25 Comments

Mezcal fund...lol. This piece is really well done. Spend more time on the beach so we can all share.

Expand full comment

Man, can you scribble! Beautiful, evocative stuff. Never been to Mexico, but you just brought it - bang! - into this old man's living room. Thanks.

Reminds me of the time, more moons ago than I care to remember, when I met a fisherboy of on an isolated, non-tourist beach in Kenya. He was 20, spoke excellent English (mainly self-taught, I learned). I was a "mature", "sophisticated" Westerner in my early forties who imagined I knew it all.

Twenty minutes of chatting later, I realised I knew almost nothing about anything that really mattered.

Expand full comment

I like these expeditions into the foreign landscape of tropical lethargy painted in hues of poignant appreciation for a culture embodied in an atmosphere of insouciance.

Expand full comment

What HUMDEEDEE said, GC. 😃

Expand full comment

Is intoxication contagious?

Keep going like this they’re going to put your picture on a

thousand peso note; or it might be the reward for known whereabouts...

Expand full comment

Beautifully done.

Brings back memories of my college semester abroad spent in San Luis Potosi. Did a side trip to Puerto Vallarta for our break. Great place back then ('75). Yalapa was very chill. Would love to go somewhere like it that is still not spoiled by idiot gringos.

Expand full comment

If it is warm and cheap, idiot gringos have already infested and corrupted it.

Down here we have the "Jet Blue Crew" , work-a-day, emotionally-retarded inner-city dwellers who come down on weekends to play their Pimp Daddy fantasies to poor Haitian teen (and younger) girls...and boys.

Expand full comment

Beautifully written with a Lawrencian sense of place...time to re-read "The Plumed Serpent"?

Expand full comment

I have fond memories and many pictures of the cobble stone streets, colorful houses and the malecon. The skies were brilliant blue. The sultry air was heavy and rich with the tones of Sade. God, those were exhilarating times in the 80's.

Thank you for allowing me to relive those days.

Expand full comment

Me, too ... Spent a few months in San Blas (Nayarit) & Vallarta, early 70s. Everything local. Bucerias wasn't even on the map.

If you wanted to go to Zijuatenejo, you had to go in by 4-wheel Jeep or a boat. One little hotel in Manzanillo.

Beautiful days.

Expand full comment

Oye como va?

Expand full comment

That was some mighty fine writing. Haven't read something that good in a long time.

Expand full comment

Lovely read. Thank you.

Expand full comment

🔥💯 Wording-painting too good!(* 😔 Softly soothing and deeply disturbing and mildly amusing, all at glorious once. Won’t let you go too easily. Mañana, maybe.

--

(* NB! not too good to be true and truly beautiful, the other kind

Expand full comment

Simply beautiful. I heard Hemingway, Jim Harrison, and 2 poetic words of Pablo Neruda. THANK YOU! Literature still lives. Bless you buddy

Expand full comment

Well done, GC! I exiled myself from BC during the hoax....to Bucerias. You took me right back to all the vivid flavours with your golden pen. Now I’ll finish my pho in DaNang.

Expand full comment

After reading this, I'm getting excited for your book.

Expand full comment

Has someone been reading Fred Reed? I was just thinking to myself how I miss Fred Reed's columns at Lew Rockwell on Mexico and then I read this. Thank you - it really hit the spot. If you mention Padre Kino in a column, you have a reader for life.

Expand full comment

Fred is still around and writing, and living in Jocotepec, I think. He has some things here ... https://www.unz.com/freed/

He also used to publish at TakisMag.com. loved reading his stuff, and I live close to him in MX much of the year.

Expand full comment

I often wonder in a culture that expresses music in salsa, merengue, mariachi, tango, and bachata, how did Carlos Santana emerge?

Expand full comment

His father was a concert violinist in Jalisco. Musical family.

Expand full comment