LA PENITA, Mexico – Up and down the Pacific coast of Mexico are small beach towns with distinct gringo subcultures.
I almost didn’t want to head down this way because I knew I’d be meeting a lot of people just like myself – Americans and Canadians on holiday, many on extended six-month holidays, and some who had quit their old lives altogether to start a new life here.
What’s the point of flying through two time zones and over several mountain ranges, only to meet the same people you left behind (even though the weather is warmer)?
The answer is that this isn’t Disney World. The Nortamericanos who come to places like La Penita don’t expect vacuum-sealed five-star accommodations. They don’t freak out when the hot water and Internet go down. The old-timers speak fluent Spanish, buy their groceries at the local market, invest their time and energy in their houses and local businesses, and generally do the things other Mexicans do. These really aren’t the same people we left behind in Montreal.
The Canadians we meet are Canadian Mexicans. The Mexico we’re visiting on the Pacific coast isn’t less pure because of them. Is Montreal less pure because of its immigrants, or is it a new and different Montreal?
As more development comes to this region, as high-rise condos and gated communities build physical and social walls between gringo and Mexicano, the culture will change. But for now, the two solitudes do mix.
Usually, at least. The gringos still participate in certain rituals that are distinctly their own.
Like Friday nights at the Bavarian Garden, on the coastal highway at the edge of this town about an hour’s drive north of Puerto Vallarta. Friday night is buffet night at the Bavarian. For 90 pesos (about $9), you get to line up for a plateful of sweet ribs, smooth mashed potatoes, a sausage, and sweet-tangy piles of sauerkraut and pickled beets.
It’s no less Mexican than the stir-fry Chinese food we had for lunch downtown, is it?
What’s striking here is the crowd. It’s as if an alert went out on the Emergency Broadcast Network urging all Canadians and Americans to report for their German food. You see every gringo face that you noticed on the streets of La Penita during the week, and you do notice them. They don’t ask questions; they just show up.
Every Friday night, every seat is filled at the long white plastic tables at the oudoor terrace on the edge of the road. The Redneck Mothers, a band of ex-pats, are playing their weekly gig of soft country tunes, serenading the older couples on the dance floor who shuffle around the customers lining up at the buffet.
It’s reunion time, even for my wife Monique and I, who have been here only a week. We see former B.C. resident Bill Bell, who with wife Dorothy runs the popular website
Ontheroadin.com for the RV crowd. There’s Eleanor, the woman we met at Jaimie and Hindie’s local-hangout restaurant-bar. And there’s Susana Escobido, who drove all the way down from
Chacala, a tiny beach town a half-hour away, with sons Casey and Randy and husband Poncie. We stayed at her B&B two days ago and had no idea she was coming. We introduce them to our old friends (five-day-old) Eric and Laura and their 19-month-old son Forest, from Washington State.
Here come the frozen margaritas. The pork ribs are fall-off-the- bone tender, the sausage is juicy and perfumed with sage, every mouthful from the plate sings of sweetness, vinegar and friendship.
“Wasting away again in
Margaritaville,” the Redneck Mothers sing, “searching for my lost shaker of salt.”
They couldn’t have known I was coming, could they?
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