It's been said that economically when the United States sneezes Mexico catches a cold.
The New Peso, established about a decade and a half ago, after a particularly volatile period of economic colds and bad headaches for Mexico, is currently once again in decline against the U.S. Dollar. Having hovered near 10 Pesos per USD for the time period since its inception, the New Peso has devalued by about 30 percent in the last year. What this means in regard to economic opportunity for those interested in the machinations of foreign exchange markets I do not know. What it means for the Mexican people, I'm fairly sure, can't be good.
Travelling to Puerto Vallarta last month, we exchanged our money after we got off the plane but before going through Mexican Customs in the airport at just under 12 Pesos to the Dollar. More favorable exchange rates, we found out later, were to be had at our destination of Sayulita.
After claiming our bags my wife Denise, blissfully unaware of the potential social and political drama rising in respect to the new purchasing power she had in hand, was determined to find the best deal on a cab ride as we exited the airport on our way to Sayulita, a small seaside surf village 22km to the north. She'd done some research and had found that for the best cab fares we needed to get out of the airport proper and "get across the bridge" over the highway fronting the main terminal to awaiting cabs.
As we wound our way out of the airport, Denise somewhat fixated on the idea of getting across the bridge, would mechanically repeat as if chanting a mantra,
"We need to get across the bridge."
The first time, just past customs and after we picked up our bags.
The second, after we randomly were awarded the coveted green light upon pressing the button below the traffic signal to exit baggage claim (thus avoiding a cursory and totally perfunctory bag check), The third time as we prepared to make the last part of our journey out of the airport past that dubious custom in Mexico's destination airports of running the gauntlet of tourism hawkers.
Thus, crossing this lobby, her rehearsed remark was repeated once more; in part to brace us against this phalanx of vendors and keep us on mission to make the streets of Mexico uncommitted to the shiny enticements of unplanned, inexpensive, or even free (with strings attached) tourist offerings.
Denise's experience with the Puerto Vallarta Airport, and the best place to negotiate cab fair there, also came from a trip she took with friends two years previous to this one. That trip, also to Sayulita, started out with her over imbibing on tequila and beer the first night out, and over dancing- barefoot until the wee hours of morning- causing her to hobble for far longer than the ensuing hangover. She was limping when she got home as I recall and she can still not reminisce over the beauty and good times had on that trip without feeling some pity for her feets.
This trip was to be different. One, she would proceed with more deliberate caution in each and every exercise and two, she had me, her husband, to watch over her. Getting across the bridge to arrive at place where there was likely to be more affordable cab fair would be a good way to maintain control early this time, and get a good start to our vacation.
Rolling one suitcase behind her, about halfway across the lobby, and safely (we thought) past this cadre of specialty hawkers, we distinctly heard,
"We need to get across the bridge?"
A clear and impossibly immediate reply in impeccable American that came from far across the room and through the din of a mass of rolling suitcases, conversing travelers, and barking salespeople.
Upon us a second later, from out of the sky it seemed, and following us out the glass doors into the afternoon heat, the young Mexican man with a voice and accent that didn't fit, insisted he could find us a better deal right then and there, sparing us the task of toting and hauling our luggage on our (my) back over the arching concrete pedestrian bridge that ascended, in front of us over to waiting cabs that represented a good start to our vacation.
"Sayulita? I can get you a cab for $500 Pesos... Deliver you right to your front door."
He said as though in a commercial. I protectively thought we already had offered too much information. I also wondered if he had used a special boom mike to get a listen on us as we came into the lobby, or if the hearing/speech part of his brain was uncanny in such a way as to both singularly listen in on private conversations across noisy public places and process the nuance of learning it takes to speak a foreign language without any trace of an accent. I wondered if by practice he improved at this daily. I wondered if he could do this with other types of foreigners. I wondered if he could do this with a British accent, or speaking German?
"How about $45 Dollars?" Denise returned automatically, her suitcase almost slowing to a stop.
I could see already her determination to stay disciplined was waning. I began to become concerned for her feet.
Fortunately, the conversion rate from Pesos to Dollars and vice versa was not quite understood by any of the immediate party at the moment, I do believe $45 was more or less $500 Pesos on that day (or exactly what he in his American accent had asked), our savvy interlocutor hesitated (concentrating on learning foreign languages, he may have lagged at perfecting arithmetic in school) and up on the bridge we went- he calling back to us too late, that $45 would be fine.
The cab we decided on was yellow, shiny and new. But small.
