I like the Mexican

- Pacific coast of Mexico -

As a hotel in San Diego charged me $67.30 for a small room without a telephone, I stayed there only a night and entered Tijuana in Mexico. That was the forth visit to the town for me, however, I sensed a strong border feeling as usual. Crossing the border, I found everything was changed. However, there were not any immigration offices or officers on both sides of the US and Mexican border. Although I knew the situation on the forth visit, I was a little lost when I came here at the first time. The last visit, however, was already seven years ago. When I parked the bike, looking for an immigration office immediately after crossing the border, a man soon came to talk to me. This never happens in the US or in Canada. I do not know whether Mexicans have nothing to do, or whether Americans or Canadians have fear of strangers, but anyway a human touch is sensed immediately after the entrance into Mexico. I asked the people around there about the location of the registration office for the temporary importation of my bike and finally found the place after sweating a lot. Strangely enough, the person in charge told me to go to the bank nearby. I went to the bank and found a long line of the people waiting for the procedure. I waited for more than an hour, persuading me that time goes slow in this country. I got naturally tired in the heat. But, when my turn came and as soon as I went into the bank, the fatigue was gone. The "sen^orita" with small body and dark hair at the counter was charming. In addition, she welcomed me with a big smile from the bottom of her heart. I unconsciously smiled her back. I thought, "Mexico is indeed my taste".

The downtown of Tijuana was flooded with people and cars. It was as crowded as in Osaka. In the downtown there was no hotel with a parking and I found a motel slightly away from the downtown. The motel charged as much as in the US, however, fortunately there was a coin laundry next to it. I had lots of clothes to wash. I did not know the system of a Mexican coin laundry. I bought a pack of soap powder and got two kinds of coin-like things. I did not know what to do. Soon a woman attendant came to me. She put the soap powder in the washing machine and selected the "coin" and put it into the slot of the washing machine. I was just standing there watching her work. Mexicans are kind and always ready to give a helping hand to the people in trouble. I thought again, "Mexico is a very good country".

When night falls, I miss a bar. Whenever I found a bar in the US or Canada, I certainly visited there. Everyone was not, in most cases, so friendly to me there, though. But, it is different in Mexico. When I walk into a bar, a bartender talks to me, saying and asking something. The drinkers around me also come close and begin to say something to me. Although I was not a good speaker of Spanish, I have already forgotten even that poor vocabulary. Besides, as those drinkers are often drunk, I do not understand at all. However, I still remember the only phrase, "I don't understand", and repeat it. Nonetheless, they don't give up and try to be hosts me for an hour or two. In the bars in Mexico there are not only men, but also women who are supposed to be prostitutes. I must also be an easy victim who came from Japan, which is still a rich country even though its economy is now suffering a recent decline. Those women cannot leave me alone. I decided to spend less money for my trip, however, I am one of the Japanese from the rich country. I can surely afford to buy a 8-dollar bottle of beer to an angel of the night. For only a bottle of cheap beer those angels are truly gentle and never quit smiling. The men who have mental problems should go to a bar in Mexico. The place is less expensive and more effective than seeking a help from a psychiatrist. Moreover, the angels will be a teacher of an introductory lesson of Spanish. Night advances with smiling and the time I have to go back to the hotel comes. I feel getting free from loneliness. Strangely I am not drunk. It is probably because my brain cells are occupied by the basic Spanish lesson and there is no room for getting drunk. Is it my illusion that I think I am walking straight? The comfortable drowsiness covers the whole body while I am imagining in bed a bar of the next day and the angels of the bar.

The women at the reception of Mexican hotels are different from those in the US and Canada who only take care of the paperwork for check-in. On stepping into the entrance hall of a hotel, you are welcomed by a big smile and chat. Among them a woman named Norra was unforgettable. She was a receptionist at a cheap hotel in Puerto Vallarta, a tourist town with remaining cobblestoned streets on the Pacific coast further south of the tip of California Peninsula. At the moment when we saw each ether in the hotel, I felt a warm heart in her as if I met an old friend after a long time. She is probably after thirty, however, she has already a daughter of 10 years old. She is not good-looking among Mexican women and has a rather thick layer of fat around her body. The only attractive part of her body is the large breasts. But, her smile is supreme. It is as if her face were in the smile. As I wanted to see her smile, I kept sitting, whenever I had nothing to do, on the couch in front of the reception counter. She was not able to pronounce my name properly and so I said, "It doesn't matter, anyway". Then, she really did not care and called me not "Toru", but "Tori". In addition, she always repeated my name three time, "Tori, Tori, Tori" and then hostessed me as a chatting partner. In return, I also repeated her name, "Yes, Norra, Norra, Norra". During the two days while I stayed in the hotel, I visited only one bar and went back to the hotel to drink beer on the couch, When she once did not have any guests at the reception, we sat side by side on the step of the staircase, drinking juice. Then a man who had been visiting that hotel in winter for twenty years came back and chaffed us by sign language, meaning "Oh, you are already in close relations". I answered, "Yes, now I have another sweetheart besides the bike". I like cheap hotels, where there is this kind of easy and frank feeling.

