Going Gringo

Todos Santos, BCS, Mexico November 10, 2007

Going Gringo isn’t so bad afterall. When I travel, I try to avoid the Gringo hang-outs. In San Miguel de Allende, where I lived for a month last year, I didn’t step foot in the New Orleans-style bar owned by an American ex-pat until Ben came down. And then, we only went in because we could get free wi-fi. Janet and I cringe when we see large groups of Gringos gathered someplace south of the border, loudly sharing tales that proved their cleverness and worldliness to each other.

But yesterday, I talked with local ex-pat Gringos in Todos Santos, hung out at a bar packed with ex-pats, and had two glasses of wine in a restaurant that only Gringos and Europeans flush with inflated Euros could afford. And, it was a good day. At least I didn’t spend it at the Hotel California.

My new friends, Marshall and Carolyn, bankers from Southern California, gave me a ride into town about noon, after both Carolyn and I had both had a relaxing massage out in the gardens, under a white canopy. Carolyn was in pain with a bulging disc in her lumbar region, but armed with a big, black orthopedic belt to strengthen her back, she was game for a shopping trip into town. I left them on the corner at the Santa Fe Café, where they went to have lunch, and I headed up the street to look at some ceramics I was considering.

I ran into an American sitting at an outdoor café with a Sprite. He told me he had ridden his Harley down from Placerville, California, but had fallen in Northern Baja, which laid him up at a hotel up there for two days. His trip had taken five days instead of three, and he’d missed the chance to cross over to mainland Mexico on the ferry to join a motorcycle festival. He was nursing a swollen right hand, a sore collarbone and a break in a small bone in his foot. He told me about his property in Todos Santos and the friends he made down here. I told him about my dog, my husband, the Posada La Poza and my hopes for landing a job when I got back. I glanced at my watch and realized I’d better get moving.

My ceramics purchases were squelched when the shopkeeper couldn’t find a complete set of blue and white Puebla dishes for me. But we had a nice long discussion about them, which gave me ample opportunity to hear and speak Spanish, and we parted friends in spite of the failed transaction. I stopped to buy a couple of table runners from an ex-pat whose brother I had met in the café here at Posada the day before, and she filled me in about her brother’s new romance. I told the sister that I thought the woman her brother was with seemed like a new girlfriend. I didn’t care for her brother much, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to hear all the details.

Then, I joined Marshall and Carolyn for a glass of wine at the cool garden inside the Santa Fe Café before we headed back out of town. On the highway leading to our turnoff, they convinced me we had to stop at Shut Up Frank’s, an ex-pat bar. The bar supposedly made “the best hamburgers on the block,” one Gringo told me, shouting above his noisy friends who packed the small patio on the street. We stepped inside and sat at the bar, and had what had to be the best margarita on the block: an inspired combination of tequila, fresh lime juice, a Mexican Cointreau and a dash of a peculiar Mexican liquor that I need to investigate further. A local pescadero who had lived some years in the U.S. worked to teach Carolyn some new Spanish words, and Marshall and I talked about golf. By the time we left, the ex-pats had all wandered off, and the streets were packed with what passes for rush hour in Todos Santos. We topped it off with a bottle of wine and dinner at the Posada.

While yesterday wasn’t the “going native” experience I usually try to find when I travel abroad, it seemed oddly appropriate for my last full day in Mexico. After a lonely week on this lonely beach, it was nice to connect with new people, and it reminded me that wherever you go, it's the same story: It's meeting people that makes the discomforts of travel all worthwhile.