Saturday, October 07, 2006 - 10:03 PM | 270 Reads

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This is a story of the first day that Kalin, my 18 year old son, Snickers the wonder dog and I entered Mexico. We had started from the far north end of Idaho, visited friends in Mt Shasta and then departed for Mazatlan on June 15, 2006.

The last 2,500 miles since we left Mt Shasta, have been a real odyssey. Once we left Interstate 5 and went over the Tehachapi’s the temp rose to 98 -100 and then got hotter the closer we got to the Sonora desert. The second blow out on the trailer was not nearly as cataclysmic as the first and there was even enough shoulder to get most of the way off of Interstate 40 to do the change.

The first obstacle to our journey occurred when we crossed the border at Nogales. All vehicles entering Mexico are required to have a sticker showing compliance to the Mexican entry requirements. Before entering Mexico I spent considerable time researching what was required to enter the country. Current registration, for all vehicles, was what the Mexican government wanted to see. However, the Mexican auto registration official, that handled our paperwork, obviously had not read the same information I had. He took all 4 of my valid and current registrations; 2 motorcycles, my truck and travel trailer and disappeared into his air-conditioned office for about an hour. When he finally emerged, he explained that he of did not like the looks of the Idaho registration for my travel trailer. I truly believe he had never even seen any Idaho vehicle paperwork before.

After several hours of going back and forth between the customs honcho and the vehicle registration guy, I was told that the only way to get my trailer into the country was to provide the title. I tried everything between rage and a $200 bribe to no avail. This f.u.b.a.r. episode was late on a Friday afternoon, so we had to wait until Monday to have the title Fed-Ex’ed to the RV park, in Amado, Arizona, where we would be staying.

The title arrived on Tuesday afternoon, so on Wednesday morning we set off for our second attempt to get into Mexico. I encountered the same Mexican official and he liked the looks of the trailer title and issued the entry sticker. However, this time he did not like the looks of the registration for the 2 motorcycles that he had no problem with the previous crossing attempt. Now, of course, he wanted to see the titles for both bikes. Right about this time, after haggling in 104-degree heat for several hours, I almost went postal. Since finding titles for both bikes would require someone rummaging through storage boxes in Idaho, Fed-Exing and waiting, I decided to leave the bikes in safe storage back in Amado, Arizona and press on into Mexico. I will return in October and fetch my toys. We had managed the first obstacle and life was good.
On our first day in Mexico, outside of Hermosillo, I pulled into a Pemex station to fuel up both the truck and the cooler. Within moments of getting out of the truck, an older and somewhat disheveled man, came up to me and started jabbering in rapid Spanish while pointing to the back of the trailer. I instantly thought that the bicycle rack had failed and I was dragging a thousand dollars worth of mountain bikes down the road behind me;shredded aluminum and rubber. Fortunately, it worked out to be considerably less expensive.

As I followed my new found “mechanico” he went to the rear wheel on the passenger side of the trailer and told me it was making noises that would indicate bad brakes. It’s not that I understood much of his rapid fire Spanish, it was his sign language combined with my some what extensive knowledge of trailer brakes, that brought us to a point of common understanding. Now that we have determined that there was something very wrong with the trailer brakes, he enthusiastically pointed to the remains of an old and very battered Datsun truck. At first, I thought he was offering to trade the remains of this truck for my wounded trailer. As he then repeated the word “mechanico” I realized he was pointing to a poorly painted, plywood sign resting against the truck where the bed used to be. The sign clearly stated “ Taller Mechanico” and his meaning became crystal clear…..he wanted to repair the trailer brakes. This realization was, at the same time, both reassuring and somewhat frightening.

We were about 5 miles south of Hermosillo, a very large town, the time was about 1 pm so I knew that we could get parts and do the fix before dark. I pulled the trailer to a large flat area, adjacent to the Pemex station, that was vacant except for the general flotsam and jetsam of Mexican trash. Kalin walked along beside the trailer with our new found mechanic, while I found a suitable spot to dissemble the drum and brakes. Kalin verified that there was indeed, a nasty noise coming from the wheel that Ramon had pointed out.

When the trailer was in a suitable spot, Ramon proceeded to breakout an antique scissor jack and attempted to raise the damaged wheel assembly. I stopped him just as the jack bent and it became obvious that the tire was going to stay firmly planted in the desert sand. At this point I handed Ramon both of my hydraulic jacks and then took a quick inventory of the tools he had on hand. It seemed that his complete tool collection consisted of a pair of pliers and a large, flat tipped screwdriver that was well past being useful as a screwdriver........great, our mechanico. Before he started to remove the lug nuts with the pliers, I broke out enough tools to do the take down.

