We were now heading up the West Coast with Cabo San Lucas in the cross-hairs. To be fair it isn't really Mexico, more like Little America – a tourism Mecca to the yanks who flock here for Spring Break, honeymoons and sport fishing. It's found on the Baha Finger, which sounded more like a WWE move than a stretch of land. Its the Penninsula that stretches down from California into the Pacific and creates the gulf of Mexico. After a couple of days at sea spent refining our Spanish and cultivating a few stringy moustaches we arrived in the Cabo San Lucas Marina which was a shocking experience in itself. The Yanks were everywhere. We arrived to the drone of jet-ski's and parasail-boats, had to dodge our way between cruise ships and finally docked along-side a couple hundred fishing boats. It was chaos and by the time we were tied up to the dock everyone was a bit nervous to step off into this pit of sin.
The vibe in Cabo is all geared towards giving the common American an experience of what he thinks Authentic Mexico is. Everywhere you go you swaggering yanks can be heard shouting “American Dollar”, and the locals’ eyes will light up as they reel in another victim who ends up walking away saying to his wife “but where else would I get a Mexican hunting bracelet, like the one the red Indians used to wear!” The first thing we saw when getting off the boat was a Hooters. The second thing we saw was a Harley Davidson store. It really was every American’s little slice of Mozambique, equipped with just enough of America to make things comfortable. Looking past the stars and stripes on every second wife-beater that passed us did revealed a town with a lot of potential. Epic restaurants, nightclubs and beaches (if you can find a spot), made it an obvious hit with escapees of the USA who could now have a Pina Colada in one hand, a big-mac in the other and afford both.
We had a couple of days to kill, thanks to a very chilled captain and itinerary. We rented a few cars and headed off into the real Mexico- we had had enough of the Yanks and wanted to see some countryside. It wasn’t long though before we were being labeled Gringo’s and could be spotted snapping up ponchos, local brews and anything else claiming to be authentic. The group was a salesman’s dream and we must have spiked foreign investment in the region in a matter of hours. Our destination was a little town called San Jose where it was rumoured that the original Hotel California still stood- the one that the Eagles made famous. Yes we were becoming US patriots by the day. The trip also served as a training ground for the crew’s recent photography infatuation which was becoming a pandemic and meant that anything that moved seemed to be showered in light and left dazed and confused in our dust. The town was the kind of place in which you’d expect Antonio Banderas to bust out of a saloon at any moment to engage in a gunfight with 14 bandits while playing a guitar solo behind his back. He’s not unlike me in many ways- mainly the manner in which we both take charge and feel responsible for defending the weak. I’ve also got that husky thing going on.
The sight of Hotel California instilled in us hopes of finding a real landmark, something to make up the substance of stories back home and keep poorly-written blogs afloat. Stuck away in a dark corner of the one-horse town, beneath a dingy set of apartments and across the street from the tobacco store was the sacrilegious-looking establishment. The weeping brass letters across the top did seem to suggest a place of legend or myth, with enough imagination and tequila, and it held an uneasy sense of beckoning to go inside. Excitedly we approached the counter to find out more.
“Sorry sinjor, I don’t understand.”
“Um, well you probably get this a lot. Can we check in any time we like, but never leave?”
“No sinjor. You can leave whenever you want, there are exits located at the front and back of the building”
Worried and a little panicked we turned to the barman and asked him to play something by the Eagles. “Eagles sir? I have no eagles here.”
Deflated and disappointed we slowly came to the conclusion that this was not the fabled spot. Was there even a Hotel California at all? Over a flat bear claiming to be brewed down the road we decided that this misunderstanding had been the work of a wicked opportunist who had spun the story to attract rookies like ourselves into the desert to fall prey to his bar. Wicked –and wise. On the way out our fears were confirmed when we stumbled into the Hotel California souvenir shop- selling everything from shirts to ancient telephones. The Eagles would have been gutted. We left the bar defeated, all with the same line running through our heads : We could indeed check in any time we wanted, but it was time to leave.
We knew we were getting close to Cabo when the whistles and Kanye West dance-remixes in the distance began to overpower the radio inside our car. Another cruise ship had arrived bringing promises of bad jokes and worse dance-moves. But we had now seen the Mexico that we wanted to experience- where a man’s status was determined by the splendor of his moustache and not by his wallet. We had eaten from rural street cars, although the evidence of such things had seemed to leave us very rapidly. Tequila-distilled rattle- snakes and men with real names like Juan, Jesus and Hose were what we had come to see and we now called them our Hombre’s. We turned our attention to the cruise ships and reluctantly accepted our heading- North, America, to the Whale’s Vagina.
NB Fact - The word "gringo" does not come from 1800's wartime in Mexico when defeated US army troops wearing green jackets were told "Green Go!" Wikipedia got that from a Blue Moon post. And it's a lie.