Tijuana Gringo |
Michael Thomas |
Lunes/Moonday, 01 01 01 (1 Jan 2001) (!!). |
But I have been writing verses and begin to fear I may write more. There is something to the myth that gringos can get trapped here, especially since it begins to appear that all the busses are full, and I only lucked out getting down here by slipping in between Xmas and New Years in a bit of a lull, but now, but now the exodus is begun, it is already Monday the First and the busses are full, Eduardo at the bus station -- nothing but a house with office in front on the hill above the corner on the highway where the busses stop -- Eduardo said everything is sold, no tickets....
Hee hee hee I am going to be TRAPPED IN MULEGE!!!!!
But it is a splendid place to be trapped in.
And I am knocked over by the small world syndrome: I have run into people I know from Tijuana! Marco and Lupe my old neighbors out at the beach. Here in their truck full of camping stuff and water... no room to ride home in. Kind of like Fred and Ben and Joe, now that they're three there's no room in their rented car for a fourth, the luggage overflowing from the trunk into the back seat....
But anyway I was walking around yesterday before the afternoon turned into evening and the New Year FIESTA began, and lo and behold, there they were, Lupe and Marco, checking into a guesthouse next to the church only a couple blocks from my hotel. It was fabulous to see someone I knew. The only problem of traveling alone is getting lonely for a familiar face, and when you find it....
*ah*
So I spent the night partying and drinking (not much) and eating (more, to help with the drinking) with one group, then another, then another. At one moment all the groups were together in... what the hell's it called... just a moment, I wrote it down somewhere on a scrap of paper, knowing I'd forget, ah, here it is... El Candil, yeah, all the groups I met, Fred/Ben/Joe and the Oregon/camping/family and Marcos/Lupe and the Canadians and yes, the Swedes, too, whom I'd helped with translations at the bus stop yesterday, and my God there are more, the ditsy blonde up from La Paz and her escort, and a cluster of local dudes I'd been chatting with yesterday in the plaza, all of us laughing and drinking and talking about how tonight (last night) was really the real beginning of the millennium, all of us in El Candil just a door or two up from the plaza, which place the Lonely Planet accurately pegs as: "a popular gringo meeting place, with international sports on satellite TV, but later in the evening it draws a more Mexican crowd." And I only met maybe ten or fifteen of the almost hundred people jammed into the joint, damn it was hot.
Lupe and Marco and I slipped out and went across the street back onto the plaza into the jam-packed but tipico cantina on the corner, which is managed by an extraordinary man named Miguel who is a recovering alcoholic and serves all evening long but only drinks Coke himself. Wow!
There is a real-life novel, if I ever heard one. Plus, if you can believe this, the man is a guitarist and singer, too. I won't hear him last night, for the live band rock'n'rolling on the stage in the corner until God only knows what hour -- I left before two -- but tonight (the 1st) I'm going back. Have a feeling he'll play. The blonde swears he's the best.
Today, after waking up I went for a walk and realized I won't be leaving town today, and so I have rented a room in a cheaper guesthouse -- the same place Lupe & Marco were in last night.
Town is very quiet today. Everyone recovering from the FIESTA last night. There were live bands in three or four locations and juke boxes everywhere else, and this is a SMALL pueblo... everything within six or seven blocks... mmmm totally hot/cool mix of radical and traditional. Old architecture, flaming banda and rocking norteño music. Kids with all the latest hair buzzes and pierced ears, and parents who still remember the days before the transpeninsular highway -- when only dirt roads led into the wilderness -- and no satellite television nowhere, nohow.
I was chatting early yesterday with the manager of El Candil -- attractive woman, totally a local -- and learned those things about how MUCH things have changed around here in the last twenty-five years.
But after watching her work, I can't agree with my landlord Agustín's warning that the little townspeople of Baja California are the "laziest people in the world." No. He hasn't seen them working this weekend, making hay when the tourist sun shines bright.