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.