Panga

Village pier, or muelle, is at center. The bow-anchored pangas always face windward,
to the open water in the afternoon, inland the rest of the time.

There is no road to this village from the outside, so watercraft called "pangas" are as ubiquitous as cars everywhere else. Almost everyone’s daily round here is propelled either by foot or panga, with enough going horseback to litter the cobblestones with more or less drying dung. 

The panga is a high-bowed, outboard-powered fishing boat. They run between 18 and 28 feet, and the engine of choice is a Yamaha 200, V6. The Yamaha brand is fitting since that company developed the design of the boat as part of a World Bank project in the 70s. They are common in the developing world, and as a sidenote, are the vessel of choice for Somali pirates.

Acrobatic souls, disembarking at the playa, 
from a panga

In our little cove there are usually a few daytrippers in yachts from Vallarta, a sailboat or two from further ports, but the rest of the up to thirty or so craft are pangas belonging to the locals, and used mostly for fishing and transport, or just as a simple runabout.

Fishing is the traditional livelihood of the people living around this cove. Today, though, most of the wealth comes from tourists, trickling down through the family-owned rooms for rent, restaurants and tiendas. All of the people and 95% of the goods that power this economy come by panga.

Everything from toilet paper and beer to people come and go
from the muelle.

A dozen water taxis ply the water route between here and Puerto Vallarta, each several times a day. They are also all pangas, and unless they are pulling up to the playa to let their hardy passengers pop off the bow and into the surf, they come and go from the muelle, or pier, just below our balcony.

What more, and what more varied activity, could two people-watchers want?

La Gorgonia

La Farmacia used to be just before the stairs; it's now se renta. 

Between bouts of relaxation, the only thing I had on my calendar yesterday was to find something that would tame this cough enough to allow me some sleep. Last year there had been a pharmacy on the main cobblestone path through the village, by where the Garcias live, up above the rocks at the shore. I decided to try there. 

But there was no sign of a pharmacy at that location. I wasn't surprised; small family enterprises around here come and go all the time. One of the pleasant diversions of being a regular visitor here is speculating about the evolving economic scene.

I questioned a young couple who might have been Mexican, but were tourists, and they didn’t know if la farmacia had relocated. A little further up the trail, I met a village matron and asked her the same question with my passable Spanish. 

The trouble is, you can rehearse what you want to say, as I did, but you’re out there without a net when it comes to the answer. Rapid diction and even a few unknown words can throw my comprehension all to shit.

From this lady about all I understood was that there was a place called La Gorgonia, somewhere near the iglesia--church--that would satisfy my need for “algo para la tos.”

As I walked back along the path below El Cerrito--a new restaurant that's supposed to be good, but is too expensive to make regular--I remembered the place to which I’d been directed. 

Two years ago, I banged up my shin when I slipped getting onto a panga. It was real bad, swollen, sore and darkly bruised. Someone, probably Solana, told us about a friendly, wizened old woman who ran a little storefront in a niche behind a flowering arbor. You sidled up to what looked like a takeout window, only ancient, and described what was ailing you. She was something of a curandera and would have just the thing.

I went there and come away with a branch of arnica and a small bag of camphor, along with mimed instructions to grind, mix, and apply with oil. I felt better immediately.

This time Gorgonia prescribed something much less organic. Its active ingredient is similar to codeine and it came in a box. She cut out two blister packs and priced them together at 15 pesos, just over a dollar. "Take with water, just before bed," is what I understood.

It worked pretty well. I woke up a lot during the night, but was able to quickly get back to sleep. One thing about all this puzzles me though. I remember that "gorgon" comes from Greek myth and is some kind of evil woman. La Gorgonia didn't strike me that way in the least. Doing a little research I discovered that the face of a gorgon was also supposed to repel the evil eye, and her blood to have healing powers.

Maybe, after using a dictionary and rehearsing, I'll ask her about all that. But if the past is a guide I doubt I'll understand much of the answer.

Ants, and the Cough, Abide

Our first year here in Yelapa we rediscovered the remarkable work ethic of ants. A moth the size of a quarter had died and fallen to the floor right outside our baño. A line of tiny ants immediately formed to the dead body. The line followed the grout in the tile floor--left turn/right turn in the shortest path from the nearest wall, and along the base of the wall from a hole made to accommodate a water pipe, ants coming to and fro, each carrying their allotted portion of the moth, or returning for more.

In four days all sign of the moth was gone.

We were given another demonstration of this industry beginning the night before last. A much smaller moth had died on our kitchen counter. The now predictable line of tiny ants formed, and their labor continued until the only thing remaining of the moth was a bit of the dark film of its wing.

This took a little over 24 hours.

After four hours, the ginger is reduced 20%

So inspired, my scientifically-minded spouse has begun an experiment comparing the amount of time it will take this Lilliputian legion to demolish different foodstuffs of about the same size. The first item she tried was a small cube of candied ginger.  

