​Eat, Prey, Surf... Drive!

Hola mis lectores preciosos!

February is waning which, for our nuclear familial quartet, means birthday celebrations: Ollie’s just shared with George Washington and AJ’s soon to be between the Ides and St. Patrick’s. For some of you it’s Carnival time, the approach of Lent, the dimly visible promise of Spring re-birth; but for most of the sentient world in this quarter century year, I imagine the shortest month seems simply never-ending as the relentless un-making of the American republic continues to rise in our consciousness like the threateningly filthy waters of Katrina after the storm had long passed. When will it start to recede, how daunting the clean-up, and what to re-build and what to abandon? In any case there has been, is now and will remain anxiety.

So before I surf into the actual theme of this post, a typically overwrought appreciation of our much anticipated automotive trek to the Pacific coast of Mexico this past week, I thought perhaps first a lame meditation on fear would be apt.

We, or should I say La Sombra (nee Jackie Jean Carroll), hatched the idea of a return trip to the fabulously chill Pacific beach spot of Troncones in the state of Guerrero soon after we flew there for a fab seashore getaway via Queretaro to Zihuatanejo last March. She solidified the plans last November by enlisting our intrepid travel, art, design and surf-loving besties from Sag Harbor to join us in a penthouse beach rental called Nerea on the north edge of Troncones for four days. This time, however, we’d drive the six to seven hours from San Miguel to the Pacific coast via Michoacan.
The idea of driving across central Mexico and back was both exciting and anxiety provoking. Exciting because we got to experience the quite frankly exhilarating topography of the beginnings of the southern Sierras up close, not to mention the freedom of not being a slave to the airlines.  Anxiety-making because the US State Dept probably has a warning about traveling to Michoacan and Guerrero at all, much less by car. Hell, there’s one for here in Guanajuato, I’m sure. And there’s always tales of road trips interrupted with shakedowns by local cops, deadly blunders onto a cartel’s mountain meth lab and, of course, the standard ole banditti kidnappings. Suffice it to say, then, we spent a great deal of time an energy making sure our drive route was meticulously planned. We even bought a dash-cam! In fact in the months and weeks prior to our pleasure jaunt to the beach, the anxiety almost overcame the joy of anticipating the exploration of more of this amazing place we’ve made our sometime homeland. Why was that?

It got me thinking about the power of fear in the human psyche. I read a piece not long ago about what I guess is paleontological anthropology. From the time of Darwin, evidently, the idea of natural selection when applied to humans suggested to our nineteenth century logic that we must be a species of predators and thus when psychology came around it merely picked-up that idea to explain our motivations for aggression and to excuse and eventually celebrate our thirst for superiority over nature and each other. But actually, if you study the components of the human body in terms of natural selection vs the rest of the animal world, it becomes painfully obvious that we are prey not predator. Our slight bodies, veggie chomping teeth, unclawed extremeties, long-distance running, home-building wariness. And as a species of prey, it is fear that motivates us not predation. It explains both what has happened in our present political sitch and why the most pleasurable experience of our amazing trek to the beach has been in recalling it! We managed to outsmart those predators always lurking!

OK, enough, enough epiphanizing on fear, how about that long beach run!?

Spoiler alert: The drive, while long and sometimes video-game like* when engaging in the Mexican highway protocol of passing any vehicle at any time no matter the number of lanes, existence of and/or width of shoulder, incline, acuteness of curve or number, size and/or visibility of what’s in the other lane, was breathtakingly beautiful and incident, difficulty, and kidnapping free! Both ways!
*Occasionally, you just have to pull out into that blind mountain curve and pass that struggling double length trailer hauling tariff-heavy steel trusting that the double length trailer hauling soon-to-be $50 avocados in the other direction will find enough of a shoulder to let you live to tackle level three!

I did unintentionally try to screw the pooch even before we began, however, by giving myself food poisoning the night before we hit the road. The lucky result was that Jackie did a bunch of the driving which probably saved both our lives. The plan was to drive about 2.5 hours on Sunday from San Miguel to Morelia, the vibrant colonial capitol of Michoacan which we had visited before, spend the night at an Airbnb in its Historico Centro, then head the 4.5 hours to Troncones on Monday, arriving at our beachfront penthouse in time to meet Doug and Victoria there. They were flying into Zihuatanejo from JFK and cabbing it north to our spot on La Majahua shoreline. Except for the fact that my previous poisoning precluded my exploring any of Morelia on Sunday*, the plan worked as hoped. *While I nursed several bottles of Electolytes and a platano tabasco in Morelia, Jackie visited the recently unveiled and renovated ant-fascist mural painted by two San Francisco WPA artists in 1934. See pix above.

Our third floor apt at Nerea had a huge thatched roofed living room with panoramic views of the ocean, stunning and affordable with a communal pool and service folk always on hand. Our companions were as agreeable as the weather on the mid-southern Pacific Coast of Mexico in February, very warm, ideal. The beaches are many, lovely and mostly empty, strewn with black volcanic basalt and sometimes hiding sea urchins. For any east coast beach goers, the surf on most is mild and delightful for active swimming cum body surfing. The big plus however is the real surfing spots from Troncones to La Saladita and our lifelong surfer, Doug took full advantage with the help of some local guides.
While the area is refreshingly and decidedly undisco, chill, minimal, and totally unpretentious, it has been discovered by gringos. They’re mostly low-key (Canadians) and superannuated surfers.

The food is seafood, fresh, simply prepared local seafood, Huachinango (red-snapper), Langosto (lobster), and plenty of Camarones (shrimp). Our fav eating establishments this week were Un Pedacito de Cielo, the restaurant at the very design-forward Lo Sereno Hotel (ate there twice) and Restaurante Brisas. Except for the hotel, they and others our measly four days didn’t allow us to sample are all right on the beach. Suffice it to say that we had such a nice time that we’re already planning next year’s visit, perhaps even bringing some family. Ping me if you’re interested .

For the final leg home to San Miguel, Jackie booked us into a little jewel of a hotel Casa Encantada in the stunning historico centro of the artsy lakeside Michoacan city of Pátzcuaro about 3.5 hours from Troncones. The town is worth a visit on its own as its chockablock with art and crafts and within striking distance of other maker-towns in the state such as Santa Clara de Cobre, the center for all things Copper which we visited last year.

Thus on Saturday late morning we pointed our Naranja Nissan Kicks outfitted with the unnecessary dash-cam back towards San Miguel de Allende  where we arrived virtually unscathed and a tiny bit tan 3.5 hours later. Lessons learned? Have plenty of effectivo (cash) for tolls as you definitely want to stick to the mostly impressive interstate-like toll roads as the tolls come often and heavy. Get gas when you can and always use effectivo if you can (sometimes tarjetas de credito can be grifted). Embrace the gorgeous mountain vistas, damned lakes, and amazing blue Mexican skies even when you’re passing that chicken truck on the shoulder or creeping over yet another tope (ubiquitous speed bump).
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Most of all recognize we’re driven by fear, it’s biological, just stare it in its red-capped eyes and vow not to let it degenerate your morals or ruin your vacations.