ACAPULCO WAS A KICK IN THE HEAD.... The plane landed and taxied up to the terminal. We were to deplane outdoors – on one of those big ramp affairs the airlines sometimes wheel right up to your plane door. It happened that I was first in line to get off – standing right by the still-closed door you see – when the face of a smiling "Federale" popped up looking in the window right at me. Then suddenly he looked downward toward his feet and began to do a little dance around outside on the top of the platform....

I wondered "What the heck?" We were all impatient for the door to be opened, but it could only be opened by him from the outside. At last he stopped his two-step, and the door came open with a hiss... He stood there sort of shamefacedly, clipboard in the crook of his arm, and smiled at me... "Senor!", he said, "It is the cucarachas..." and his voice trailed off. I glanced down: where he had been tap-dancing, there were about a half dozen big "cucaracha" carcases squashed into the ramp platform...

We went down the ramp and into the Terminal. I rented a car. (Renting cars and driving in Mey-hi-co is not for the faint-hearted, believe me - and as you shall soon see....). As we pulled out of the Airport onto the main road, here is a dead horse lying in the middle of the road - all four legs sticking straight up skyward. (He had been there some time...). No one was paying the slightest bit of attention: steady streams of Mexican peasants - many with bundles and clay jars on their heads - were passing along the sides of the road, entirely oblivious of the dead horse...

We pushed on and got to our hotel at last. Beautiful place right on the beach. We stayed there several days and saw the sights; one of my most memorable events was when one day I noticed a group of native "pescadores" (fishermen) way down the strand and they were trying to beach a great big fishing boat full of nets and gear, and it was slow-going rolling it up the sand over this crude arrangement of logs and planks. Everyone was tugging on ropes and straining away. I walked by and watched. There was one rope hanging by itself with no one on it ... so I laid on. There were a few smiles and "Si!" And "Muy Hombre!" And "loco Norte Americano" but soon I was accepted as one of the "gang" and after about a half hour or so we got the boat up above highwater mark where they wanted it, and everyone disbanded – some waving or tipping their sombreros to me as they passed... It was a lot of work but a lot of fun, too...

One night we walked from the Hotel to this "wonderful seafood" place that had been recommended. It was a main boulevard – but no real street lighting at all: just what shone from the shop windows. We were engaged in strolling along and looking in the windows when suddenly I saw a huge trench, who knows how deep in the dark, which had been dug right across the sidewalk in front of us and out into the street! We stopped just in time. Utility people or maybe road workers – I never knew. But there was not one warning lantern, light, blinker, barrier or barrier tape to warn the pedestrian: one more step and we would have been at the bottom of the trench. That's how it is down there: modern stores and unmarked traffic hazards all jumbled up together.

We continued on and soon came to the Restaurant. And here was one of the cooks - in white apron and all - sitting out in the street gutter (!) shucking raw oysters! Shells were everywhere about, and pans stood half-full of fresh-shuck while he carried on blissfully unaware of the flies and dirt... "Buenos Noches, Senor!" said he as I passed by. "Buenos Noches!" I returned - perhaps not too eagerly, and we went in and the Maitre'D sat us down near a window and all.

We had a great dinner but I forwent (as did Mill) the "dozen raw" with which we had planned to start...

A few days later, we returned to the airport (the dead horse was still in the middle of the road...), turned in our car, and flew on to Mexico City – a good ways. The pilot called out the obligatory rush to the right side of the plane to behold (smoking!)Popocatapetl down below. Spectacular! We stayed in another beautiful hotel. Right on Chapultepec Park – where the invading Norte Americanos fought the little boys of the Mexican Military Academy during the long-ago Mexican War. This is an incident every Mexican still remembers – sort of like the VMI cadets who marched out to battle the Bluebellies in our own Civil War...Something like that. There were signs all over the park...

That's not all there was, either. I was still in my jogging days, so began to run in the Park every evening (took some effort, as the altitude is quite high here and the air super-polluted. (It's a wonder everyone isn't dead!) I had the only nosebleed I ever had in my entire life here – when I got back from jogging!) But there was this huge dead dog – like a Great Dane really – that lay alongside the path – and it was wrapped up in a bright serape'. (The horse at Acapulco had been serape'-less). I reported this to the doorman at the hotel when I got back – and he said, "Oh, Senor! That is nothing... last week was the body of an hombre there!"

