NEW YEAR’S EVE IN LA CRUZ; LA CRUZ RENAMED “SULLEN CITY” OR “GAUGE GORGE”
Sunday, 01 January 2006

We are up in the dark at 0630 yesterday, New Year’s Eve day, to bus it into town with Jens, Alice and Steven from S/V Veleda. They are out to buy Steven a six-string acoustic guitar at Sam’s Club in PV and have borrowed a membership card from someone for the occasion. We have never been inside a Sam’s Club so are going along for the sightseeing and perhaps to get some provisions for the trip.

Sam’s only carries electric guitars so Jens et alia take off downtown to a music instrument shop leaving the Sam’s Club card with us. Just like East Germans after the Wall came down, we are totally overwhelmed by the stacks of merchandise and, after a bit of walking around, we head over to Wal-Mart next store to get something to eat at the snack bar. There are no street vendors around these big box stores; only acres of paved parking spaces. It is Saturday, year-end and month-end so there is a tidal surge of shoppers.

Fortified, we return to the fray. Kathleen is not convinced that the food items we are buying are that much cheaper than Wal-Mart. More importantly, how much food do two people actually need? And, not to be forgotten, we have to schlep all this stuff back down to the boat on foot. We do in fact buy enough to fill four shopping bags and feel like poseurs amongst the people lined up to check out carts piled high with items. We head for the bus stop and back to La Cruz.

We agree to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Alice, Jens and Steven on Veleda. When we get over there it is already dark. Alice has bought some roast chickens in town and made up a lovely sit-down dinner with salad and pasta. None of us lasts till midnight; it turns cool and we leave for home in a good mood having spent some nice time with nice people.

As we are leaving there is a techno-“music” concert getting started on the beach. There are lots of tents and flashing lights and big TV screens and the “music” is deafening even out here some half a kilometre away. I can see lots of people dancing in the flashing disco lights. As we settle into bed the noise gets louder and louder, the beat endlessly repetitive with robotic speaking voices blended in over top from time to time. This music must have been invented by tone-deaf engineers since, beyond the fast, antsy beat there is no music involved. In fact it reminds me of a long day at sea with our Lister diesel engine running. The music goes on all night and, as I write this at mid-day on New Year’s Day, it has continued without interruption and looks set to continue on for another night. In town this morning, you could hardly hear it. But out on the water it is very, very intrusive and several boats have left because of it. I got to sleep last night by using earplugs.

La Cruz renamed “Sullen City” or “Gouge Gorge”

On the way up to the bus stop in the morning we meet an obese, ca. 40-year-old Mexican chap named Tomas. He addresses us in good English and after a few moments I asked him about how to get bottled water out to the boat and if he knows of a diver to clean Vilisar’s hull. He himself has a panga called “Rockin’ Robyn”, which he uses as a taxi and for whale-watching rides. He can bring the water out and how many bottles do we want? He’ll pick up the full bottles from a Purificado, deliver them and return the empties. We got into some negotations and it is clear that the water is going to be about the same price category as Chanel #5. Nevertheless, we finally come to a price for the water (at cost) plus Pesos 300 for delivery the next day, New Year’s Day.

He points to a young and fit-looking young man whose name turns out to be Felix. Tomas talks to him in Spanish; I offer a dollar a foot (35), which is the standard rate in Los Angeles and San Carlos; Tomas tells him sotto voce I understand no Spanish whatsoever; to demand more. We finally settle on Pesos 500 (ca. US$ 50) and he promises he will be there on the beach when I come in at 0900 on New Year’s Day. I am sceptical that he can handle the probably two hours of work underwater without a wet suit and using only a snorkel. But I have little choice at this point and I agree.

