Mexican Motorcycle Manoeuvres: My Big, Fat Mexican...Reunion

With apologies to the Greek community.

Our arrival in Mexico was happily uneventful, with Mazatlan being a simple, 4.5 hour direct flight from Edmonton. It was a struggle to be at the airport for a 6:00 a.m. departure, especially after entertaining our babysitters Scott, Ashley, their two dogs and their raspberry and notwithstanding getting up at 3:45, it was a little tight. It was o.k., but we did forego a latte at the airport because by the time we loaded the luggage and passed through security, the plane was pre-boarding.

The Mazatlan approach revealed a mostly parched and arid landscape but with frequent squares of irrigated farm land. It is a rich, vegetable and fruit growing area and a walk through the grocery store reveals an amazing cornucopia of fresh, healthy and tasty fruit and vegetables, as opposed to the cross-engineered transportable but tasteless produce we buy in Edmonton.

We were a half hour early landing at the airport; I couldn't help but think that if they were planning to be so early, I would rather have had that time at the front end of the flight and been treated to an extra 30 minutes of sleep. Alas, being early, Nan's brother and sister in law were on time to pick us up, which means we waited a half hour on the sidewalk anyway.

We were immediately whisked away to have lunch, which was great because Westjet forgot to load any meals on the plane, so we were starving and forced to live off our winter fat for the whole flight. Good thing it landed early. Entering the restaurant we were treated to an interesting view of a large A&W Root Beer-styled jug but with a generous quantity of tequila inside... and a very large snake. This is NOT to be confused with the worm of Mescal but a snake that looked to be about two feet long and had probably consumed a fairly large rodent before going to wash it down with all that tequila. I'm not sure if anybody really drinks that stuff or if it is just to impress the tourists but when I stopped to take a picture, the staff were all very eager that I have some. I'm sure their next move would have been to run to the back, laugh their heads off and scream "another one!". It'a all good.

Oddly enough, Mazatlan is not quite the tourist mecca that I anticipated. We have only been here a day and a half so not really long enough to have a good look around but there is a dearth of high end hotels and condo developments but a multitude of places that look like they have been around for a few decades. Nan's brother Steve explained that the mayor of Mazatlan a few years ago was not a great fan of gringo tourists and did everything he could to discourage them and as such, they all made Puerto Vallarta their favoured destination. There had once been a time when Mazatlan was something of a party town but now, the party was happening south of here.

That is not to say that there is not wealth - there certainly is - but sometimes it’s just better not to ask too many questions.

For our first night, Steve and his wife Adriana take us down to the Plaza Machado, which is a large square beside the 1860s-era opera house. The square is spacious and open; in the centre is a stage with a band playing Mexican music (or at least, singing in Spanish), around the perimeter of the square are people with booths selling all kinds of jewellery or handicrafts and the streets are closed so that the restaurants around the square can occupy them allowing patrons to sit outside for their dinner. This is eminently civilized because it is a beautiful night, with a warm, gentle breeze and stars overhead. We are relatively early being there at 8:00 p.m.; things get going in earnest much later.

Today, we were woken with a loud clap of thunder about 6:30 a.m. and it felt like a bomb had gone off somewhere. But it was short lived and uneventful past the one crash. Not even one drop of rain fell and I started to wonder if I dreamed it but it seemed unlikely everybody else had the same dream as me. At the same time. When we did get up, it was sunny and pleasant, so it was an anomaly for me. Steve was off to work so Nan, Adriana and I had our coffee out on the patio. As always where ever we go, Nan was quickly making friends as one of Steve's cats took an immediate liking to her, which was a great way to have our morning coffee. If you ever need a pet sitter in an exotic locale, Nan is your gal.

It being Sunday, Adriana's usual routine is to have a "picnic" with her family. This generally involves her large, extended family meeting at a restaurant for breakfast and then convening at some comfortable place, like the deck of Adriana's auntie's pool, where everybody can relax, visit and eat picnic food. Notwithstanding we have expressed an interest in meeting her family, Adriana is neutral on dragging us along and she thinks she is going to have to entertain us today. However, she is clearly thrilled that she is not going to miss out on this Sunday's family gathering because in fact, it has been a whole day since the family got together last.

We collect a few things at the grocery store to make a contribution at the picnic and Adriana explains that everybody will bring something to eat plus, we will order chicken or pizza or something like that. She also says that anything put on the table is fair game so if there is something that we want to bring and eat ourselves, we have to guard it.

Adriana has taken pains to warn us about her family. We hear numerous stories about her four brothers, multitude of cousins, her parents, grandmother, nieces, nephews and all the people who have married into the family. She describes it as a scene straight out of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and she is excited as she is telling us the stories. Clearly, she is very close to her family.

So when we get to the pool side, there is one family there and they are all polite, cordial, generous if not a bit restrained. There are many dishes on the table - special cheese dishes, vegetable concoctions (I don't mean vegetable trays) different crackers and breads and things to drink. No alcohol, though, and Nan and I are the only ones sipping a beer. They are good about making sure we try things but nobody is really eating much and I am feeling a little sheepish because in my mind, Nan and I are the ones doing all the eating. Then pizza arrives, which Adriana has ordered and I see this as my chance to really step up to the plate, so I pay the delivery person. Still, no one is particularly motived by any of the food. (Well, maybe Adriana's cousin Adrian is motivated because he has his favourites.) I even walked around with the pizza box but I couldn't convince anybody to take a piece.

Meanwhile, more family shows up, including Adriana's parents. Things are starting to heat up a little. In fact, it is getting pretty animated and by the time there are 20 people there, it is pretty exciting. At any given time, there would be three or four people talking at once, all in Spanish, and it would get a little louder, a little more animated. It appeared to me that it was survival of the fittest and the loudest person won. Now, I don't mean this to sound in any way demeaning; this is a family that clearly likes to spend time together and they are having a fun afternoon, and even though we didn't understand too much of what was flying around, it was fun to be part of it.

What we learned later was that Adriana's family was on their "best behaviour" for us. They wouldn't eat the pizza or get too loud because they wanted to leave us with a good impression. Apparently, after we left they went crazy on each other and the food! What was quite funny was that Nan had inadvertently left her sun glasses on the table so had to go back to retrieve them and they were all quite mortified that they had been "caught in the act" of being themselves.

When Steve showed up from work, I think he thought he was coming to rescue us. While he has functional Spanish, I don't think he is conversant and the conversation is pretty excited so it would be hard to follow without being fluent. He did his family duty and then dragged Nan and me away to find a quiet night club with pounding music and a nine piece band competing for attention on the (public) beach 20 feet from where we sat.