In the 1970’s Kathy and I took our first big trip. We went to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. We travelled with my sister in law Margie and her second husband Henry. I will describe him as the brother in law from hell. Having said that I don’t want to make this about him although he will play a prominent role in the time we spent in Mexico. That is for later. I want to start with a few things first. We needed to get our passports and shots and anything else that would make the trip safe for us. This was all new to Kathy and I. We made arrangements to have the children taken care of by a lady named Ruth Grove who was an awesome individual. We felt that the kids were in great hands with her in charge.
Even though I had a strong stomach I had heard about Montezuma’s Revenge and thought I should take whatever steps were necessary to be proactive about any digestion issues so I ask my friends and my doctor what I should do to protect myself. The suggestion was that I take Pepto Bismol every day. Let this stuff line my stomach and it should mitigate any stomach or gastro intestinal issues. I did buy a fair amount of Pepto Bismol and I would take a dose every morning during our stay in Mexico. It really did its job. I never had any issues. I did notice after being in Puerto Vallarta for about 24 hours that my tongue had turned green and I had this funny taste in my mouth. I actually thought I had some kind of jungle rot or something. I actually didn’t want to let anyone know about this, so I kept my mouth near closed most of the trip. I was very careful that Kathy, Margie or Henry were not aware of my black tongue. This problem never went away the whole time I was in Mexico. I was really upset about it and after I returned home to San Jose, CA the tongue, after a few days, went back to pink and the taste in my mouth went away. It turned out that one of the main ingredients in Pepto Bismol is licorice. When you are taking a lot of it, it can leave a black residue on your tongue along with a weird flavor in your mouth. My Black Tongue was the direct result of taking Pepto Bismol every day for the entire trip. Oh well…at least I know now. I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t have some bad disease that I had picked up in Mexico.
We checked into our hotel…it was beautiful. The only negatives were the occasional brown out which normally came in the afternoon. The other issue was the presence of gecko’s. They were everywhere and we usually had one on the wall of our room. They never caused any problems but it was unnerving to have one on the wall especially at bedtime. Right next to our hotel there were these bulldozers literally working around the clock. They were digging this huge hole in the ground. We never knew what they were doing. We assumed it was to build another hotel next to ours. They continued to move earth for about the first 5 days we were there. The hole was huge then suddenly on about the 6th day they started filling in the hole. After about 3 days the hole was completely filled in and it looked like there had never been a hole at all. I suggested that maybe this was a bulldozer training school. Where they practiced using bulldozers to dig holes then fill them up. We then believed that the hole started because they were going to build a hotel then after a few days things changed and no hotel was going to be built after all, hence filling up the hole. Very curious turn of events.
One other thing that I thought was interesting was that when they were doing major construction, they built a permanent construction office on site. No portable office. They built a permanent one with brick and mortar. In my opinion it meant that these projects were going to be long term so they would need a permanent office. Every afternoon the workers would stop for a siesta. Nothing happened on any of the construction sites for a couple of hours then they would start again.
Another thing that I picked up on was that all products said they were a product of Mexico. It didn’t matter what it was…Preparation H, Coca Cola, Bayer Aspirin, Pepto Bismol, etc. when you read the product label it said that the product was from Mexico. This was a bit surprising to me.
One day we all go to the beach. We took snorkeling gear with us. To me swimming was staying alive in the water but what the heck. I went with Henry into the water to snorkel. As we were starting to head back to the beach Henry yells back at me to look out for the “sea snakes”. I went nuts. I am not a big fan of snakes under any circumstances but add sea water to the equation and I am a crazy person. I literally panicked and was looking out for the sea snakes. I guess Margie and Kathy were watching this unfold from the beach and couldn’t understand what was going on with me. It must have looked funny from the beach but I wasn’t having any fun. I used up all of what energy I had left and basically washed up on the beach. There is no other way to describe it. It turns out that I literally could have just stood up at any time but I didn’t realize that in my panicked state. Kathy, Margie and Henry had a good laugh and I managed to recover physically. I survived, felt very stupid, and realized that Henry had just played a practical joke on me. It was funny to everyone except me. I don’t think I ever really forgave him for that episode. We will let by gones be by gones.
