Thursday, October 13, 2005

The Lonely Planet says Guaymas doesn’t pander to tourists and it was so right. We loved it. It was just a mid-sized Mexican city, and we were left alone to check it out at our own pace.  No one accosted us in the street (“Do you want to try a really great margarita? Why not?”) or anywhere else. Aside from yesterday’s trip to the pearl farm, we didn’t really do anything over the past few days that can be told as a linear story, at least not an interesting one. But I’ll give some tidbits of thing that stand out in my memory.

Some kids live across the street from our hotel. A favorite pastime of theirs is for two of them to sit on a skateboard and ride down the hill towards the intersection using their bare feet as stoppers. At night. Without helmets. Sometimes with a bouquet of ribbons on their heads.

We went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch one day. We saw not one person there who appeared Chinese. (Although as a Swirlie, I know that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not.) After we ordered, the waitress set before us some condiments: a saucer of limes, a bowl of soy sauce mixed with chopped fresh jalapenos, and a saucer of ketchup. After quizzing us for a long time about whether we were sure we wanted it, because it was caliente, she also brought us a saucer of watery hot mustard. We tried the jalapeño soy sauce and the caliente mostaza, but we left the ketchup and limes untouched.

Michael had his beard trimmed in a barbershop. It was my first time ever in a barbershop. I’m glad it was empty because otherwise I would have felt like I had to wait outside such a manly-man spot and I didn’t want to do that. It’s always interesting to look around a place of business and see what’s important to them based on what they choose to hang on the walls. In order of least to most pictures, this is what is important to the barbershop owner:

1. Jesus

2. Family

3. Cockfighting

We spent an hour sitting in the very limited shade in the Plaza de los Tres Presidentes. As we sat there, a school group poured off a bus and flocked around the three huge copper statues. The boys climbed the high platform and investigated the presidents’ copper crotch areas and the girls stayed on the ground. Eventually they took a class photo and sang a song.

I got some really great mosquito bite gel. Speaking my flawed Spanish, I may have told the pharmacist that she itched, or possibly that she had bitten me. Still, when she nodded and went to the shelves, I thought I had been successful. Until she tried to give me some repellent. Well, I was close, at least. So then I had to do what I had hoped to avoid: show my chewed up leg and mime scratching. She wasn't the type with a sense of humor about it. But the gel works wonderfully.

I am the most unfeminine female in town. Little girls have their hair arranged into elaborate concoctions of braids and ponytails and ruffly, ribbony things. Young women my age are poured into tight jeans and camisoles with sequins and strategic cutouts. Every single female I’ve seen wears some type of gold earrings. I’m clumping around in a plain brastrap headband and dusty hiking boots or ugly black Teva sandals. I felt a little jealous and almost went to try on a pair of “Rich Cow” brand jeans with rhinestones on the back pockets, but I had to be strong. Looking cute is one of the sacrifices one makes to travel this way.

Oh and I see that Michael has claimed in his blog that he’s slaughtering me at rummy. If you consider being130 points behind me slaughtering me, then I guess he’s right, isn’t he?

YEARLONG RUMMY TOURNAMENT SCORES: Michael 1740. Megan 1870.

 

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My mosquito bites from Santa Rosalia