Tampico, Plus One

Tampico, Plus One

Around February, I fired out the invite to many, many friends of mine to come visit me during their American spring break. I offered a free place to stay, guided tours of the city, a celebratory party, and a guaranteed good time. One high school friend, Chris Golden, who has always been the spontaneous, adventurous type, took me up on the offer, and the next thing I knew I was answering the door to first person that I didn’t have to explain and then justify my American lifestyle to I had seen since my arrival in Mexico, which was nice.

Chris is an Industrial Engineering student at The Georgia Institute of Technology, the alma mater of my father and bitter, hated rival of the University of Georgia. He has been a connoisseur of many things in the time that I have known him, ranging from running shoes to beer. He, in preparation for the trip, had recently delved into Tequila. It took less than five minutes for Chris to start asking me questions about top-shelf tequila – where to buy it, what to buy, how much it should cost, how he would get it back to the states, if he wanted one bottle, or two, or five – all of which I was hopelessly inept in answering. I told him that I prefer the 8 dollar kind. Fun fact: one cannot purchase Patron en Mexico.

The plan was for Chris to head in Friday, before the weekend, at which point we would travel to some place cool and exotic like a deserted Mexican beach so that Chris could have a normal college spring break filled with cool exotic beaches, alcohol, and women, and then head back to Monterrey where he and I would do all kinds of activities around the city before his departure on the following Saturday morning. We made it to the beach, we did some activities, and we definitely knocked out the alcohol requirement, but it was by no means easy.

There exists a mythical place on the Mexican coast called San Blas. In San Blas, there exists a mythical place called “Stoner’s Surf Camp”, which, by name alone, is most definitely somewhere that would be on a college student’s travel list, if not for any other reason than to buy a T-shirt. The plan was to head there for the free weekend when Chris arrived and tackle the aforementioned spring break requirements. According to the website (www.stonerssurfcamp.com), it was perfect – beachy, tropical, deserted, with cheap surfboards and free waves. I booked some bus tickets for an eight hour ride, a pair of which ran a quite economical twenty five dollars, and made a reservation at the surf camp. Plans were set. Sweet. Later in the week, I was talking with a Finnish friend of mine, Atte, and mentioned the trip, at which point Atte told me that he would love to join. I said the more the merrier, and sent him an email with the bus information in it so that he could get on the same vessel. Two nights before we were to leave, I get a phonecall from Atte:

Atte: Hey man, I have some questions about the bus?

Randall: Yea sure dude, what’s up?

Atte: San Blas is on the Pacific coast right?

Randall: Believe it, I’m excited.

Atte: Right. You know, these tickets are really cheap. And the bus ride is only 8 hours. It takes 16 to get to Mazatlán (a city on the same coast, but closer to Monterrey). I think you may have gotten tickets to a different San Blas.

Randall: (like a small child about to find out that Santa Claus is fictional. Responds with shaky voice). Atte…what are you saying?

Atte: Santa’s not real.

Randall: (unintelligible rant full of profanities). Click.

And so it was. I had purchased the wrong tickets. This ranks just above the rest of the dumb things that I have done in my life, including but not limited to, running straight into a brick wall, being a Georgia Tech fan during my adolescent years, and that time that I lit someone else’s hair on fire in middle school after which I promptly lit my own hair on fire to show that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

The next day, I took a bus down to the bus station and embarrassingly righted my wrongs. The new plan was to head to the city of Tampico – a slightly less cool, less deserted, less tropical, less wavy, but just as beachy beach on the Gulf Coast of México. I Googled the place, which seemed nice, kind of like a Destin or a Panama City but with less people. I must say, however, that if we’re being real here, all parties involved knew that it wasn’t going to be Stoner’s Surf Camp. But hey, in Mexico, a falta de pan, tortillas.

Chris and I made the trip to Tampico pretty smoothly. Upon our early morning arrival, as I was stepping off of the bus and taking in the surroundings, I couldn’t help thinking that had it not been for Atte and his Finnish intuitiveness, that I would, in that moment, have been stepping off of a bus and taking in my surroundings in the heartland of Mexico, quite far from any coast. The funniest part might have been that I may not have realized that I wasn’t at the coast until I hailed a taxi from the station and kindly asked him to take me to the beach. A big thank you to Atte for sparing me that experience.

Tampico

The first thing that I noticed about Tampico when we got in is that the weather was horrible. The forecast called for Friday showers, 50/50 good weather on Saturday, 70/30 good weather on Sunday, and 50/50 good weather Monday. It was cold and windy, with scattered rain and the occasional crack of thunder. We flagged down a taxi and asked to go to the beach. The taxi driver chuckled and motioned towards the weather but was met with our insistent American “we’re going to the beach no matter what” facial expressions, and eventually agreed.

To get there, we had to pass through the center of the city, which featured a nice square with a park and a Popeye’s Chicken location, as well as a large sign reading “Hotel: $150 Pesos”. I told Chris that the advertised room was sure to be pretty horrible, but he responded that he would settle for nothing different than a seedy hotel room on our frugal Mexican weekend trip. Great answer.

