Muertos or Beach of the Dead. If that doesn't sound like a good vacation spot then I don't know what is! This beach earns it's name by the cemetery that lies northeast of it. One thing Jen pointed out on our lengthy bus ride from Puerto Vallarta to Sayulita was the number and condition of the cemeteries along the way. She mentioned that it looked that more effort has gone into housing the dead than the living. However, it's fair to say that a number of the cemeteries aren't in that great of shape.

The cemetery itself is nestled into the hillside in it's own private section of jungle. This provides for a beautiful setting for some of the sites, but at the same time the growth and neglect gave me concern for the others. Between the erosion from the extremely heavy rains and the lack of growth control it would not have surprised me to see a limb or two unearthed. While I was careful where I placed my feet as I walked through a cemetery which clearly did not lay out "plots" for its inhabitants, I noticed a lot of trash strewn about. Along with the trash were a lot of weathered decorations and underwater candles. The cemetery definitely felt lonely as if its been a good while since anyone has come by.

After a little bit of research the unkempt feel of the cemetery could very well be the remnants of last year's Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). In Mexico, the first and second day of November mark days of remembrance and celebration of the lives of those who have passed on. During this time, the family members left behind decorate the graves of their loved ones. Since it's September, that means 10 months have passed since the last celebration. You can imagine what 10 months in the jungle will do to a wreath or bouquet of flowers. Perhaps this is why many of the flowers left are artificial. In some cases, altars to the deceased are created in their former homes and are adorned with candles, skulls made of sugar, and for some their favorite food or drink. They are also known to have fresh water to refresh the weary soul. This could explain the jugs of what we assumed to be water on some of the graves in the cemetery. While most in Mexico commemorate the day of the dead, there are customs for honoring the deceased that are highly localized. I don't imagine we could fully understand everything about this cemetery without conversing with a local familiar with it.

Unlike the maintenance of the cemetery, much care has gone into the creation of some of the grave sites. The headstones are typically ornate and embellished with cherubic statues. Most every grave site is adorned with a crucifix. Statues of Mary can also be found and they take the form of the Mexican rendering of her likeness that you are likely familiar with.

On the other side of the cemetery lies a secluded beach which is excellent for swimming. Rock formations jutting out on both ends of the beach create a protected cove and a sense of privacy for the handful of people that are willing to abandon the glorious surfing to the north. We spent some time floating in the 80 degree water (don't worry, Nic obeyed his doctor and kept his head above water) and appreciating the new scenery in the much calmer waves. This also gave us a chance to hone our synchronized swimming routines and practice our Ariel impressions.

Surfing is Hard

I think most people have an impression of surfing that is a bit ideallic. That any beach bum could do it, playing on the waves, carving it up.. how hard could it be. I think the truth is closer that you NEED to be a beach bum to become truly excellent at surfing, it isn't a great casual sport.

Unlike almost any other sport, surfing never lets you practice a particular skill over and over under the same condition. When learning how to mountain bike, you can always pick the bike up carry it back over the log and try again under until you master it. When surfing, if you don't nail your pop up and slip off the board, you instead have to fight your way back through the crashing waves and wait for another wave, who's circumstances will be completely different and only slightly relevant to your last try. It's a sport where do-overs are non-existent and persistence alone isn't enough, you just need to spend tons of hours in the water.


Until Joya arrives, I'm the one with the most experience, but that isn't saying much. Getting hammered for a month straight in Hermosa last December mostly just taught me how not to drown and maybe a bit on how to stand up quickly, but I still can't ride a wave worth a damn. And although Eric and Jen have much nicer conditions to learn the art, it is still a steep slope. In short, we all pretty much suck.

An atypical and highly successful two hour outing might involve us catching two or three waves each for a few seconds of riding. But for those three waves, we fought to catch a dozen more, were called off a dozen more and probably bailed on half a dozen as we were getting up. There isn't much positive reinforcement going on.


But I'm not complaining, being out on the water and splashing in the waves makes it all fun, and those few seconds you ARE riding the wave make it all worthwhile. We all look at the incredible surfers about and can only imagine what it must feel like to carve through the waves as they do, to fly off the lip only to land back into the wave, to slide down the face backwards after a cut back. To reach that level, I think you really do have to be a beach bum, but sometimes it sure looks like it would be worth it.

That big package from the store.. (Pt 2)

In our continuing quest to figure out what to do with our excess of bland chip like doodads, Jen decided to use them as building material for a sail boat. Not too surprisingly it floated quite well in the bathtub, though I'm not sure how much longer it would have lasted before losing its integrity.

Any suggestions for what to do with the remaining eighteen? We must use them somehow, and clearly they were not made for eating.