The cab driver who did not possess any suspected supernatural talents, spoke no English. At first he seemed properly offended by the $45 Dollar counter offer to his $500 Pesos. I speak some Spanish and after listening to him adamantly protest the amount of effort that would be involved, the cost of feeding a family, and the general state of the economy. I began to become concerned for him. Denise doesn't speak Spanish and probably wouldn't have budged if she had. He was eventually over ridden by a supervisor, who came over and made the driver comply to her wishes. I wasn't quite sure why this disquieted me, as I usually complied to her wishes over some of the same issues without a much of a fight these days. Hell, she was mostly paying for this tightly budgeted trip, I was riding on her ticket to a Mexico vacation, so it was fairly important she succeed in saving those $50 Pesos. So what was I thinking? Plus, I didn't want to hike back over the bridge with the bags to where someone had already acquiesced to prerequisite $45 Dollar price. After twenty years of marriage and all the give and take associated with that time frame, I guess having another fella getting worked by my wife in a foreign land just seemed odd.
"Sometimes you think too much honey."
Our bags were loaded in the trunk, Denise and I climbed in the back seat and off we sped. Sped, not off, being the operative word. The back seat, neatly protected by a new colorful cloth seat cover (to hide urine stains of prior initiates I would later come to suspect), made it impossible to fasten seat belts. The driver, who in my mind, seemed overly intent on making his nut for the day, was showing no mercy to the traffic in front of him, alternately riding the brakes and pegging the accelerator to the floor to maintain a distance of no more than 2 meters (mostly less) between our front bumper and the vehicle closest to it. It mattered not if that traffic were a car, a double trailered semi-truck, a scooter bike, or a pedestrian; it mattered not if we were speeding along at 120km/hr along a jungle highway, or cutting through town 40km/hr, or just crawling through stop and go traffic- two meters for all those who happened in our way were all they were going to get.
It became quickly apparent that his maniacal driving manner was not suitable to a sober mind, and after about 5 minutes of this, I insisted we stop for beer. In about a minute we were at a convenience store paying for an ice cold box of six beers and his soda. He, to his credit, apologized for taking a full minute to find the store. A six pack, I calculated, could be evenly distributed between Denise and I in the next 1/2 hour or so, and take the edge off the culture shock of this wild cab ride- maybe even make it fun. Back on the road I instructed Denise to drink fast and avoid looking forward (anticipating doom while navigating along with our driver from our unsecured places in the back seat was not a good way to start a vacation). After draining my first beer, and deciding to either watch Denise, or stare out my door's window, I did make a note that for all intents and purposes the rest of Mexico was driving the same way.
Six beers later we arrived in the seaside village of Sayulita. A quaint town, with cobble streets lined with restaurants and small shops and a wonderful beach. A town that caters to tourists and the locals alike. Denise had produced a map from her purse a few miles from town. A map she downloaded from rental home's website, a map that came complete with written directions. A map that was supposed to get us through the small village and to our final destination, a hillside villa of sorts, Casa Ensueno, which translates to 'Dream Home'.
Between the beer, the computer generated map with clear but incomprehensible directions, the driver, who I now suspected of being on meth, and what ever was lost in translation we soon found ourselves shouting out our frustration in three different languages (Spanglish being one, right?), and taking corners full speed in reverse as we backed down narrow, bumpy, wrongly chosen almost primitive lanes. We were lost and bouncing wildly around in kind of bizarre scavenger hunt.
The part of the riddle we were stuck on was solving, was finding a building, from which ostensibly hung a small sign featuring the universal symbol for alcoholics anonymous,
"You know: AA." Enthusiastically imparted Casa Ensueno's property manager in an email.
Our problem being, that despite some legendary weekend binging over the years, neither Denise or I did know what this symbol looked like, and our fail-safe, my Spanglish, was short when trying to recall the word for anonymous (I still don't know it). I'm not even sure if alcoholism is considered something to meet over in that part of the world, unless of course you're getting together to drink.
The town's other landmark on the map, a gray boulder at an intersection of dirt roads/paths, was found.
Our problem was, the second dirt road/cart path left past this boulder, as per directions, looked like a dead end that wouldn't lead to the home of our dreams, or any destination of intentional consequence to this trip.
Denise kept insisting the obvious, that we turn around.
The driver was steaming and his face was in ours (driving backwards in a small car and all).
I couldn't process a solution from all the beer. In English or Spanglish.
Sometime during this frenetic ten minutes or so, I resolved not to raise my voice at Denise anymore, as this also was not a good way to start a vacation, and to her credit I really didn't know what part of our dilemma could not be fixed by turning the car around and going forward. Eventually, we stopped to ask directions and a local citizen kindly offered to jump in and led us directly to Casa Ensueno.
We were rescued.
Denise, her diplomacy filter also now trumped by the effect of three beers, confidently allowed,
"I told you it was here."
Our bags unloaded, we paid the driver our fare and then sent him off with an extra full $500 Peso note.