It is such a big house as you expect. I had not often seen the movies of the two stars before, however, I felt like seeing the movie filmed here only by the reason why I saw their house. I think myself a truly simple-minded man. I don't mind it and I will see the film by a rental video when I go back to Japan. But..., this is an old movie and I am afraid I won't be able to find it at a video shop. On the sea coast from this town toward Guatemala a lot of beaches of natural beauty untouched by the hand of tourism still remain. However, I don't have much time to take a good rest on those beaches and am moving in a hurry to Cancun, Yucatan, as one of my friends will see me there on Christmas. So, I will extend my stay in Mexico up to six months and will be back to this coast. The video shops in Puerto Vallarta might have "The Night of the Iguana", because it was filmed here. Will I stay in not a cheap hotel, but an expensive hotel with a TV and video recorder next time? Even I have enough money for a night in that kind of expensive hotel. Please remember that I paid a lot of money for the BMW. Or, being honest to myself, should I forget about an expensive hotel and satisfy myself with the songs by Mariko Takahashi? There is a beach called Playa Ventura on the Pacific coast about 180 km further away toward the Yucatan Peninsula from Acapulco that is located in the south of Puerto Vallarta. It is a small village with several hotels as simple as one might hesitate to call them hotels. No one can be seen on the long, long beach. I arrived at a hotel at around 3:30. I could not endure the immense heat any more that morning. So, I took off the leather jacket and pants and wore the riding clothes for midsummer. However, it was still hot. After unloading the luggage from the bike and taking it into the room, I went to drink beer in the restaurant next to the beach, which was built in the courtyard of the hotel.

The restaurant had a simple structure, as you might imagine, with only a thatched roof of palm leaves over the pillars laid in a hexangular shape. Thanks to this one can enjoy a view of the white beach and the Pacific Ocean behind it within sight. At the long table in front of me a group of three men and seven women began to drink beer. They might have been the only guests beside me in that village that day. I went back to my room after drinking a small bottle of beer and looked for a hotel for the next day by the guidebook. Later, as the sun was still above the see, I walked around the village to find a cheaper hotel for the next time. It was after dusk when I went back to the hotel room, however, it was still hot in the room. So, I went back to the restaurant for beer again. The group, who started the party before four were still drinking and talking loud. On the other hand I was drinking by myself, staring the dark sea. I looked up the ceiling of palm leaves and found two speakers each of which was hung on the pillar. The speaker were emitting the sound of rhythmical Mexican music. They must have been used for many years. The quality of the sound was poor, but the volume of the sound was high. In the meantime two of the seven women, who were excited by the music, suddenly began dancing in front of me. All of the seven women were supposed to be over forty. They had already lost their compact body of their younger days. However, the dance of the dancing two women was harmonizing with the rhythm of the music and it was something. I also got excited by their dance and began to tap the rhythm on my thighs. To tell the truth my legs were itching by mosquito bites then, and I was trying to kill two birds with one stone. The other two women, who had also been tapping the rhythm at the table, joined the dance and four of the women made a circle of dancers. They soon invited me to their dancing. I answered at first, "I can't dance", but in the next breath I stood up and joined them. Mexican women are easy and have special ability to manipulate the feeling of men. My left foot was already recovered and allowed me to dance. I remembered then that it was more than ten years before when I had danced last time. Dancing for a while, I was told to step into the center of their dancing circle. Another woman joined the circle and I was surrounded by five women. They approached to the center of the circle where I was dancing by turns and showed me their best performance, asking me in tune with them. They lowered their body to a crouching position or turned the body around. That was a hard job for a man of 53 years old. As sweats poured out , breath was lost and the legs began trembling with hard exercise, I escaped from the dancing circle, excusing myself by saying that I would have a sip of beer. Meanwhile, all of the women went back to their seats. Then, one of the men who were seeing my dance with smiles waved me to their table. I sat next to the man and he introduced all the names of the ten people to me. According to him, they were making a half-day trip to that village to have a small drinking party from a small town in 20 or 30-minute drive. However, dozens of empty beer bottles were found on the table and they already kept drinking for more than four hours. Although I was sure I wouldn't be able to remember the ten names of the people, I nodded, pretending to remember all the names. He said he would buy me a beer and I was waiting for the beer. But somehow, the party was abruptly brought to an end before my beer was served and the ten of them went back to their town in three trucks. I was left alone in the restaurant again. A traveler is lonely. The sky is clear every day in the winter of Mexico. I thought, "I will talk to the stars tonight, too".

