Semana Santa at the beach

Semana Santa at the beach means staying at home and getting drunk for me. For one thing, I don’t want to hit someone on the open road, and for another, I don’t like crowds. But most importantly, I bask in those times when most of the free-loading gringos that had taken advantage of my humble casita are gone and it’s just me alone with my Oso Negro.

By Thursday, the highway on the coast was beginning to resemble the road to the dump with every type of garbage known to man strewn along the road.

All the small abarrotes were crowded with more shoppers than during Navidad, so I darted in just for the bare necessities, 2 liters of Oso Negro vodka, 3 cartoons of Boots and a few cans of frijoles charros and some Pinguinos for tomorrow’s breakfast. Next stop, the botanero down in the barrio. They were cooking up some much-promised grease-oozing tortitas de papas.

Friday morning I start out, appropriately dressed in my LL Bean chinos with a smart Land’s End polo, with a jaunt to the mini-super for some toilet paper, (the tortas were kicking in), but somehow I found myself sidetracked by some “compas” that were drinking cagaumas on the corner. Oh well, the last tour bus of chilangos had left enough toilet paper laying in front of the house I’ll be able to find a few usable squares if it becomes critical. So I sat down to a breakfast of warm Modelo and freshly squeezed lime juice.

Friday afternoon I turned down an invitation to Pepe’s house for comida, the vodka was playing enough havoc on my gut. His vieja, Lupe, who cooked at the botanero for years, is a reigning ruiness of fine cooking, her specialty being manteca drenched enchiladas with just the right amount of ptomaine. So instead I opened another can of beans and heated up a few moldy tortillas (hechas a mano, por supuesto) from some forgotten repast ! Dessert was the last of the Pinguinos.

Feeling energized by the sugar rush of the Pinguinos I decided on a walk to the beach , I meet up with the Procession of the Oblivious. The ‘hood had been a dead zone, just the usual strains of ranchera music. Now at least two thousand mortals carrying ice chests and blasting boom boxes, marched, well, in complete chaos, dodging the cars of a few idiots who were determined to find a parking spot closer to the beach . Now, some of those walking along were locals whom I recognized and sort of expected, but along with them were a few cholos, scores of screaming babies, and several drag queens. In a strange way, they were part of the community for this small slice of time.

Well I soon found out this was not the time to be working on my tan. It took me nearly an hour to fight my way back home against this horde of humanity, something that on a normal day takes all of a couple of minutes. On the way home I stopped to restock the liquor cabinet. Wrong! Not a bottle of Oso Negro left on the shelf of Santiago’s licoreria!! And he had marked up the Absolut to 450 pesos! The thieving #$%$@ !! After all the business I give this guy throughout the year! So I settle for the last 6 bottles of Padre Kino and hope I can make them last until Monday.

Safely back at home I settle into the hamaca with a glass of Padre Kino, its intense aromas of lychee, mango, gooseberry, and passionfruit lead to crystal pure pear, lime and mango flavors with just a little characteristic grassiness. I slip a J.J.Cale cd into the stereo,

“Just below San Diego
Tijuana, land of broken dreams
Señoritas dancing in the moonlight
Flashing Spanish dark eyes to everyone, it seems
They say "Hey, gringo
Can you take us across the border
Just tell them I'm your daughter.”

I think I’ll use the rest of the weekend to polish my Spanish skills, the subjunctive can always use some work. I promise myself I’m spending next Semana Santa in a non-touristy burg like Ciudad Guzman!

That's a very long first post.

Not his first. Only under this name.

Trailrunner wrote:Not his first. Only under this name.

I give up,what was his other name?

There's only one person I can think of who would boldly occupy that much bandwidth. The style seems a little off, though. Maybe too much partying?

round of applause... What do you do for an encore???

Pretty much nailed it! This is someone that's been around awhile. Has a good grasp of the culture.

...and has been reading Bukowski.

That's it. Thanks for the Bukowski reference. It was nagging at me while I was reading it.

Doesn't read like a post. Reads like a chapter from somebody's retirement year memoirs.

pedro parodia from the old thorn tree,mexico branch??

It was a reply/parody to the "Jennifer Rose" question ....

What are you doing for Semana Santa? on Mexconnect.

Jennifer Rose...now there's a blast from the past that can put my teeth on edge.

This is a rather clever spoof - once a neophyte like me decodes it. Manteca is apparently 1 kilo of meat, 1 kilo of lard and/or butter, Ptomaine poisoning - you do not want.

The Padre Kino description is the giveaway, and priceless. I think people only buy it for the carafes, topped up from their gallon jugs.

Besides - how could anyone spend time at the beach without the mention of cerveza?

Sounded like something Fred.

CHILLIN wrote:

Besides - how could anyone spend time at the beach without the mention of cerveza?

Cerveza is mentioned twice. "caguamas on the corner" and "warm Modelo"

Caguamas are one liter bottles of beer. And Modelo is a brand of beer from the same brewery as Corona.

Semana Santa at the PLAYA LIMPIA

Melaque

Cancun has been windy but nice, it was crowded when we arrived on Saturday but people started leaving yesterday and more today, hopefully it will thin out this whole week.

It does sound a little like Fred.

Z

arbon wrote:It was a reply/parody to the "Jennifer Rose" question ....

What are you doing for Semana Santa? on Mexconnect.

Jennifer Rose said it was written/posted by "Brad Smith"

Zedinmexico wrote:It does sound a little like Fred.

Z

pedro parodia's style is not like fred's in the least. parodia did this sort of thing years ago on thorn tree. so it's either him or a copycat but not fred.