Muy Primitivo and Not

“Night of the Iguana”, the movie, was released 50 years ago. It was filmed near Puerto Vallarta, and the brouhaha surrounding its production is popularly credited with PV’s rapid growth to international vacation destination. For many subsequent years, the movie’s director, John Huston, had a retreat just up the coast from our own little village. 

JH at home

Huston’s pad at Las Caletas, and Yelapa, are both located on Cabo Corrientes, a cape that sticks out into the Pacific Ocean like a big fat thumb. Most of this huge area is one of only a handful of comunidads indigenas in the country, each with legal status like United States Indian reservations. One big difference: unlike in the US, the indigenous people here were never occupied by European conquistadors. Cortes came and then backed off. 

That was 500 years ago. The upshot of this history is that the land here has always been held collectively. 

There is no private ownership of land by anyone, even its indigenous residents, though it is possible for families to occupy and claim land by using or cultivating it, and then by buying and selling it. Outsiders, however, may not buy or claim any land here at all.*

You can imagine the crimp that’s put on development.

As with any long-inhabitated and isolated area, everyone in the Cabo is connected by maybe only 2 or 3 degrees of Kevin Tocino, at most. There are a half dozen prominent families to whom almost all of the habitantes are connected by blood or marriage, or at least claim tenuous relation. With Ana Rosa and Ronco you have a marriage between two branches of the same well-established clan.

Our gracious hosts had us down to dinner last night, making an affectionate big deal over us eating the same pescado I’d caught just that morning. Ana Rosa marinaded the bonito in white wine vinegar and lime, then poached it with tomatoes, onions and peppers. Magnífico! 

Chillin' like a villain

She also told us stories about life here in the days when they were young and all the movie stars were just discovering sleepy little Puerto Vallarta. That’s when Ronco’s padre was making the day-long trip into PV by rowboat. The bouncing half-hour panga ride today may seem primitive by big city standards, but it’s a huge connectivity leap in fifty years.

Iggy Country

One thing that hasn’t changed since before Christ was a caballero is the primitive lizard that gave rise to Tennessee William’s play and John Huston’s movie. I’d never associated iguanas with their tree-dwelling habit, but there they were in all their scaly, weird-shit glory, this past sábado on my ramble al puente. One of the many friendly locals pointed them out to me and explained that their favorite árbol is the copiously--hazardously--thorned pochote tree. Look at those lizardy suckers--they’re BIG, make Godzilla look like some cheap knockoff! Muy primitivo.