Mexico - part I

It was a first time kind of thing. Almost accidental. We had been looking at going to British Columbia to do some camping, maybe some swimming in the Shuswap and some hiking in the mountains. But we saw an ad on the internet: return flights to Puerto Vallarta. Meals. Hotel stay. All along the beach. All for a price that made it clear going to Mexico would cost the same if not actually less than even a modest trip to our neighbouring province. How bananaphone is that?

This was a first trip for me. I'd never been before. I'd seen Mexico from the States side before, poking up here and there on the southwestern horizon, looking all deserty and sun-scrubbed. But I'd never crossed over. I'd always thought the line-up for US immigration would make it not worthwhile for a casual trip. Back in Canada I'd regretted not making the time. And it's strange when you finally get a chance to do something you've regretted never doing before. It shakes the dust up and reminds you that sometimes what may seem written in ink may actually be the graphite of pencil.

We flew directly from Canada passing over the United States. When we were physically over Mexico it seemed somehow obvious. The Sonora Desert seemed to reach for an inhospitable forever. From 30,000 feet it looked like the surface of Mars. It looked like the landscape of particularly brutal Cormac McCarthy book.

Soon the clouds were trying to eat up all the details of everything below. Where there were breaks in the clouds the atmosphere was just thick with Martian terracotta-coloured dust. So I sighed and closed the plastic window blind and watched the perfect and alienating beauty that is Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg (the trailer here. don't be scared. just click.) on those new weird micro-TV's they have built into the back of the headrests now.

After My Winnipeg and Nosferatu (both movies strange and heavy with suspense, surreal and shadowy and thick) the plane began its descent. Window went up. We were swooping in toward the aeropuerto with jungle-heavy mountains all around protruding from their blanketing clouds. Even a couple miles up it felt otherworldly. The mountains looked prehistoric. They looked utterly untouched by human industry nor desire. The impression of otherworldliness did not fully abate in the days to come.

The aerepuerto felt like an uneasy compromise between mountain and jungle with the latter seeming like it was crowding restlessly at the borders of the runway - like roused Tolkien ents might near an orc enclave.

A ridiculously heavy rain pounded the cracked runway asphalt. When the plane connected to the terminal and the door opened a blast of balmy humidity came through. That rain out there was warm rain. Standing-in-the-shower rain. July-in-the-tropics kinda rain.

"Neat," I thought and we went in to customs.

- Sincerely, Faust