We arrived at the beach and were met with a billboard that featured a beautiful Mexican woman drinking a tropical drink while glistening elegantly in the Mexican rays on white, sun bleached sand. In contrast, the scene below the billboard featured a tundra-like environment with a cold howling wind, a frothy sea that was accented by a black flag meaning that under no circumstances should one enter the water, and sporadic precipitation. Not to mention zero beautiful women sunbathing. We got out of the cab and stood facing the sea; Chris in a Georgia Tech hooded sweatshirt and me in a Mexican flannel pullover, bags in hand, shivering, and trying not to think about the weather at Stoner’s Surf camp. Hours later, we decided that, while lounging on the beach in 60 degree rain can be fun, the day could be better spend seeing what there is to see in Tampico. Turns out, that’s not much. We verified the $150 peso pricetag on the seedy hotel and checked in, set our bags down, and headed out to explore. Of interest, there was a market complete with restaurants that provided delicious food at the lowest prices that I encountered in the whole of my Mexican stay, a small town square complete with Spanish style cathedral, and numerous corona sponsored signs announcing night life spots. The latter boded well for our meeting the ‘party like it is spring break’ requirement. There was a small internet café next to our hotel that I used for letting my parents know that I was alive, and Chris used to communicate briefly with his group members with whom he was building a computer database for a class at school. I stood by and played slime soccer online, feeling intelligent. We managed to stay entertained throughout the day, showered and dressed ourselves, then made further plans to grab a late dinner and investigate the nightlife.

Throughout our stay in Tampico, we noticed that there were absolutely no other tourists or Americans living in the city. Tampico is a blue collar working town epitomized by the large PEMEX oil refinery located on its outskirts. This became very apparent when we strolled confidently into the first bar of the night. We sat down in a room full of industrial looking men, ordered a beer, spoke English amongst ourselves, felt slightly un-comfortable, and then decided to look for a new bar. We repeated this process three or four times, and then moved again. Upon arrival at the new we were greeted a typical scene in which the bar was packed with the same type crowd as the others. It featured dim lighting and loud ranchero music, scantily clad women who by no means should ever dress in a scantily clad manner, drunken Mexican men and drunker Mexican men, bad dance steps, and lots of cheap beer. The place was packed. Each table appeared occupied by at least one person, everyone chatting amiably, some letting their interested eyes wander over towards Chris and me. Someone with the air of manager met us at the door and told us to follow him to a table. We took a stroll down the main aisle of the bar and discovered that there were no un-occupied tables. The manager, in a strategic business move aimed at not losing his only two American customers and their dollars, sat us at a table occupied by a semi-conscious, very intoxicated, and intriguingly alone Mexican man. In keeping with Chris’ good nature, and partly because I was myself very interested in the situation, we laughed and sat down.

I tried once to hail this man, but he was in a faraway place, so Chris and I continued to chat away in English. Looking around the bar, we saw many couples. Cute. But upon further observation, I saw that most of the men were old, fat, poorly dressed, and if you all don’t mind my saying, relatively un-attractive. The women, in contrast, were younger, better dressed, less fat but by no means skinny, and less un-attractive. When we were seated, the manager character asked, in a most nonchalant manner, “Can I get you hombres a beer? How about a woman?” I answered for both of us when I requested two beers, and then relayed to Chris that he had just asked if we wanted a woman. This experience, combined with my perception of the social dynamic present in the bar, made me realize that, in fact, these men were probably not smooth conversationalists who had attracted younger, better looking women with their witticisms and cunning.

After scanning the room for a while, everything now making sense, my attention again turned to our friend sitting at the table. He was still unconscious for the most part, resting precariously with the top of his head pressed back against the wall and mouth wide open facing the ceiling. Our compañero would shift occasionally, murmur a word or two, and then slink back to a peaceful state of repose against the wall. We had just seen the occasional murmur part of the process when Chris and I noticed a cockroach on the wall behind the man. The cockroach followed a downward trajectory and disappeared behind the man’s back. I looked at Chris and chuckled. Then the cockroach reappeared on the crest of the man’s shoulder. I looked at Chris with a confused expression, wondering what we should do. I was now faced with a situation in which I have never previously found myself – looking at a piss drunk stranger in a bar with a cockroach crawling down his chest, wondering what to do. I considered using a shoe to hit the cockroach against our amigo’s chest, killing it instantly and most likely not disturbing our friend in the least. A second thought was to revive the man and give him a shoe with which to eliminate the cockroach in the above described manner, which was very viable, as drunken people are easy to persuade. Twenty other ideas rushed through my head, ranging from lighting this man’s shirt on fire to scare away the cockroach, to telling the man that he had bought a pet cockroach earlier in the night, which he had named, and could not legally kill his new pet, but I, in the heat of the moment, was unable to act.

The cockroach eventually left, as did we, to run off and tell his cockroach friends about what just happened. As did we. The night rounded out with an un-eventful visit to one more bar – one that lacked prostitutes and cockroaches (boring) – after which Chris and I walked back to our hotel room.

The next morning, Chris and I made our way to the beach to bask in the 60 degree sea air and admire the beautiful vista of the black flag on the lifeguard stand. Apparently black means “Don’t under any circumstances get in the water”, a meaning which I fully understand, but guidelines such as these were obviously meant for people lesser than Chris and myself, so just to spite the weather gods and proclaim to the world that no matter the weather, spring break is spring break, Chris took a dip. I watched from my beach chair, cowering in a towel and shivering, like a boss.

We spent the rest of the day eating 2 peso (15 cent) churros and walking around town before we boarded a bus back to Monterrey. Even in the face of adverse conditions, largely due to Chris’s unwavering determination to have fun, we had a great weekend. I walked up the bus steps, took my seat, and slept very soundly because I knew that nothing that the bus ride could throw at me would be more mentally demanding than the cockroach-on-the-sleeping man conundrum.