I rolled into Mazatlan last May thinking about spending a few days before heading further south into Nayarit; my initially perceived, first real stop on the west coast of Mexico. Then after 3000 brutal miles, Mazatlan loomed before me like a palm studded sanctuary and besides; my 18 year old son had acquired the haunted look of a caged animal, time to take a break. At that point in my life, the last place I wanted to be was within the teeming mass of humanity that comprises metropolitan Mazatlan, so we kept our distance. We found a very pleasing little RV park on the beach in Cerritos, parked our travel trailer, rolled out the awning, broke out the lawn chairs and cold beer and declared ourselves camped. I didn’t realize at the time that just how long I would be camping. Never a long term planner, my conceptual strategy for retirement in Mexico had not progressed past the RV phase; would I ever want a house?
I have to be up front with this………..I am not an RV’er, but saw this method of travel to be both economical and very flexible. I could travel about the country and always have a certain sense of “home”, even if it was small and had wheels. One of my major concerns about traveling in this fashion was being around people that were actually true RV’ers, a group I felt ill equipped to deal with. In view of the fact that I arrived at the beginning of the summer season, I found that I was the only RV’er in Mazatlan; my lack of social skills faced no immediate challenge. At this writing, it is now obvious to me that real RV’ers wanted nothing to do with summer in Sinaloa; after all, most live where summers are quite pleasant. Following our first week in Mazatlan, my son befriended a couple of local boys and so I decided to give the place a try for another month, cultural interaction has to be beneficial for teenagers. One month turned into two and I started thinking that this part of Mexico was looking pretty good. On the other hand, I was also considering my Great Mexican RV Adventure had only managed to make it 750 miles past the border and was ostensibly stalled in Mazatlan.
My son returned to the mountains of Idaho before the first hurricane and by August I had become a beach bum that was eating his way through every palapa in southern Sinaloa. I have always been a real sucker when it comes to funky beach front cantinas and I approached each encounter as I would a 4 unit college course. It’s not that my life lacked any real purpose; it just wasn’t a very lofty purpose, but gratifying none the less.
However, my days of blissful retirement along with the lazy cantina afternoons came to a rather abrupt halt after I met Martha Armenta, a woman with a mission. By the end of the summer I decided that saving the world was a better use of my time than my continuing research on the innumerable ways to serve and consume shrimp, so I joined the efforts of Conrehabit. I believe that’s when it first crossed my mind; maybe it’s time to look for a house……..but where?
By late fall my little RV park was filled by Canadian RV’ers fleeing weather most of us know all toooo well. A good group of folks; within which I found a number of new friends. I discovered that the RV’ers that seek the challenge of crossing into Mexico for long periods, are a very different breed than the ones encountered in the states; nobody was bothered by my loose and half wild dog. After the park filled up, Snickers started eating less and less; I was beginning to worry that she had completely rejected Mexican dog food and the tough stew meat I was feeding her. I then discovered that half the Canadian population of Cerritos was feeding my loose, and much less wild dog, on a regular basis. Her ploy was to approach an unexpecting person, then sit up and smile (which some Mexicans see as a vicious sneer) while batting her big brown eyes. My charming canine managed to put on about 5 pounds during the height of the season; she was quite shameless but also far more capable of coping with numbers of strange people.
At the end of December when I rescued 2 tiny street kittens I thought, now it’s really time to find a house, when these things get big they will, unquestionably, shred the RV. My collected menagerie aside, the real underlying principle motivating my house hunt was the community I have interacted with over the past year. I have encountered so many open hearts and so few closed minds among my recent acquaintances, it has engendered a sense of home not found within the confines of a small aluminum box with wheels.
My quest to find some place I could, in all good conscience, actually call “home” was a complex and arduous trek through both the Mexican and gringo communities as well as the depths of my preconceived notions of what I would deem as acceptable. I wanted something with character, maybe something with a view, but something I could afford. I definitely did not want to move into a “fixer”; after spending so many years in the construction industry, the thought of living in a remodeling project churned my shrimp filled stomach.