Mexico becomes quite narrow in the west of the Yucatan Peninsula and Guatemala. It is reported that there was a plan to build a canal over here on behalf of the Panama Canal. There is a small town, Tehuantepec on the Pacific side of this isthmus. It is a quiet town, even in its downtown. The hotel with a parking was as inexpensive as $11 US. There was an Internet cafe' in the neighborhood.

I wanted to examine the existence of a computer virus in my PC, for I had received an email with a contaminated file ten days before. In addition I had an idea I would have to make a possibility test of connecting my PC with a LAN of an Internet cafe' somewhere, because there are not the access points of the AOL except in the capital city of Guatemala. I had already asked about it at several cafe's on the way, but I had received negative answers. Fortunately, this cafe' said yes. I immediately came back to the cafe' with a PC. The "sen^orita" of 20 years old who worked for the cafe' was friendly and seemed to know a lot about PC systems. She installed a program of anti-virus software into my PC and tried to connect the PC to her LAN for 4 hours, having troubles with the Japanese messages from my computer. Unfortunately her efforts to connect the PC to the LAN resulted in vain and accordingly a set of the anti-virus data was not downloaded. However, I was deeply impressed by her sincere cooperation by way of setting aside her proper business. Those who are kind, gentle and easy are not only the women. When I parked the bike, wondering which way to go, someone around there walks to me and tells me the direction. When I am riding or stop the bike at the red light, someone in a car talks to me, "Hola, amigo! Where are you heading? Oh, yes. Go straight, then". There is, in fact, no other road and so it is obvious this is the right road. However, I feel happy with these people. It was windy in the coast east of Tehuantepec. Even the heavy R1100R with full load meandered, being pushed to the right and to the left by the strong wind. Reportedly trucks are often brown away by this strong wind. I shifted down to the low gear and rode slowly in fear and trembling. The closer the Sierra Madre mountains came, the weaker the wind became. There was a town Tuxtla Gutierrez. The hotel was cheaper. It cost me only $8 US. When I parked the bike in the parking of the hotel and was unloading the luggage, a TOYOTA van came next to my bike. The driver was a 47-tear-old man named Carlos. He told me he was also a motorcycle rider and had a HONDA with a sidecar. He had made a living by making and selling toys of a rat, which is driven by a rubber band, in the parks or on the streets. I was invited to his room.

All were shrieking with surprise and enjoying the rats. I thought he had a good business to bring jokes and laughs to the people. Following him, at the same time, an impure idea, as usual, came into my mind that the toy would give a good opportunity to make friends with young women. Around twenty rats were sold during only an hour. Carlos told me he had made money for the hotel of that day and he really paid for his room when we returned the hotel. I went to his room again with him and asked him to sell one of the rats. He didn't receive the money and gave me two rats. It was late at night and I was leaving his room. He said goodbye and gave me a hug two times. I thought I would never see him again. His eyes were slightly lubricated with tears. I also like the Mexican "Tora-san". I threw up many times in the US and Canada. I think it was because a "pessimism disease" that the two countries suffer from, although not as bad as in Japan, stimulated and amplified the same disease of my own. The Mexican "Tora-san", who has four houses, is rich, but the other people - the drinkers in the bars, the hostesses, the receptionists at the cheap hotels and the Mexicans who stay in those hotels - are never rich. Nevertheless, they easily laughed their poverty out of the mind. In this country my stomach ulcer will be cured soon. One of the reasons why I decided to make a long journey is to learn, if possible, the easiness or the optimism that the people in Latin America are endowed with.