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Title: Mexico for Lovers
Authors: Michael Tennesen
Source: PLAYBOY, vol. 37, no. 6, June 1990
Database: D Drive
MEXICO FOR LOVERS
by Michael Tennesen
***Doing It The First Time***
Your relationship is new, still fresh; you're a bit nervous, maybe
apprehensive. You've been plotting a long weekend together, possibly to
Mexico, but you're not certain. You want creature comforts, lots of hot water,
nonstop fresh linen and towels--all this, plus a view. Well, take your love
to Cancun.
Non stop jets regularly descend onto a modern airstrip cut from the dense
green jungle. A blast of hot, humid air greets you as you step off the Plane.
It is possible to be at O'Hare, J.F.K. or LAX in the morning and be lying on
Cancun's tropical shores by late afternoon.
This resort exploded onto the tourist map in 1974, when some Mexican
developers put sun, beach and American tourism into a computer and it spit
out Cancun. Back then, it was virtually uninhabited; now, with a main strip
of some 100 hotels, it caters to close to 1,000,000 visitors a year.
In Cancun, you loll under 80-degree tropical sun on white porous limestone
sand that never seems to get too hot. That same clean limestone is under
all the surrounding jungle--no silt flows to the sea, making the waters around
Cancun clear. You can go sailing, boating, skiing, parasailing, snorkeling
and windsurfing. With the Nichupte and Bojorquez Lagoons on one side and the
Caribbean Sea on the other, you can watch the sun ascend from the sea at dawn
and see it shimmer into the lagoons at dusk.
The food in Cancun is excellent. Mexico is a fishing culture and the
restaurants compete to see how fast they get the fish from the ocean to your
table. Try the fish, lobster, shrimp and conch at El Pescador in Cancun City.
There are people who claim that Cancun is Miami Beach, and that may be true;
but it's Miami Beach set in the middle of one of the most culturally rich spots
in all of Mexico--the Yucatan Peninsula, land of the Mayan Indians.
To visit Mayan history, take a bus tour about 60 miles down the relatively
undeveloped east coast through the dense hardwood jungles to the ruins of
Tulum. Perched on a 40-foot cliff overlooking the Caribbean is a shrine to
the moon goddess Ix Chel, where 13th Century Mayans made their cocoa beans
(money) off religious tourism.
You can also hop a ferry, a trimaran or a replica of a pirate ship to Isla
Mujeres, where a cab will take you down the long, slender island to the beach
at El Garrafon. There you can rent snorkels and masks and enter the water
into an offshore national park where tame blue, purple and orange fish take
you on -a tour of the coral reef.
Or take what's billed as the world's largest jet boat to Cozumel, a 28-mile
long island off the Yucatan coast. There, lose the Cancun hustle in the
village of San Miguel, where Mexican fishermen work their nets rather than the
tourists and laughing children practice their English trying to say hello.
Cancun's not cheap. You can get a package deal by scouring your Sunday paper;
but food, airfare and accommodations come at prices that approach those in
Hawaii. On the other hand, it's closer. Plus, there's the Caribbean, the white
sand, the ruins, Isla Mujeres, Cozumel. In short, a place that's delightfully,
but unthreateningly foreign. If romance doesn't take root in all of this, at
least you can't blame the ambience.
***Doing It With Friends***
You're way past first flush but still romantic. You're thinking you'd like to
take some friends along this year. You want to go on a Mexican traveling party,
and you Want to know the best place to take it. Puerto Vallarta is your ticket.
In the movie Night of the Iguana, Richard Burton rides out of the jungle into
a dusty Mexican village. That village was Puerto Vallarta before Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor decided to fall in love and build houses there. Today, the
tourists arrive by jet instead of bus. And now they encounter the beauty of
the Pacific coast combined with the sumptuousness of luxury resort hotels and
the charm of a lively town. The essential ingredients--jungle-covered
mountains, sun, sand and ocean bay--are all still there: people just don't go
to bed so early. Puerto Vallarta now rocks until dawn but in a
cobblestone-street sort of way.
Around the enormous Banderas Bay are many fine beaches where your party can
relax under "el sol" and watch the pelicans buzz dive water. Puerto Vallarta
still seems particularly benevolent to those whose idea of a perfect vacation
begins with a tan. You can take all all-day cruise to Yelapa, a secluded
tropical village of palm trees and bleached sand. Or you can take a car or
a taxi about seven miles south of Mismaloya beach up into the mountains to
Chico's Paradise. There the adventuresome swim under waterfalls and sun on
huge streamside rocks.
