We've been spending some time in the southern part of the country and experienced two different spots that could truly be called fantasy land.
One, of course, is Las Vegas. It's the first time I've ever been there and I was interested to take a look. Of course it's huge and we only had time to discover a couple of things in the one night we were there. The first was Freeman Street, a three-block long pedestrian walkway covered by a curved roof. We were drawn in by the bustle and the neon lights of the casinos and restaurants that line it. Then as we walked along, the lights blinked off and music blasted out (Don MacLean singing American Pie) and the curved roof turned into a three-block long music video. Time stopped, people stared up and sang along until the song ended.
Apparently this happens several times an hour.
Then we took a bus down to The Strip admiring the lights in the darkness. We got off at a stop and stumbled into a big casino complex called the Venetian (the photo at the top is one of the lobbies).
Image our surprise when we came up a long escalator to find ourselves in Venice at sunset.
It's like being on the Grand Canal (sort of). The ceiling is a curved dome with an amazing image of the sunset sky set behind the ersatz Venetian buildings. Among the upscale stores there are restaurants as well. We sat beside the canal and had a bite to eat while watching the gondoliers take their gondolas under the Bridge of Sighs. (Still at sunset. It's sunset there forever!)
We saw several wedding parties celebrating here. It's the ultimate fantasy for some. Kind of like Disneyland for grown-ups.
The second fantasy was a visit to Paolo Soleri's home and bell workshop in Scottsdale. I'll tell you about Cosanti tomorrow as I think it deserves a post of its own.
Tonight we're holed up at the Motel 6 in Ontario, Oregon eating leftover Mexican food and watching the weather channel. Happy Easter.
After living for four months in Mexico our feelings about it
have changed somewhat. When we first visited Mexico over 25 years ago we were
enchanted by the tropical ambience, the Spanish architecture, the crafts and
traditional clothing, the delicious food and of course the different language and
culture. The people we met were warm and friendly, the weather was great—and it
was all so cheap compared to Canadian prices.
For us, these charming things overshadowed some of the other
aspects of the country (like the garbage, the graft and the poverty) especially
on our shorter visits. But this
year after spending four months in Mexico we’re finding that the things we
overlooked are becoming more obvious, and even the things we used to find
charming are now becoming irritants.
And example of this is the response you get if you ask for
directions of someone on the street.
A Mexican man will never admit he doesn’t know the answer to your
question, so he’ll give you some vague instructions that could be sending you
in the completely wrong direction. Then he’ll shake your hand courteously as
you leave.
As we learned more of the language and culture this year, we
kept coming up against more of these kinds of wrinkles. We studied Spanish fairly seriously and
made some progress—actually moving out of the present tense. But it become clear that many years of
study would be needed before we’d be able to carry on any kind of relaxed
sharing of ideas with Mexican people.
We had to carry on all of the day-to-day business of life in fractured Spanish
that rife with misunderstandings.
Even a simple encounter in a store could leave us feeling like idiots.
We’ve now been out of Mexico and back in an English-speaking
environment for a few days now and we’re both feeling so much more
relaxed. We’re enjoying the easier
driving and the ability to read the signs and understand what people around us
are saying. But what I find most
relaxing is being in a familiar culture.
I think that stress builds over the time that I’m in a place where I’m
not familiar with unspoken expectations and can’t read the subtle cues that let
me know things are going smoothly.
Too often encounters in Mexico feel choppy and unsettled.
All of this is to say that we are not sure if we want to
spend another winter there. Mexico
is such a different country than Canada or the USA. There’s a huge poverty gap and very few social services, the
government is corrupt, the police routinely take bribes, and there’s a
pervasive macho attitude that demeans women. Of course we knew all this before we came to Mexico—and we
were prepared to live with it. But
the increasing violence taking place in Mazatlan and other nearby areas since
January has taken a toll of our equanimity.
It seems there is a battle going on between the government and one or more drug
cartels. The narcos are terrorizing
their opponents with machine guns and grenades. Since the beginning of the year there have been more than 40
murders in and around Mazatlan.
One was the tourism minister for Sinaloa and his bodyguard. Several
murders were of policeman, some of whom were beheaded! And other attacks have resulted in
innocent bystanders being killed.
As well there are groups of bandits who may or may not be part of
things, but who stop cars on back roads with guns and take the vehicles. Just recently a group Mexicans on a
main road refused to stop for these thugs and six were killed, including
children as young as eight.