After four hours, about mid-afternoon, I took a picture showing that the shape of the little chewy chunk is no longer distinguishable. The next--this--morning, all sign was gone.

There’s a raisin on the counter now. After that will be a chip of chocolate from our almost depleted airplane snack bag. After that, who knows? I will report the results.

As a side note, I consider this to be interesting kitchen science but not good hygiene. “You’ll just attract more ants,” is what I say. My serene spouse insists that it will localize the ants and keep them satisfied so they don’t send sorties all over our counter.

* * *

The cough [lah TOHS] abides. Up many hours during the night, wandering out our open french doors to the patio. Warm and still now that the early evening breeze has died down. Just the sloshing sound of surf, muttering and occasional bursts of laughter from a clutch of young people who always seem to be up late, hanging at the end of the pier just below us.

Stars are spread all across the clear and moonless sky. Cassiopeia seems to stay in the same place, to the north, but its W-shape rotates some 90 degrees counterclockwise between 1 and 5 AM. The Pleiades move from east to west, leading Orion, and there seems to be some heat lightning above the rim of the ridge on the other side of the cove. Peaceful, but the cough is persistent.

Feliz Año Nuevo

Dusk, New Years Day, Yelapa

Last night we arrived in the tiny Mexican fishing village where we've vacationed every winter the past six years. We were met at the pier with hugs (uh-BRA-sohs) and a friendly “Bienvenidos” from Ana Rosa, our landlady. Cipriano, trabajador around town and ad hoc bell-hop helped my happy wife off the bobbing boat and wrestled three bags up to our penthouse.  Ronco, Ana Rosa’s usually reticent husband, shook my hand and greeted me with a smiling “Hola, amigo.” We were touched by everyone’s friendliness.

But I was knackered--we both were, but me, especially. I had been up half the previous night with a sinus cough, and hell, we’d arisen at o'dark hundred to a cold and foggy morn, spent an hour on airport shuttle, four plus on the plane, custom lines, land taxi through packed, humid Puerto Vallarta streets, and half an hour in a crowded water taxi bouncing twenty miles across the bay.

Narrow alley with Pollo Bollo at end

We were beat and hungry so enlisted Solana, our ex-pat friend, to squeeze with us through the alley up to Pollo Bollo for fish dinner. She caught us up with the local gossip and we brought each other up to date with what was happening in our own lives. Between visits back home to Portland and Texas, she is now dividing her time equally between here and a studio in the large Anglo community around Lake Chapala.

The view from recovery

Last night was again tough but I’m recovering today. The sun (good old vitamin D) is gloriously hot and there’s a cool breeze through our rooms. I’m sitting on the divan, leaning out the window overlooked by many pelicans and one parasailer wheeling around your classic cerulean sky. Waves slap the shore below. A radio plays Cuban music, coconut palms sway, and a Corona is at hand. Heaven, with a cough.

Holey Moley

"Put on your oxygen mask first..."

It's like when you're about to take off in an airplane, the part where the stewardess gives you those counter-intuitive instructions about putting on your own oxygen mask before helping your gasping child. That's what this situation reminded me of. I was pleased with the analogy, and gratified for the guidance.

I was about to prepare a wine spritzer for my thirsty spouse, and I'd just gotten a beer for myself. I was faced with the dilemma of what I should do first, open the IPA, or uncork the Pinot Gri. That's when my questing mind remembered that aeronautical lesson so many of us simply let pass through one ear and out the other. But with enough repetition, the lesson sticks. The answer in this case was obvious: pop open the pale ale. "You can't help others when you are in need yourself" is the takeaway here.

It must be the free time afforded by retirement that lets me philosophize like this, and I'm grateful. The little wheel around which my mind turns these days seems circumscribed by only a few essential things: loving family, supporting friends, keeping healthy and happy, and dealing with those pesky moles.

One of four hills made by moles last night

Yesterday, I counted 21 mounds of newly turned mole earth in our lumpy courtyard lawn. Of course, that was accumulated over the span of six days, but still.

I imagine that this travesty weighs somewhat upon the souls of our apartments' other tenants, but my tolerance is demonstrably less than theirs. About once a week I take a flat-bottomed shovel and with a quick scoop I pick up most of the fresh dirt at each mound and toss it under the rhodies. A few flicks with a broom and all sign is gone of those weird little critters that I hope I never see, with their creepy pink fleshy snouts wiggling sensuously. Seriously yuck.

No offense, though, Moles. Really...

Which charitable afterthought leads fittingly to a deeper contemplation; I think it might be from The Bible*: "As above, so below." Hmmmm.


*Actually, my research tells me it's one of those Hermetic, Theosophic, Masonic kinds of things.