And we went to the Bullfight in the great Arena at Mexico City. By now we were starting to "...go native." Millie was an inveterate lottery player and bought tickets from every urchin in town. The winners were posted daily in scraps of paper pasted all over the bullfight-ring walls, and nothing would do but she crowded through the ranks and sought her number.... Caramba!

Best of all, we had a Guide – Nemo – who came with us personally with his little boy (who dreamed of fighting in the ring some distant day) and Nemo (really our driver) explained every nuance of the fight to us. By now I had a serape of my own, and a sombrero and zapates on my feet. Nothing would do but I leave the shady side (I had been nipping on a Cervizo) of the stadium (where the tourists and upperclass all sit out of the afternoon sun) and strayed clear over to the sunny side opposite where I sat among the peasants. I cheered for the bull (to their initial horror!) But I bought everyone around me a "Cerviza," and handed out handfuls of cheap cigarillos I had picked up earlier ... so soon they accepted the "loco Americano" in their midst, and we all had great fun!

The matador put on a real show: he had done something to incur the crowd's displeasure last week, so he was super-disdainful when he walked on the field this week. Some felt the bull had not been dispatched with quite the style they wanted and so they were booing him and all. It is his perogative to take the ears from his kill – and these can be presented to some fair lady or official later as further gestures in this national behavior thing of theirs about bulls and all. And this he did – swiping them off clean – and then he stood and faced the crowd and swept aside his cape with a grand Latin gesture – and flung the ears down in the dirt at their feet – and stalked haughtily off the field!

Mexican Theater at its best! LOL!

And then one day Nemo took us to Taxco – the "Silver City" high up in the mountains west of Mexico City. Here we saw many superb examples of the silver craftsmen's work – but did not buy much as Millie never liked silver too much... On the way coming and going we passed through a huge national forest in the Sierrq Madre, I remember – with big homes standing here and there. To my question, Nemo replied that at certain "high" levels in the government, you could just go and build your hacidenda in the National Forest if you liked, and be damned to anyone who didn't like it! LOL! What a place that is down there! Beside the road little Mexican kids were selling iguanas tied on strings to passersby (not for pets – but for meat: they are eaten down there...). Sometimes they would have quite a stock in trade they had captured, and these poor unfortunates were hung by the strings around their throats from all the low branches of the shade trees the little kids were squatting under – writhing and twisting slowly to death while their captors sat stony-eyed and stony-faced – high Mayan noses prominent on their sweaty little faces...

Then one day we took a plane for Merida – way over on the Gulf of Mexico. There we rented another car – an old Volkswagen beetle in fact – and drove to a resort we had booked at the site of Uxmal ("The Temple of the Wizard") in the heart of the Yucatan. This resort was like a fortress: at sundown, everyone had to be inside till sunup. The big wooden doors were shut and barricaded with big cross timbers... It seems banditos, cougars ("El Tigre"), and other undesireables were abroad in the land at night. Since we were right across from the Temple (pyramid) itself, I was determined to "get out" after dark and climb part way up it – so I could say I climbed a Mayan temple in the moonlight, I guess... (Mighty Solomon has said , has he not – that "No man is wise at all hours.") Anyhow this I did by dropping out our window and down only a few feet to the ground. I made it across the dirt road to the Temple... and was part way up the steep sides, when two things happened: the watchman's dog ("perro" – LOL!) heard me or something and began to yap off somewhere to my left. And I was hit by a terrrible case of "la tourista" (diarhhea).

Now there was a predicament for sure – and we don't need further details believe me – but how I got back down in the dark, and back to the fortress, and in at my chamber window again – and never even wakened the watchman (I could hear his sleepy growls at his dog – but he never emerged onto the scene (fortunately) for the explanations all around would never have suffficed I am sure...

