A COCKTAIL PARTY
TO DIE FOR
The side-glances are frequent, and blatant; the eye
contact prolonged. Shortly, he and his two sidekicks
accept the unspoken invitation and meander to our side
of the ferryboat. If you can call it that: a
20-by-40-foot wooden raft that hauls six cars via a
stretched steel cable across a no-name creek flowing
into the Gulf of Campeche is hardly a modern miracle
of transportation, let alone a seaworthy vessel.
This remote part of the Yucatan peninsula between
Merida and Campeche has already delivered an ample
range of surprises. Uxmal, a Mayan temple hidden in
the dense jungle is more sensual than any Caribbean
nudie beach. All-you-can-drink, all-night discos in
Cancun are wickedly physical. The half dozen or so
“ferryboats” connecting the two-lane blacktop road
that stretches 100+miles along this rural coast tweak
an anything’s-possible-attitude. And the broad-faced
Mexican swaggering my way holds all the promise of
temptation and thrill rolled neatly into one big,
blond package.
My two amigas and I have been touring Mexico for 10
weeks in Libby’s VW convertible, and thus far, the
quick shifts from pine-covered, arid mountains to
sweltering palm-lined beaches peak our senses as
surely as the local gentlemen have gone out of their
ways to show us a grand time. Eduardo leans on the
frayed rope railing and points to dolphin offshore.
Says he’s a fisherman, has a five-boat shrimp fleet in
some nearby village.
“Would you care to join me for coconut milk when the
ferry docks?” he asks in fluent English.
A quick huddle with the girls, and “Yes, that sounds
good,” I reply.
Sunglasses on, hair flying in the wind, we’d follow
Eduardo and his buddies anywhere. Their apple red
pick-up truck turns left into the jungle here, right
onto a gravel road there. We pass through luscious
banana groves, up hills, down orchid-laced ravines and
around massive banyans strung with Spanish moss.
“Are you keeping track?” Libby asks nonchalantly. I
am, after all, the navigator riding shotgun: “Yes, and
no I don’t know where we are. According to this map
we’re going in circles. None of these dirt roads are
on it and I haven’t seen anything that remotely
resembles a coconut milk stand.” As grim reality
settles in, I shriek to nobody in particular, “What
the hell are we doing here?”
We three glance nervously about the thick, treetop
canopy and almost ram the back of the blood red truck
breaking to a stop in the middle of the road, in the
middle of nowhere. Out pop Eduardo’s pals with
machetes in hand, and our terrified eyes collectively
scream: “This is the place; this is where we’re gonna’
die.”
Libby already has the VW turned around when Eduardo
opens my door. From her position in the back seat,
Adriana grabs at my sweat soaked t-shirt, but in a
single swoop I’m lifted out of the topless Bug into
Eduardo’s arms.
Libby screeches to a dirt-raising, rock-spewing halt:
Real friends do not leave girlfriends stranded in the
jungle.
“I own this island; this is my banana plantation,” he
whispers smoothly and slowly into my ear as his arm
sweeps my whole body in a semi-circle that lets me
focus on two men shinnying up a tree. “My men, there,
are climbing that tree to cut down coconuts for us.”
And then Eduardo throws in the punch line: “Have you
anything alcoholic in the car?”
“Oh sure,” I sputter weakly. “Wild Turkey or
Absolute?”
With the precision of surgeons, these guys whack off
the tops of six coconuts. Three strokes each and
natural milk cups are readied for Vodka cocktails.
“Limes by any chance?” Libby wonders out loud.
Better yet, Eduardo’s machete swinging compadres serve
up lemons, the only ones we’ve come across in all of
Mexico.
And of course, this was just the beginning: Libby and
I were invited to Eduardo’s village to partake of the
already-in-progress weekend fiesta honoring the patron
saint of fishing. Shrimp boat captains were
partying-up for the opening season. Then Eduardo
offered Adriana the services of his private airplane
and pilot. She wanted to get on to Mexico City to keep
her date with a man she met last week in Cancun.
These events, and much, much more highlighted my South
of the Border summer in 1976 when the United States
was atwitter with its Bicentennial Celebration on a
tourist-packed East Coast, just a little farther up
the North American continent.
Back then, I was insatiably curious and hopelessly
smitten with the heady stuff of adventure and romance
and fantasy inherent in travel. Still am, in fact,
these days I rarely bypass impromptu cocktail parties
in the jungle.
© B. Bowers, December 2001
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