Thursday, October 20, 2005

Francisco showed up at our room at around 10:00 am. He's from, of all places, Yakima, Washington. Yakima. I was still feeling residually blown away by his sudden flurry of American English. (I get the feeling he gets a kick out of doing that.) After all this time of struggling so hard to communicate the most basic ideas, it's amazing to be able to pick any old word I want and know it will be understood. But he's only sixteen, so we couldn't expect too much. He couldn't really give us any information on the polical life of the island for example, but he did inform us that there is something of a crystal meth problem among the fisherman, who use it to stay awake when fishing all night.

He's on the island because his aunt, who lives here, recently lost two of her children at once and his father, who used to live here, sent him down to be with her. The children were riding in the back of a pickup truck (something we've seen a lot of in Mexico) when there was an accident and they bounced out. That's horrible even to think about.

Francisco took us over to the kindergarten and we all just kind of walked in and looked around. I felt a little odd doing that, (don't mind us, we're just here to view your children) but no one seemed to mind. Then we went out on a boat with a couple of his friends. Every family has at least one of these little boats, a simple, narrow, open canoe-like boat that can either be poled along or propelled via a motor. The boats are absolutely necessary in that environment and they're in constant use. Ours had a big mound of fishing net in it and some globs of fish in the nooks and crannies of the seats.

I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years Francisco and his buddies are running some kind of organized tour of the island. One of them had an iguana when Michael, Francisco, and I came back from buying water. We exclaimed over it and then Michael asked if they were pests. "They're just there," Francisco said. "But the tourists like them." They had caught it just for our amusement. The others didn't speak English, but paused the boat at strategic spots so that Francisco could point out the different kinds of trees and birds we passed. They let the iguana go in a nice scenic spot away from the town and he swam away.

They took us on a round of shrimping. That's when I found out what those "fences" in the water are: either abandoned or half build shrimp traps. We got to see some that are still in use. Anyone can go to the traps and try his luck and someone had made the rounds before us, so there wasn't much of a catch at the first few we tried. But the few camarones that we did get were tossed into a plastic bucket on the boat. They caught quite a few fish, but except for one plump and unlucky specimen, most of them were too small to be eaten and were released. I took a turn with the net and it was heavy. Between the fact that someone had beaten us to the trap and the fact that it's harder than it looked, I didn't even catch a leaf. I felt bad because it wasn't just an amusing new experience for me, it was this guy's family's dinner.

We also went to the town's graveyard, which is located on the mainland not far from the island. We waded ankle-deep through muddy water to get to the gate, which was tied shut but not locked. Francisco pointed to a white concrete mausoleum and said, "My cousins are buried in there." It was full of artificial flowers. Francisco, barefoot, warned us about scorpions and then we picked our way between graves on paths overgrown with weeds and flowers. Every grave was decorated with artificial flowers and some were elaborately tiled and had photos and inscriptions. The air was full of mosquitos. In the short time that we spent there, I ended up with a constellation of bites on my back. They bit through my t-shirt. Michael became covered with burs from the waist down. But no one got bit by a scorpion.

The guys took us in the boat right back to the hotel, which was pretty cool. Later I was on the patio writing and Michael was out shooting when the manager came up with a new guest for the room next to us. I gave him the gringo nod, but didn't feel like talking at the moment, because I was trying to write and because... I don't know, do I have to talk to every foreigner who comes down the pike? The new guy went out and when Michael came back he said, "Do you know who that was? That was Michael Read!"

Michael Read...! author of the Baja portion of our Lonely Planet Mexico, here to update some of the sections for the next edition. Of all the authors of the book, his is the only name we would have recognized. And that is because... well... we felt there was some information lacking in that part of the book. But then maybe we just hadn't gotten our Mexico legs yet and needed more of a babysitter. I don't know. Anyway, we had some Pacifico with him later and he turned out to be pretty cool.

We talked a bit about what it's like to write for a guidebook and he confirmed my suspicion that it's really, really hard and that I am indeed too lazy for it. (My conclusion, not his.) The Lonely Planet style guide is apparently massive. He didn't show it to us, but I can tell from reading the guidebook itself that there are rules like "never say 'clothes' when you can say 'duds'" and "never say 'hotel' when you can say 'digs.'" His editor, by the way, has strong doubts that Mexcaltitan is the birthplace of the Aztecs.

So yeah, we met Michael Read, and that was pretty exciting for me. I mean... when I said a few entries back that the Lonely Planet said Guaymas does not pander to tourists - that was Michael Read who wrote that. And then we met him. Weird.

So we loved Mexcaltitan. It was beautiful and the people were wonderful to us and Francisco was a great bonus. Michael got tired of all the shrimp (what is wrong with him??) but the food was very good. Plus we were the only foreigners there, except for Micheal Read and he bought us beer and gave us career advice.

 

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Egrets

Cemetary gate.

Disturbed egret.

Shrimp (and other critters) in the net.

A catch.

It's not as easy as it looks.

Shrimping at the pesca (shrimp trap)

Francisco (in red) and his friends.

Iguanas - tourists love 'em.

Mexcaltitan residents.

They make art out of macaroni in Mexican schools too.

Shrimping from another angle.

graveyard.