Once the wheel was off and the drum removed, it was clear that his diagnosis was indeed correct. I needed 2 brake shoes and an inner wheel bearing and bearing race. It was apparent that the next move was to go to town and find parts. My choice was to leave Kalin and Snickers behind to watch the trailer, in 106 degree heat and take Ramon to town, or give him money and send him off in a truck that looked like it was ready for the crusher. When I looked deep into Ramon’s liquid brown eyes I saw a gentle integrity that helped allay some of my fears. As I handed over $50 and watched him disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust, I suddenly realized that Kalin was in a state of complete shock to think that I was actually trusting this ragged character to come back. I also realized, just after Ramon departed, that he had all the brake and bearing parts, both good and bad, in his truck; so if he did not return, I was indeed DOA in the blistering sand.

For the next 2 hours, Kalin, Snickers and I were ensconced in the air-conditioned comfort of my idling truck, listening to satellite radio. It was at this point that Kalin began to list all the reasons that Ramon would have for never coming back. The obvious reason being that he had more money, in one lump, that his truck, tools, bent jack and sign were worth. Just about then, I decided we needed food, and much more beer, to quell our rising insecurities.
As we were finishing our late lunch, I spotted Ramon’s truck clattering down the road toward our crippled RV. By the time we got back to the scene of the repair, Ramon had the new bearing race installed and was reassembling the brake components. While watching Ramon’s skilled hands install the new brake shoes, I was suddenly aware of a commotion behind me. I turned to see one of the Pemex attendants lay a 3’ Diamondback rattlesnake on the crude flatbed of Ramon’s truck. The head of the snake was slightly flattened and it was still, quite actively, writhing. I assumed that it had been on the road and flattened by passing traffic and then collected by the attendant; I was way wrong.

It seems that the Pemex attendant was out back reliving him self, even with indoor toilets available, when this sizable snake coiled and struck out at him. Being of quick reflexes, the man kicked the snake in mid strike and then stomped on it several times. It was this dazed and stomped on snake that was coming to on Ramon’s flatbed and looking about for a potential target. Since I was acutely aware that rattlesnakes can take massive punishment and still be quite dangerous and also because I didn't’t want it to suffer; I pulled my knife and quickly removed the snake’s head. By this time there was a second Pemex attendant along with a trinket salesman, with the most bloodshot eyes I have ever seen, that joined this unfolding scene. All these people gratefully accepted the cold beers that Kalin passed around, especially the trinket salesman.

Now came the conversation as to what to do with the damned thing. The first Pemex attendant, the snakes intended victim who was not willing to touch it, held the squirmy part of the snake down with a stick and then pulled off the stack of rattles. Rattlesnake rattles closely track the age of the snake; one rattle segment, or button, for every year of life. Kalin’s eyes went wide when the attendant presented him with the rare prize of the 11-button rattle. Obviously the next step was to skin it and clean it so some one could throw it into the stew pot that night. After all, this is the Mexican desert where no potential food goes to waste.

The snake was still writhing a little, but I thought it was just reflexive stuff and it was definitely dead; it had to be, the head was separated from the body. I started the skinning process by silting the underside of the snake, from the tail to the large end. When the full length of the snake was laid open, we were all stunned to note that the heart was still beating, with a steady regular pulse. At this point, the drunken trinket salesman made an off color remark that some how compared his wife to the dissected, but still living, reptile. The other Mexicans, that actually understood what he had said, all laughed long and hard at his comment. Pemex attendant number two took his pocket knife and poked at the still beating heart; which immediately animated the full 3 feet of dissected diamondback. I had thought that severing the snake’s head would put it out of it’s misery, however it was obvious that the heart need to be removed to finish it off.

After humanely removing the heart, I started the skinning process by carefully slicing the skin away from the meat. It was then that an old, rather short fellow with a week’s growth of gray whiskers joined our group. For about a minute, he watched the careful job I was performing in my attempt to skin the now, completely dead rattler. Then with a short, undecipherable burst of Spanish, he took the snake by the tail with one hand and with the other grabbed the skin and with a single, quick pull, separated the skin from the snake. He then presented the skin to me with a large and sparsely toothed grin and said he would take the skinned snake home for dinner. This crafty display of skinning skill called for another round of cold beers. By this time Ramon had the brakes reassembled and was putting the wheel and tire back on the trailer. Ramon worked through the entire snake episode as if it was a daily occurrence; a true native son of the desert.

As we left this smiling and slightly swacked, group of indigenous people, we knew that we had experienced a true ethnic encounter that would be very hard to match in the coming months.