Residents of Mazatlan are terrified. Rumours abound about what terrible
thing will happen next, and those who can are making plans to leave. Our Spanish teacher is worried that her
teenaged sons will stumble onto something when they’re out and about with their friends. Her family is considering leaving
Mexico altogether.
Mexico is no longer a nice place to live. Nobody likes the situation but violence
appears to be unstoppable and, in fact, escalating. As more police are killed, many officers are resigning,
leaving things even less secure.
The police who remain are terrified and often wear masks for fear of
retaliations to their family. More and more soldiers are coming into town and
it had begun to feel like a war zone with trucks driving around carrying
uniformed men with machine guns at the ready
For us the tipping point came with the shooting of the two
police officers in our little neighbourhood. We were so relieved to get safely out of the country. It’s a very sad thing for Mexico. So many good people there are innocent
victims of this drug war and there doesn’t seem to be an easy fix.
We’re now uncomfortable being tourists in this country in
crisis. Mexico relies heavily on
tourism dollars and many are suffering already from the economic downturn and
few people have the resources to leave like my Spanish teacher. This country is in a sad, sad
situation. But we don’t want to
spend time in such a dysfunctional country. Maybe things will settle down over the next year or so. We’ll wait and see.
I'll update you on our trip soon. We've been discovering some interesting areas of Arizona and tonight we're in Las Vegas. I've never been here so we'll head out to see what's on the strip.
Until this morning I'd never even heard of Globe, but we've been in touch with our road buddies Ches and Allison and they suggested we meet here as it's on their way east and on our way west. Globe lies in the middle of Arizona's Cobre Valley, home to some large copper mines. The town is old, dating back to the 1850s, and it has a small but interesting historic center. It's one of those towns that feels like it's from another decade, although I'm not sure which one...
It seems to be quite a vibrant community with an active arts group that has restored the old courthouse for a gallery, workshops and a drama group.
This is the interior of the building with a copper railing on the main staircase.
And this is a painting of prickly pear cactus by one of the local artists, which I greatly admire for its treatment of light and shadow.
We found a little park on top of a hill with a museum showing restored ruins of a pueblo dating back to the 14th century. These places seem to be dotted all over the map in the Sonora Desert.
It's off to bed now after a meal at a good Mexican restaurant. (These also are dotted all over the map.)
Tomorrow we're thinking we'll have to head north and are hoping that the massive cold front will soon leave the western states. But Globe was an interesting side trip for sure.
On our way up to Tucson yesterday we stopped at the old Tumacacori Mission. This is a lovely spot that was built and sustained by Jesuits and later the Franciscan monks over a period of 150 years. It's a walled compound with an adobe church that was never actually finished. I'm not going to go into any more history here. I'll just give you some of the beautiful images we saw.
Well we didn't make it to Tucson last night but we did make it over the border at about 6:00 after a grueling four-hour wait smothered by diesel fumes from three lanes of trucks. The trip from San Carlos was uneventful. We surrendered our visas and car importation permit and entered the no mans land they call fiscal corridor between Mexico and the USA. It runs through a weird terrain of rolling hills, steep banks on each side. Eventually we were directed in the fast lane for cars and campers heading to the USA--but it was far from fast. We couldn't see to the front of the line because of the hills and curves.
So we had no idea that there was about a kilometer of cars ahead of us. We traveled that distance 100 feet at a time with waits of ten or so minutes in between.
In true Mexican style the lineup was entertained by the hawkers selling everything from toy guitars and mops to sugary snacks and paintings on plastic of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It turns out that we got caught in the Semana Santa traffic. Lots of people heading north to spend the week before Easter with relatives in the States. We thought we'd miss it by leaving Friday but we didn't. It's ironic that the time we spent in the lineup at the border was about as long as the plane trip from Mazatlan to Canada. Once we got to the wicket it was just the usual few questions and we were through.
This morning we left Nogales after stocking up on a few things we'll need for the road. We're sitting in a little cafe in Tubac enjoying a brunch. Outside it's sunny with a little breeze blowing across the desert--really quite lovely. We were ready to leave Mexico after four months and it's relaxing to be in the more familiar culture of the USA. Ahead of us now we have ten days before we can get back into our house. So we'll do a little exploring along the way.
We left early yesterday morning with breakfast and lunch in the cooler and drove straight up the autopista to Culiacan, then on through Ciudad Obregon and across into Sonora. At the border between Sinaloa and Sonora there were probably fifty or more police and soldiers with trucks and machine guns--a big show of force. We were waved through with a smile.
Last night we stayed in San Carlos and now it's about a four hour drive to the border. We should be in Tucson tonight.