This morning I get up in time to row into the harbour to meet Felix. Tomas is there, but not Felix.
“Oh, I t’ink he get drunk las’ night. He’s not here,” Tomas tells me. “But my son he’ gonna do it.”
He calls his son on the cellphone that magically appears from somewhere out of the folds of fat around his belt. A very brief father-son dialogue.
“No! He don’t wanna do it. But I have a friend visiting me right now. He needs money and he’s gonna do it. He’s real experienced.”
About that time friend arrives in Tomas’ van along with friend’s two young teenage boys. Friend is like Tomas, a very fat mid-forties, and obviously has not had much physical exercise in the last twenty years. The only diving this guy has done is into the chow trough. Tomas talks to him and friend is obviously needing a lot of coaxing. But if friend is now finally convinced to attempt it, I am only convinced that friend hasn’t got a clue and I wave it off.
“Ok, amigo. Whatver!” Thomas says. “I go get your ten bottles of water now. I think the water is going to cost Pesos 20 a bottle.”
“Twenty pesos a bottle!” I reply. “You must be joking.”
“Well, that’s what my wife tol’ me it costs”
“Your wife is running a personal slush fund or you are just setting me up,” I think but do not say.
A few minutes later he arrives back down at the beach carrying in his van ten full water bottles, the fat non-diving friend, and the two boys.
“Where’s your dinghy? Oh, yeah, the water cost twenty pesos a bottle,” he says.
“Well, you can take it right back because I am not paying that price for water. It costs fifteen a bottle or maximum sixteen to get it delivered right to your house in La Cruz. And anyway, I thought you were going to deliver it out to the sailboat? That’s what we agreed.”
Tomas flashes me a receipt from an abarrotes, a small store with the twenty pesos price documented there.
“I don’t care! Either you’re ripping me off or the store is ripping you off. I’m not paying that price!”
“OK, get in! I’ll take you up to the store.”
I get in and we rattle over the cobblestones for a few blocks to the little corner store.
“El senor no es contenta con el precio,” Tomas tells the middle-aged lady in the darkness behind the cash register. Without a comment she hands me the two hundred pesos that I had given to Tomas the day before by way of an advance on the water.

Tomas goes back out to the curb, slides open the side door of the van and tells me I can just unload it myself. So while Thomas the Tank Engine, his fat compañero and the two porky kids watch, I lug bottle for bottle to the back of the store. I am fuming but I finish the job and start to walk away down the street.
“No hard feelings, Amigo,” says that ambulatory bowel movement.
“Amigo?” I say in disgust and keep right on walking.

I walk the few blocks down to Fox’s Café to use the internet. It’s down but I tell Fox about my experience. I also tell him that, the cruisers and the Americans here aside, the locals seem very sullen and unfriendly. Unlike every other place I have been in Mexico, they pointedly avoid eye contact and almost never reply if you say “Buenos Dias” as you go by. After my experience with Thomas the Tank Engine I have come to the opinion that anyone you deal with here regards you simply as a chicken to be plucked. They don’t even respect you enough to stick to agreements or appointments. Fox is married to a Mexican so he knows.

“They have a real attitude problem here. To them you are just another Norteamericano.” He was apologetic but agreed that they can be pretty unfriendly to the cruisers here.

I leave after a while to try to get on line somewhere else. But the other internet places are closed for Sunday or because they are recovering from hangovers. Finally, I stop for some fruit and veggies and head back out to the dinghy. The good news is that there is no surf running and I get back out to Vilisar, still feeling badly used and totally frustrated because I am no farther along in getting water or getting the bottled water and totally bummed out on this place.

I understand that a small village that can be very personable when there are only a few tourists. But this openness can soon be overwhelmed if the number of visitors increase. I saw this happen in little Greek-island villages in the 1970’s. Understandably, the locals, friendly at first, simply could not deal with too many outsiders and became aggressive and gouging. The Italian beach resorts went through the same process a generation earlier. Eventually, the town becomes a prosperous and well-organised hotel beach-town catering to package holidayers. The local people become waiters, cooks, chambermaids, trinket-shopkeepers, gigilos and prostitutes. They take part in “friendliness” training sessions. The small fishing village, of course, has disappeared long before that happens.

Even understanding the process, I am now heartily sick of La Cruz and wish we could get out of here. Maybe we shall go without the bottom cleaned. We have enough water for another week. We will be slow but we would be gone from this place. Jens says today that his hull is thoroughly fouled. He is going to use his last air in his scuba tanks to clean his prop and hull. He’s frustrated too.