Next day, when the great door had been unbarricaded again, I was across the road and into the site once more. This is the site of one of the best preserved (snailshell) structures known among the Maya: they are sort of corkscrew masonry towers or temples with dome-like masonry tops... very much suggestive of use as onetime astronomical observatories – which seems well enough established (but naked-eye observatories only... as optics were unknown to the Mayans...). Absolutely no effort had been expended by the Government so far as I could see, to protect any of this area, and small ruins and structures lay everywhere about – one right across the road and back in the brush a way was a gorgeous little snow-white stone temple of some kind and it still had chunks of adhering white plaster on the walls and here and there the early makers had daubed full impressions of their palm prints in bright red paint on the plaster. You could see where people had even broken out bits and chunks of this decorated wall to carry away as souvenirs...I'll bet it is all gone now – long since, in fact.

One night we saw a memorable 'son et luminere' show right on the site of one of the biggest, finest temples. Very dramatic! We sat right before a largeChac Mool – he is the reclining deity you often see in sort of an awkward posture on his back with his head and legs raised rather stiffly, and a big flat bowl balanced on his belly. I think he is a Water Deity or Rain God of some kind, but can't quite remember. We visited Chichen-Itza and saw where the serpent shadow ripples down the stairway. We climbed to the top of several pyramids and looked a long way out over the green jungley barrens of the Yucatan in this more northern portion.

One day we decided to try and find a potter whom we had heard of, who made fine copies of the ancient vessels, fired in the same fashion and painted with the same organic dyes and paints as the originals... right in her house (or "Nah", as they are called). With only the sketchiest of instructions, we set off in the VW Bug down this dirt road. Eventually we found her place and went in. Mon Dieu! The family's pigs lived right cheek by jowl with them indoors, and it was really indescribable! But we got a buy on two nice pots and I have them still... But now the adventure began: when we went out to start the car, it was stuck in Second and I could not get it free! Several curious passersby stopped to ogle us: cars were not commonplace in this village. I thought perhaps someone might be able "to help" – but one good look at the crowd dispelled that notion. They were short, muscular little people – Mayans right out of the past and off their temple walls – most wore sort of a loose fitting white pajama garb and were barefoot. One or two had old broken down bicycles. Several of the men carried old shotguns and all had machetes at their waist. One had a dead monkey or part of a tapir's body over his shoulder – I can't remember just which – but they were a "rum looking lot" from which to expect any automotive assistance! LOL!

They just stared impassively at us with their coal-black, pupil-less eyes...

I managed to start the car in gear and away we went. In Second! We had maybe 20 or 30 miles to go I guess – and we drove the entire distance in Second. Most unbelievable of all is that we got back just at sundown (there was even then activity at the wooden doors and people hurrying to and fro). I coasted right up to the outer wall of the "fortress" and would you believe it? – the VW died right there on the spot! It nudged right into the wall itself, gently, and that was that! Wow!

We tucked in for the night (the food here was great – served by the little short Mayans whose heads often did not come up as high as mine even when I was seated at table!) I remember this occasioned one joke: we were sitting with a visiting bunch of "old maid" American schoolteachers one evening (newly arrived) and one of their number was greatly concerned about whether it was safe to "drink the water" being served here. At which point, I leaned over and said to her, "Madam! Take care... these native people here actually grow over 6 feet tall in other parts of the country. But you see this little fellow here – turning and indicating a maybe 4'8" Mayan serving boy nearby – you see, Ma'am, he has been drinking this water all his life, you see – and that is what has stunted his growth!" I got my sought-for laugh – but noted later that several of the school teacher contingent did not quench their thirst that night... LOL!

The next morning I was down bright and early at the desk. I wanted to order up a mechanic – whatever – from the car rental service to come out and get the VW running again.

This took forever to get the desk clerk to understand - but finally he beckoned and he and I went into the back room where he had a shortwave radio. After many a false start and "mucho" confusion – we got a "message" off to Merida, and the car rental outfit and they confirmed that one "Pepe" was being dispatched forthwith with a new shift stick (I forgot to note that the night before as I had shut down, the gear shift lever had actually come right off the floor into my hand!). It was said Pepe would be here before noon....

