Tope a Poopooa

Many people put Mexico down saying it is hot, overcrowded, dirty and full of Mexicans. How narrow-minded.

Three hours after crossing the border at Nogales, we passed through the community of Hermosillo, Sonora. The temperature was 95ºf, the highway “bypass” went right downtown, all 700,000 residents were jaywalking, and a sewer eruption was spilling effluent a foot deep down the main drag.

We drove carefully through the muck, cautious of submerged topés (speed bumps). Truckers honked at us as they sped by, tossing a wake of poopooa at startled school children.

They say the roads are awful in Mexico. This is a lie. They are much worse than awful. If we could have figured out how to access the northbound lane without being killed we would have vamoosed back to the Estadis Unitos pronto.

But we splashed our way through the baños of Hermosillo and carried on to the coast.

We have settled for a week in the tranquil seaside town of San Carlos.

It took nerve to enter old Mexico. Concern over banditos and news stories recounting the discovery of severed heads and drug cartel carnage nearly kept us away. We could have hung out in Arizona. But cooler heads failed to prevail.

While in the Phoenix area we enjoyed the hospitality of — and an occasional overnight stay with — great friends, but only one of them maintained a loaded weapon on premises. Montana Willie keeps a short barrel .22 by the dog dish at the back door.

Phoenix hospitality – Italian style “Course it’s loaded” said Willie. “All my guns are. But I only got six here.”

Don’t even think about trying to retrieve your errant tee shot from Willie’s yard.

I love golf more than life itself. At Encanterra (which translates loosely as “the land where putts lip out”), I was having a career round. On the 18th tee box, a devilish par five, I targeted a distant saguaro with driver and striped it. A well-placed four iron left my ball forty feet from the pin.

A cocky demeanor made eagle seem inevitable. Five putts later I left the final green with a double bogey on the card and a hard place in my golf heart. My brothers-in-law exited with a silent smirk. Golf is humbling.

Despite the open doors — and beer fridges — encountered when we visit friends and relatives, we’ve learned that it is best to move on after a couple of nights freeloading. Houseguests, like fish, soon take on an unpleasant odour and must be discarded.

So we went hiking and biking. Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are a Mecca for outdoor aficionados. Half an hour into our first foray on the famous Arizona Trail, Florence took a tumble from her mountain bike, narrowly missing the thorns of a prickly pear cactus but landing squarely on a razor-sharp sedimentary rock formation. She ruined a tremendous photo op.

As compensation we were treated to an afternoon in the waiting room of a U.S.urgent care facility.

The M.D. tried to up sell her from a few simple stitches to a tetanus shot and a prescription for painkillers and Valium. Since our out-of-country health care plan was picking up the tab she took the full meal deal and got the doc to pencil in an extra RX for some Viagra. God knows why.

We camped at Apache Junction KOA where we spent a couple of thrilling days sitting by the “free-flow” (Latin for unheated) pool watching a gaggle of old guys slow cooking in the hot tub, up to their necks in man soup.

An even less appealing feature of the AJKOA was the “potable” water. It exuded a curious bouquet reminiscent of cheap Greek Retsina.

We’ve had a couple of minor problems with our van but RV repairs are somewhat inconvenient when you’re travelling. We live in the damn thing. It’s tough to fall asleep when your rig is on a hoist in the repair shop.

Miraculously, our neighbor at the AJKOA had a logo on his truck announcing, “Andy’s Mobile RV Repairs”. We sauntered off for a nice breakfast while Andy toiled with our faulty breakers and some other shit I had broken off in a fit of annoyance.

When we returned he looked at me sullenly through his full size bi-focals. Out of nowhere he announced that he “may not be the smartest but there was no goddam way anybody was gonna take advantage of Andy”. We paid his $78 bill without debating the questionable environmental disposal charge.

I had an urge re-read Catcher in the Rye so I bought a cheap paperback copy. I didn’t recall a word of it. It’s pretty good but not worth killing John Lennon over.

The main character, Holden Caulfield, spends a good deal of time telling lies and self-aggrandizing. We hiked the beautiful Peralta Trail in the Gold Canyon area. I read a couple of chapters while we had lunch overlooking a pinnacle known as the Weaver’s Needle.

On the way down we ran into Jason, a nice young local guy who works the night shift at Intel in Phoenix. Infused with the spirit of J.D. Salinger’s bull-shitting protagonist, I fed him a load of Blarney all down the mountain. I told him all Canadians retire at age 50 with full benefits. It’s our law.

I mentioned casually that my sister is married to our president, Steven Harpoon, but we begged off on the armed escort since we were “out of Country”. Jason was convinced he should move to Canada. I told him he couldn’t. You have to be born in Canada to emigrate there. He was heartbroken.

Here in the Sonoran desert we have become nascent bird watchers. We rise early and join groups of geriatric geeks shuffling about in the desert squinting at squawks in distant trees. We join their gleeful chorus when we identify a vermillion flycatcher or the elusive Cassin’s kingbird.

You folks toiling in the boreal winter have no idea the excitement you are missing.

But I see mi espousa beckoning me to the San Carlos beach where we’ll sip iced tequila and watch pelicans dive into a hot Mexican sunset; and so I bid you, “hasta la vista”.

Gerry