"IT'S THE SALSA," says Bernie Diffin, accusing the brownish mass in the dish of causing a bout of Montezuma's revenge on an earlier trip.
"Salsa is your friend," I reply, basking in the afternoon sun striking our bench seat at a taco stand in Mexico's Puerto Peñasco. "It's the brown salsa (red-hot and full of disembodied pepper parts) that kills the alien bacteria and preserves your stomach," I theorize, submerging a cucumber slice into the spicy murk.
Short-term heavy doses, I explain, prevent everything from malaria to ennui, perhaps even universal entropy.
Unsatisfied, Bernie defers to the milder, and to my thinking potentially dangerous, condiments. We're among a group of seven gringos descended upon Puerto Peñasco, a.k.a. Rocky Point, in the brunt of summer.
We are the "quasi-men." Or so says the wife of one
of our members, accurately referring to a recent history of beer
drinking and unruly, juvenile behavior. We carry the name with
pride as we undertake a critical mission to propel the North American
Free Trade Agreement to levels heretofore unachieved. At this
point in time, we are operating as self-appointed Taco Inspectors.
The absence of the otherwise omnipresent Mexican street dog (Canus boulevardis mexicanus) in the vicinity immediately surrounding the taco stand causes some speculation. Whatever their constituent origins, it is agreed that these particular tacos rank foremost as the best damned tacos in the world.
But the time for tacos de Scooby Doo has passed. Our principal mission here is to ensure that the Pacifico and Tecate Beer distributors move enough cerveza in the summer slow season to sustain their workforce. Feeling our international duties calling us to action, we propel ourselves in the general misdirection of the Agencia Pacifico to offer our services. With only rudimentary communication skills, in either English or Spanish, we come to the unilateral decision that purchasing several cases of beer will go a long way to solidifying international relations.
A dream circulates in these parts. A dream that perhaps someday, in a more utopian time, a continuous line of Mexicans and Norte Americanos will form along our mutual border and simultaneously raise millions of beer bottles in an international toast of goodwill--a sort of Bottles Across America. In the meantime we continue our rigorous training.
"Tres cajas, señor," (three cases,
Bub).
Rocky Point has always been a base for international ideas. Its first hotel, Hotel Peñasco Marine Club, was built by John Stone, writes Mary Weil in The Rocky Point Gringo Guide. Stone was an idealist who sympathized with his fellow Americans enduring Prohibition in the 1920s. Stone (possibly with aid from his close friend and fellow humanitarian Al Capone) set out to right this wrong, building the hotel here in Mexico. Rumor has it that while not running this establishment, Stone & Co. navigated their boat back to America, laden with supplies to alleviate the suffering at the source.
Feeling in good historical company, we head toward Playa Las Conchas, a beach east of town dominated by gargantuan white villas. These haciendas humongous, with their winding staircases and multiple towers, would have brought a joyful tear to Capone's eye.
In the summertime, and really through most of the year, these desert palaces remain empty. The entire stretch has an exclusive ghost town-like charm.
As the temperature climbs higher, we move toward the sea, re-enacting the same journey our brother whales did when they opted for an oceanic existence. Having an equal appreciation for a liquid environment, and liquid meals, we stumble and lurch into the sea--seven pale apes of varying degrees of hairiness. Bottles in hand we bob around for hours like the ugly Americans we are. Ugly Americans, not because of any disrespect to Mexican culture or citizenry that we inflict, but because we are, in fact, ugly.
Eventually we wash ashore, rejected by the sea like a Bostonian would reject a bad taco.
In keeping with the Capone spirit, we round out the day gambling at the lovely seaside resort Hotel Viña del Mar. Here, in comparative tropical bliss, a lifetime's savings is tendered in the bar where Vegas-style bets generally yield little more than a worthless computer-imprinted stub. With odds on everything from baseball to the presidential election, betting on the boxer Vinny "The Pazmanian Devil" Pazienza somehow seems like a reasonable course of action at this time.
Gregory The Greek, a strange little man with a slick toupee, agrees. Gregory won $500 on the lottery in Phoenix and decided to come here and go through it as quickly as possible. We were happy to drink to his further good fortune as long as his new-found small fortune was paying.
"One...two...three...OPA!" he shouts.
"OPRAH!" we counter, raising our bottles in salute. What we lack in coherence, we make up for in volume.
The very excited Gregory then screams "Mario!...Mario!" summoning the waiter, whose name may or may not be Mario, for more drinks.
Let it be said here and now that putting money on a man who wears a satin hood with red horns coming out of it rarely evolves into a profitable venture. After Vinny gets the tar beat out of him, we shuffle off to the Pitahaya Bar to dance away the memory of the dollars that once graced our wallets.
Eventually, the semi-real world of the Baked Pueblo calls us back across the border. Even so, a couple cases of returnable bottles in the corner of the house patiently wait until the next time the sub-magnificent seven roll back into the breezy seaside Mecca of Puerto Peñasco.
Getting There: Drive west to Why, buy highly processed bags of food and turn south into Mexico. Follow Mexican Highway 8 right into town, where it turns into Boulevard Benito Juarez. If you follow this around the harbor, it eventually becomes Malecon Fondadores Street. Eventually you'll run into (unless you hit another car first) Viña del Mar.
To drive into Mexico you will need Mexican insurance, available in Tucson, at Why or at the border. Bring your passport, birth certificate or voter registration card to cross the border.
MAPAGE:
The Rocky Point Puerto Peñasco Souvenir Map, Poster & Guide $6.95 and The Rocky Point Gringo Guide $9.95. Each shows the layout of the town and have valuable travel information. Tucson Map and Flag carries both.
