Home again

To be able to sit on the patio, 8:00 AM, glass of fresh squeezed OJ in hand, watching the fishing boats in the bay. For me, that is home. And it is so good to be here.

The three day journey starting in Palm Springs with stays in Tucson, Navojoa, and Mazatlan is a long one, at times tedious, and fortunately uneventful. According to the GPS, we covered 1471.2 miles and were on the road for 24 hours and 50 minutes. Average speed was 59.2 miles per hour. Those are the facts.

What the GPS doesn’t tell you is that the toll roads (which cost $83.92 in total), were the most deserted we have ever seen them. Traveling mainly through farmland on a four lane road that resembles Highway 99 between Fresno and Bakersfield in central California, there were lots of trucks including an increasing number from major U.S. trucking companies who can now travel in Mexico thanks to NAFTA. And we saw a few caravans, mostly snow birds heading south in their RVs and fifth wheels, linking up with others believing safety is in numbers. There are actually websites now where Americans and Canadians traveling into Mexico can meet online and arrange a rendezvous point so they can keep close watch on each other.

But what struck us most of all on this trip were the large number of Federales patrolling the highways. In their distinctive dark blue and white patrol cars, there were nearly as many Federales on the road as there were passenger cars. And unlike on previous trips where if you did see a Federale, he was usually traveling alone, now each car has three officers in it.

On this trip, we were stopped at only one road block between Culiacan and Mazatlan. With their finger on the triggers of their AK-47s, about two dozen Federales were stopping every vehicle. Our guy asked where we were from, where we were going, and if we were tourists. When we told him we lived in Puerto Vallarta and were returning home, he waved us through, without searching the car and without even asking for our immigration papers.

Everywhere we went on this trip, and now that we are back home, we encountered life as we have known it for years in Mexico. People living their lives without fear. Yesterday afternoon, our housekeeper and her husband stopped by with their 18 month old girl. They were excited about going trick or treating tonight (Halloween, an American holiday that is slowly taking hold in Mexico). They will join hundreds of others on the main street on Puerto Vallarta along the ocean, The Malecon, where there will be clowns, vendors, and lots of candy. To them, the drug wars are non-existent. And for the vast majority of Mexico and Mexicans, that is the case.

When I was a reporter and was dispatched to a “disaster” scene, we would try to find the best visual example of that particular disaster and interview those people hardest hit by it. If a fire swept through 100 homes in San Diego, we would show street after street of burned out structures with only chimneys standing and talk with those left homeless. Naturally, we didn’t show that the 100 homes lost represented a little tiny fraction of all the homes in San Diego. Still, the perception was that all of San Diego was on fire and the entire town was devastated. The same is true of what is happening in Mexico. Yes, there is the drug violence, and yes there are some towns and neighborhoods that are best to avoid. But like that little tiny fraction of the homes in San Diego that burned, the drug wars here are impacting a little tiny fraction of a country that remains among the most hospitable for Americans. And I am glad to be home.

The Lonely Road to Puerto Vallarta

The blood was flowing in the ditches. The sidewalks were strewn with decapitated bodies. As we traveled the main highway, first through Nogales, then Hermosillo, and Ciudad Obregon, bullet riddled bodies swayed in the breeze attached by ropes to freeway overpasses. Yes, we knew we were back in Mexico. The Mexico of 2010. Well, at least that’s the image so many Americans have based on news coverage of the drug wars here. It makes for titilating headlines and stories of horror. But ... the reality is something quite different.

I will admit that after being in the United States and Canada for the past five months, I became increasingly concerned about how safe it would be to drive back home to Puerto Vallarta this fall. The news coverage of the violence along the border was incessant. The evidence was overwhelming. Anyone thinking about going to Mexico, particularly those driving through the war town northern states, without a doubt possessed a death wish.

Not to discount the tremendous toll violence has taken. I don’t need to go into that since the media has done a yeoman’s job depicting Mexico as nearly Afghanistan-like. But as we passed the border today, stopped at immigration, waited along with a dozen other Americans and Canadians waiting to get their car permits, then headed south on 15D, the newly paved four lane toll road, we realized the Mexico we know and love is still intact, still very inviting, and still very much alive. However, there are a few differences.

One thing we did notice is that the traffic here, at least on the highway between cities, is much lighter than normal. There are still the caravans of Mexican trucks and buses, but the cars, and trucks, and RVs with plates from California, Arizona, Washington, British Columbia, Alberta are significantly fewer than before. There were stretches where we would go for 10 to 15 minutes and barely see another vehicle.

Tonight, we are staying in the Del Rio Hotel in the small town of Navojoa. It’s clean, comfortable, pretty good Internet, great restaurant, and Mexican cable TV that has the Giants game (in Spanish). We are happy. But unlike the three times we have stayed here before, the hotel is not very busy. And while we did see one car with a Colorado plate in the parking lot here, the rest here are from Mexico … Sonora, Jalisco, Aguascalientes. The media has made Mexico a place of fear. And Americans and Canadians, some of whom are "afraid of their own shadows," have responded by refraining ... refraining to visit a truly welcoming neighbor.

Granted, we have not made it back to Puerto Vallarta yet. There are two more days of five to six hour journeys. We could be car jacked, we could be shot (oh wait, that's Oakland). But being back in Mexico, with its beauty, its culture, and most important its people, makes me feel that I have already come home.

The Home Stretch

Travel is a pretty cool thing. But there comes a point where you really can get too much of it. When I was working, I thought there just couldn’t be enough time off, and now that I don’t work, I still think that. Not working is a dream come true. But living out of a suitcase for more than five months does wear on you. And thus, as I approach my last few days in the U.S. for this summer, I must say I am looking forward to getting in the car Tuesday, and heading south.

The past 20 weeks since we left our home in Puerto Vallarta have been filled with adventure, and lots and lots of travel. But somehow this summer, unlike like summer, it seemed more “manageable.” Perhaps that’s because it was spread out a bit, and we stayed in most places for more than just a few days.

Probably the highlight of the summer was the Scandinavia/Russia cruise. Really spectacular scenery and culture and places we had not seen before.

Spending ten days in a houseboat in the heart of Vancouver, BC, was also a very cool experience … so much so, that next summer, we’re going back to the same place for two weeks.

New York in the fall was totally fun and entertaining, and then heading to New England for a week for the fall colors was a great way to wrap up our travels.

Shorter strips to Laguna, Clear Lake, Portland, and Gabriola Island filled out the summer. And, for the past month, we’ve just been hanging in the desert where the weather has cooled.

But it is time to move on. We will stay just north of the border on Tuesday. Then we will cross into Mexico at Nogales Wednesday morning and put as much distance as we can between that crime plagued region of Mexico and our first stop, probably in Navojoa. Thursday night we should make it to Mazatlan and by early Friday afternoon, we’ll pull into PV, the final leg of the memorable summer of ’10.