In the evening, take your tans to Carlos O'Brian's for seafood and margaritas.
On the walls are pictures of revolutionary firing squads. Later drop by one of
the local discos. Even if you think (11 discoing is the last thing you'd ever
want to do. do it anyway. Mexican discos are so camp they're hip. The Mexicans
are so serious, the Americans so drunk, it's like Dynasty directed by Fellini.
There are several discos in town: Capriccio, Christine and the City Dump. Each
vacation crowd decides which one is currently in favor.
Matter of fact one of the real pleasures of' visiting Puerto Vallarta with a
group of friends is that you can totally disrupt your at-home routine. Puerto
Vallarta is a town that doesn't get much sleep. Even if you don't party much
at home, you'll find yourself --fueled by the enthusiasms of your
peers--exceeding what you thought your dancing shoes were capable of. You
may close down a disco at dawn and collectively decide that it is imperative
for your communal well-being to jump into the ocean with a great many of' your
clothes on. You may try to get some sleep back at the hotel, but whatever is
happening out on the street lures you into another day of personal bests in
the Puerto Vallarta Invitational Iron Man Wildlife competition. Soon you'll
convince yourself that you don't need sleep--you can get that at home. But
you might never have convinced yourself or your friends that you were capable
of such behavior if you hadn't seen it for yourselves. It worked for Taylor
and Burton.
***Where the Wild Things Are***
You've been together awhile; your relationship is steady. You can even say
"I love you" and not feel your stomach tie in a knot. You're seasoned travelers
seek out culture shock. You're ready for adventure--something strange,
something exotic, something different. You're ready for Oaxaca.
The rugged Sierra Madre Mountains surround the star-shaped valley and l6th
Century Spanish city of Oaxaca (wah-HAH-kah). It's Mexico, but at 5000 feet.
It's cool, breezy and less humid. The first thing that strikes you as you
enter the city is the cathedrals--close to 160 of them, the result of' a
colonial building boom by Dominican friars who were irked because the
Franciscans had got to Mexico City first.
Although they dominated the village landscape, the Dominicans never quite
dominated the Indians, who still seek spiritual guidance in hallucinatory
mushrooms and divine their illnesses by gazing at chicken entrails. But it
is this blending of baroque architecture and Zapotec Indian culture that makes
Oaxaca so original. In all of North America you are not likely to find any
city stranger, more surreal, more other-worldly.
Consider this: It is possible to sit at one of the sidewalk cafes around the
central plaza and listen to the Oaxaca State Band play the U.S. Marine Corps
hymn while you eat chicken with dark, rich, complex mole sauce, a Oaxacan
dish made from at least four kinds of chilies and that tastes like spicy
chocolate. Zapotec Indians have filled the town shops with captivating carvings,
weavings and pottery--among the finest in Mexico. The Zapotecs have been mixing
blues, magentas, oranges and yellows into magical arrangements for thousands of
years. Buy a couple of big baskets and fill them with stuff you'll never see at
home.
It stands to reason that mescal comes from Oaxaca. You might think about buying
a bottle and taking it back to your room at the Stouffer Presidente Hotel, which
was built from the refurbished ruins of a 16th Century Dominican convent. The
walls are three feet thick; no one will hear you party.
During the day you can take the bus ride up to Monte Alban, which is a collection
of powerful pyramids, tombs and stone carvings set in an enormous field with a
commanding view of' the Oaxaca Valley. The Zapotecs began building this city in
500 B.C., abandoning it in 700 A.D. Invading Mixtecs then took over Monte Alban,
where they first stowed their mummies and later hid their gold from the Spanish.
In the morning you may want to visit the Benito Juarez market place and wander
through booths where chilies and medicinal herbs are piled three feet high.
You'll notice the Indians drinking strong, sweet coffee, talking what sounds
like an Oriental language. It's just another surrealistic morning, in Oaxaca.
***Spicing It Up***
It's not your first trip, nor is it likely to be your last. You've overcome the
initial jitters; you even use the same toothbrush on occasion. This year, you
want to step out a little further, let your guard down, get closer. A lapse in
room service won't ruin your time, but not seeing something exotic and wonderful
might. Try Ixtapa/ Zihuatanejo.
According to Felix, one of the cabdrivers who'll give you a lift from the
Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo airport, 14 years ago, Zihuatanejo had hardware stores
instead of boutiques, and nobody had ever heard of Ixtapa. Then the same
developers who had put Cancun together started building first-class hotels on
the 24 miles of' barren beach just north of the town and christened it lxtapa.