Later that day we took a boat to a spot about a mile down the beach called Yelapa. When we got there, we were to dive in the water and swim to the beach area. There were several restaurants on the beach. We got to the beach and found one of the restaurants. These restaurants were basically outdoor and had dirt floors. We ordered shrimp for lunch. Kathy said that it didn’t taste right. She was always very careful about seafood anyway. We all decided to avoid any more shrimp and had something else. Henry ate his and Kathy’s lunch of shrimp. To make a long story short he was sick for the next three days. Obviously, the brother in law Gods were thinking of me and passed on this little bit of gastro intestinal problem to my “favorite” brother in law. He didn’t venture from his room that whole time. Maybe it was payback for what he had done to me… I don’t know, but it seemed like fair payback. He finally emerged, after about 3 days, from his hotel room.
While he was sequestered, we met this guy on the beach one day who had a fishing boat. His name was Manuel. He offered to take us sport fishing on his 37 foot cabin cruiser. When Henry was well, we all went with Manuel out into the Sea of Cortez. It was only about $80 for the entire day. He would provide the tackle and drinks for us. The first day we stayed in the bay and caught tuna and bonito. It was amazing. Manuel would line us up and we would go through these schools of fish and catch so many it was hard to keep track. I remember the first tuna we caught he immediately fileted it and cooked it for us and we had it right away. It was incredible. Never have had tuna that tasty ever. The day continued. We must have caught over 300 pounds of tuna and bonito. When we came in we took a big Tuna to the hotel restaurant and ask them to cook it for us for dinner. Manuel made his day worthwhile by selling all of the fish we caught to the locals. It was a great day for us all.
The second day we went out with Manuel was to the “blue water”. This was the deeper water outside the bay and was where we were likely to catch larger fish. You couldn’t see land from where we were. It was very exciting. The first thing that happened was that he saw a huge sea turtle. His deck hand was driving the boat and came along-side the turtle. Manuel had a spear to throw at the Turtle but just as he threw it the turtle dived and the opportunity passed. It was still exciting to see. Manuel had two outriggers which he baited and two other lines that were baited as well. Right in the middle was a noise maker that he dragged through the water. When we were finally in the “zone” we were all on the watch for swordfish or marlin. As we were going, we could see some of these big fish jump out of the water…it was really something. What Manuel would do was have his deck hand drive the boat at what I thought was too fast. The noise maker was doing its job. Apparently, these big fish just sun themselves in the water. The boat would drive by them with all the noise and get their attention. They would then turn around and go from sunning themselves to going after the bait fish. We could see their fins line up behind the different bait fish. Manuel asked us to let him hook the fish and then he would turn the line over to one of us to bring in. The first one he hooked was for me. I fought that thing for what seemed like an eternity. The driver tried to back the boat toward the fish to make it a bit easier. Once the fish got close to the boat Manuel hit it over the head with a coke bottle and we brought it in. We got three that day. All swordfish. All about 100 pounds and all about 8’ long. It was incredible. On the try right after mine we saw one of the fish line-up behind one of the bait fish. Even though Manuel told us all to let him hook the fish, Henry decided to do it on his own. He was unsuccessful and so on the future opportunities Manuel did, in fact, hook two more and gave those to Margie and Kathy to bring in. They each had epic turns at bringing in their fish. It was amazing in every sense of the word. Even though Henry had blown his chance we had a great day and brought all three of these into the harbor. We took pictures with our big fish and even though it made no sense we decided to have one of our fish mounted. I mean we already had the pictures and where were we going to put an 8’ fish in our house. Margie and Henry and Kathy and I each decided to get one of these mounted. We gave them $100 each. Later after we returned to San Jose, we got a message to send them another $100 each and then we would be paying a final $100 each when the fish arrived in San Jose. The fish never arrived. Margie being fluent in Spanish communicated with the people in Mexico but to no avail. We never received the fish. We still had the pictures and the experience.
I am going to stop here for now. There was more to come but, I will share those stories with you later. The entire trip was incredible. There will be a part two for you.