Shortly after breakfast, I repaired to the "patio" under a big old Sapodilla tree, and since it was already quite warm, ordered up a cold Cerviza. And so I dozed and nodded – and smoked a big old cigarillo –and about ten o'clock or so invited the desk clerk to join me – which he did – and he and I polished off a couple more Cervizas. The morning dragged on.

No Pepe.

I woke with a jerk. The sun was farther off to the west than before – and..... still no Pepe. I went and found the Desk Clerk. "Where is Pepe?"

I will never forget his convoluted answer:

"Ahhh, Senor!" he began. "Pepe... Si! Pepe!" I said "Si! Si!" Pepe! Where in hell is Pepe?"

The clerk swept his arms wide... "Senor! These Jungle! The Yucatan..."

"Yes! Yes!," I said. The damnable Yucatan! What of it? Where in hell is Pepe?"?

The desk clerk looked at me in wonder.

"Senor!" he said, and pointed straight up to the zenith. The sky. The sun above. "Senor!" (This rather reproachfully uttered....). And then he rubbed his two eyes with his doubled up fists!

In a flash I had it! Jeesus! Siesta! Pepe had got a late start (everything in Mexico starts late...) and now was asleep beside the road in some Yucatan thicket somewhere - with my replacement car part It was Noon and all the Mehi-canos go to sleep for naps at that time and nothing gets done!
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Well, eventually (3:00pm maybe...?), Pepe DID arrive and he fixed the VW. Next day we drove back to Merida safe and sound. We went to a shirt-factory downtown (Mon Dieu! What a sweatshop!) and we bought a Guyaberra shirt for me. Damn! I liked that shirt! Dont' know where it has got off to.. but no matter. Probably wouldn't button up for me now anyhow....

Then we went to bigtime Mexican Restaurant. The works: Chicken mole', green sauce, chocolate sauce, whatever. Boiled monkey (well, maybe...)! Whatever turns you on. (This was no enchilada palace, I want you should know already!). Our last dinner in Mexico. Shared a table with a couple newly arrived from the States. Jittery! Nervous about La Tourista, etc. "Pshaw!" says I. "No problem! We been here two weeks – and look at us – we eat everything". We guided them through the meal. Nice time.

Next morning: the airport. Flying back to Nuevo York... Checking through the ticket line. Millie clears. Then this fat Federale asks for my "Passport." Would you believe I can't find it... No passport! Jeezul!

"Senor! This is very serious!" (Shit!) "You must come with me to 'E-mi-GRA-shun!' (The way he said it it, I didn't know if I was coming into Mexico – or leaving. Hopefully, the latter.). So get this now: Millie had been headed for the final counter where you have to pay a "boarding tax" of X-number of pesos – cash money - to the last outstretched hand – and she actually had the requisite number of pesos in her hand – held between her fingers, outstretched – for paying off both our boarding "taxes."

But the Federale had now got us both in tow and shepherded us into a separate room off to one side.

Here there was an even fatter Federale sitting behind a big desk and as we entered, somewhat confused, he rose immediately and stepped around his desk and with a quick swipe he swept the bills from between Millie's fingers into his fat paw, and at the same time said, "Senor! These things can be arranged!" LOL!

Then he sat down again and fussed with his papers a bit and then he said "It is okay now – You can both board for Nuevo New York!" And let us out a side door...

(Old Mexican hands will recognize, of course, "Morbida" – the "Bite". That, and Siesta is how it works in Mey-hi-co. Never let them in here wholesale! You heard from me first!)

Well it was a through flight and we settled in. Midway of the flight we both looked at each other kinda funny. Our stomachs were starting to gurgle and growl a bit. No problem. We made the airport okay and got on the limo up to Fairfield County. Got off at Westport and retrieved our car from a dusty lot. By now both of us were starting to have real cramps. We just managed to pull into the driveway – fumble with the keys – got the door open - and we both streaked for different bathrooms: La Tourista and the Mexican Revenge were claiming their due: you never escape! This was "Morbida" with a real bite! LOL!

I wonder if that young couple, following our lead, had similar experiences – but maybe I never really want to know! Anyhow, we were both in bed for a day and then – none the worse for wear.