I initially thought I wanted to be out of town, a nice place in the country, but gave up after a couple of months of looking, no quaint haciendas within easy reach of town. I needed a place where I could walk Snickers somewhere other than a city street, open ground accessible from the front door. Something on the beach would be nice, but I am not the condo type and could not afford the ungodly amount of money it would take to live there in a house. So this left me with few options other than the dreaded metropolis, in town, surrounded by the teeming masses of humanity I so obstinately shunned upon my arrival. Having spent my entire life in a rural setting, the thought of living in town was at the same time exhilarating and terrifying, but what the hell, maybe I can find a spot in the suburbs. Besides, by that time Snickers was quite comfortable wandering most of the streets of Mazatlan while on our exploratory ventures into the belly of the beast.
Then one night at Canuks, a friend came up to me and asked “Are you still looking for a house?” I immediately replied that I was in the heat of the hunt, but had only one moderately remote prospect in the Zone. He told me of a place in Old Town that could possible be available, it was owned by a Mexican man and had been completely remodeled. I was initially disappointed, because Old Town was right smack it the middle of what I had been trying to avoid for the past year. The other factor was there was no open space to walk the dog; I couldn’t imagine having to bag dog turds as we walked the city streets. So, with these self imposed limiting factors clouding my perspective, I declined to pursue the lead. However my friend’s wife emailed me a couple of weeks later with the same info, there was a nice little house available that just might be perfect and………. with an outstanding view and a very accessible area to walk the dog. By this time the RV park was beginning to feel more like a FEMA camp and my need to escape bordered on nervous distraction, so my response was immediate “When can I see it?”
As we made our way into Old Mazatlan and turned up the east face of Ice House Hill, the streets became both steep and narrow. Once we found questionable, but exploitable parking, we started climbing up the stairs and paths into the old Fisherman’s village. My first thought was of the potential improvement of my overall cardiac health, my second, was having to haul anything up or down this class 4 scramble. I was in the area where the poorest of the fisherman built their homes many years ago. By the early 1900’s all the level ground was either built out or too expensive for the fisherman to build on; their alternative was the steep east face of Ice Box Hill (the one with the towers). As I made my way up a path about 2 meters wide (that I later found out is actually a named street) toward the house, I glanced to my left at a narrow passage and saw close to 100 stairs leading to an ornate wooden door; my instincts told me it wasn’t a condo up there. So far Snickers had managed to scatter a dozen street cats and roust a very nasty looking pit bull thing that was slammed up against the bars of his owner’s caged entry and loudly protesting our presence. At this point my emotions were still vacillating somewhere between exhilaration and terror, however they were just manifesting a little closer to the surface. Especially when I found out the pit bull thing lived next door to my potential home.
Once inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find a completely remodeled structure that had been done without cutting any corners. All potential housing I have scrutinized over the past several months had needed something; paint, appliances, view, dog walking area, kitchen, toilets or seats, location, roof, walls, usable address, doors, windows, character…………. always something. I wasn’t “dead set” against doing a minor amount of fixing, it’s not as if I don’t know how, but my perfect place had just not materialized. As I examined the two floors of living area, I realized that this place was as close to move in condition as I had yet to see. When my friends took me up to the third level roof deck was when the view got me, this could be home. Since all things in life require some form of deliberation or rumination, I spent a couple hours mulling over the positives and negatives of moving to the very area I had been avoiding because of its densely packed humanity and less than perfect parking circumstances.
Now as Snickers and I walk the streets and steep paths of our new neighborhood, the densely packed humanity is magically transforming it’s self into an enchanting
community with an impressive depth of culture. The neighborhood kids have quickly learned that Snickers won’t bite and can do a couple of tricks so they will always want pet her as we go by. I am not sure who’s playing with whom in these encounters, the kids or the dog. My two rescued street cats (Gatos del Diablo) are unable to shred my new tile floors or the concrete walls, the parking isn’t bad now that I know how to find it, the pit bull thing has turned out to be a really sweet dog, all the neighbors are great and evenings on the roof deck make the steep walk worth the effort. I know that by immersing myself within this complexly simple culture, my preconceived notions, old thought forms and psychological baggage induced by a fast paced consumer society, are falling away like so much dead skin..………………I have essentially come home to a new sense of being.
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