Mexico Happy Go Local
Cabo San Lucas · Mexico · Same Hat, Different Day
The ElixirCabo-LG: Life Is Still Good
Dylan, ageing backwards, guacamole revelation, and the Pacific-side reminder that growing old is mandatory but growing up remains optional.
“There must be some kind of way out of here,” I wrote last year. Apparently not.
“Said the joker to the thief.” All Along the Watchtower has always carried Dylan’s audacity at manipulating chronological time. At the conclusion of the last verse, it is as if the song begins again and the power of myth returns.
My own ageing is regressive these days, not progressive. I am the Bob Dylan of the fifty-somethings. Growing old is not optional. Growing up is.
Watchtower Time
The Song Begins Again
Dylan, circular time, and the useful refusal to grow up on schedule.
All Along the Watchtower
A circular soundtrack for the idea that the last verse may simply be the beginning returning.
Today
Same Hat, Different Day
Cabo revisited, with college finally losing its claim as the longest vacation of my life.
I once thought college was the longest vacation of my life, but these “seamesters” make cold pizza seem overrated. Same hat, different day. I visited Cabo last September and wrote about it.
¿Hay alguien que hable inglés?
In Cabo San Lucas, English is a second language, but money is the first. There is none of that confusing “Starting Saturday, we will be closed Friday” kind of Spanglish. The locals speak clear English, and Cabo feels decidedly American.
Back in 1980, travelling outside the United States felt like disappearing from the world. Now, armed with a cell phone, laptop, and Wi-Fi—or depending on the place, an ISDN modem—I am as connected as I want to be, and so are the locals.
Mexico’s Pacific side reminds me of Los Angeles—the Valley, South Central, even the South Bay. It is another neighbourhood, only with more flavour.
LG · Life Is Good
Colonel Kurtz Meets Guacamole
Tequila, a straw cowboy hat, and culinary revelation on the Pacific side.
I embraced the local vibe with a Colonel Kurtz twist, drinking tequila and rocking a Hecho en México straw cowboy hat. The horror, the horror.
If fifty is the youth of old age, and Steffi Graf was right when she said food is the sex of old age, then analyse this: I had a guacamole-cheese-quesadilla gasm. In some parts of Mexico, I would already be married to that tortilla.
Man of Many Hats
Overdressed in Yourself
If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed. Case in point: me, wrapped in a Brazilian flag during Cabo’s sunny afternoons.
Turismo
Ancient, Eternal, and Still Connected
Retracing the route while discovering that the company changes the map.
I am retracing last year’s itinerary, but this time I am venturing beyond Puerto Vallarta. Sometimes it is not about where you go, but who you go with.
Mexico is ancient and eternal, telling its story in vibrant colours and slices of life. Even beneath my flip-flops, I can feel the earth’s rhythm. Today, surrounded by eager vendors and their offerings, I feel alive.
Now that I have left Alaskan weather behind, I can see clearly—no more rain, just sunshine. One nation, under Canada, above Mexico, and I am still an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriCAN’T.
Final Reflection
The Place Repeats. The Myth Begins Again.
Return travel is a useful trick of time. Cabo is familiar enough to expose the difference between who I was and who arrived this time. The scenery may repeat. The traveller keeps editing the ending.