To preserve the isolation and the individual flavor of' the towns, they left
a six-mile gap between them.
Ixtapa is luxury. It's broad, sandy beaches. It's sailing, tennis, golf and
catered whim. It's the offshore Isla Ixtapa, with its protected beaches facing
inland and its tropical-bird sanctuary. It's north of town along the many
secluded beach coves waiting for you to give them a name.
But do not--repeat, do not--go, to Ixtapa unless you also spend some time in
Zihuatanejo, because if Ixtapa is luxury, then Zihuatanejo oozes romance from
its pores. Against the jungle-covered bluffs that tumble into this peaceful
bay are a number of older, more intimate hotels, such as the Sotavento and
the Villa del Sol, where by the second day, they know your name and by the
third day, they know your drink.
South of these hotels is the Playa La Ropa--a slender, quarter-moon-shaped
beach backed by a few excellent thatched-roof restaurants. In Zihuatanejo you
can stroll down cobblestone streets past whitewashed shops framed in flowering
bougainvillea. Mariachis play in most of the restaurants and Mexico is the one
place where mariachi music is neat and right.
One of the town's favorite drinks is the muppet. Ask the bartender at the Villa
del Sol what it is and he'll reply, "Dangerous." Then he'll tell you of' the
evening when a Hollywood film crew gathered round the hotel pool, drinking
muppets, and how the director climbed into the cage with the hotel's mascot
cougar, claiming they were old friends.
As the days pass in Zihuatanejo, they get slower and slower and, at the same
time, your attention span tends to get longer and longer. At night. ceiling
fans and sea breezes heal beleaguered gringo minds. These are the first signs
that the vacation is building mental antibodies against your personal urban
unrest. In the midst of' all this, you may find that you and she aren't talking
much, but communicating very well, just the same. Muy peligroso ("very
dangerous"), say the Mexicans. More dangerous is that you'll start feeling
right at home-to the point where you'll hear yourself saying you'd like to
live there.
RULES OF THE GAME
1. PROTECTING YOUR MONEY: Forget the stories about the bandidos; you're safer
at most Mexican resort communities than you'd be in New York or Los Angeles.
Still, travelers are susceptible to theft. Carry a little cash, but split
it between your wallet and your luggage. Carry most of your money in
traveler's checks or leave it at home and access it from an ATM. Credit
cards aren't always welcome.
2. RESERVATIONS: Immediately upon hitting, town--in fact, before you leave
the airport--make certain your return reservations are in order. Carry
plenty of documentation for hotel and travel reservations--they have a way
of getting lost when they cross the Rio Grande.
3. DRIVING AT NIGHT: Don't. There are too many potholes, too few lights, too
few warning signs and too many cattle and donkeys on the road.
4. THE "BITE": If you're stopped for a violation (real or fabricated), the
police officer may say you have to go to the station with him. Ask him if
there is some other way you can take care of it. Let him suggest a sum--barter,
even--then slip it to him covertly, declaring it a gift for his children . Don't
get pissed off. Remember what lawyers charge in the states.
HOW NOT TO LOOK LIKE A GRINGO
To a Mexican, a gringo wears shorts, tennis shoes and a cap, carries a camera,
talks loud and is materialistic. Many of us forget that when we cross the border,
we're in a different culture. Here's how to blend in.
- DON'T WEAR SHORTS: They're OK on the beach or around the resort communities in
the afternoon, but if you venture out beyond the resort limits (and you should),
wear trousers.
- DON'T STARE AT A MEXICAN MALE'S GIRLFRIEND: Not if you value your huevos
(balls). Mexican women flirt, but they don't mean it. Mexican males get pissed, and
they do mean it.
- BE POLITE: Be extra polite. Mexicans are zealously cordial, greet strangers
on the street, shake hands, hug and think gringos are cold. Learn the words
gracias (thank you) and por favor (please) and use them liberally.
- SLOW DOWN: Latins consider punctuality a gringo quirk. Don't insist on it.
Leave your watch in your room and get on manana time.
- SPEND PESOS: Dollars are acceptable, especially around the resorts, but when
you carry a wallet of pesos, you are showing a willingness to integrate with
their society, rather than force yours on them.
- SPEAK SPANISH: Even if you can say only a few words, use them. Doors open
wide when you speak, even haltingly, their language. Carry a dictionary.
- DON'T CLAIM YOU'RE AN AMERICAN: This really pisses them off. Mexicans think
they are Americans, you are a North American (norteamericano).
-- The End --