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A good time to roll the dice in Mexico
“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner
Op-Ed Commentary
So, we’ve made it through the New Year. Now what?
I don’t know about you, but I can say with more than a little passion I’ve had enough of this 30 below and frozen slush winter this year to give me either a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. Consequently, I’m going to do what a good, progressive environmentalist is told never to do on pain of death.
And I bet most of you have figured out what it is.
Early in February, me and my good wife Sandra, are going to climb aboard one of those carbon-belching leviathans of the air with its nose pointed to the south as in Mexico. You know Mexico. Pina Coladas grow under the trees. Daquiris float through the air and thick cigar smoke magically decorates every rainbow-colored cabana you happen to visit while the soothing sound of the surf gently tickles your ears.
I can hardly wait!
Oh, yes. I realize there are not one, but two Mexicos in this oft-troubled world. One I’ve already described above. That’s where we’re certainly heading (I sincerely hope). Then there’s the other Mexico, one of the world’s best known narco-states where clashing gangs of Uzi-equipped dealers ransack the streets and alleys and casually machine-gun their rival gangs to death in their zeal to move as much as they can of fentanyl, cocaine and other deadly opioids to the mean streets of the U.S. and the Great White North.
What did the philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously say? “Life is narrow, brutish and short . . .” Hobbes was writing about life in the 16th Century. Sad to say, if he could see the world today, I don’t think he would see much improvement.
And I must say I’m intensely aware of this as my wife and I prepare to go to a country where the federal government issued warnings last week against Mexican travel after a gunfight erupted between two drug cartels near a hotel where Canadians were staying in Mazatlan.
“Shelter in place,” the Canadians were warned. I sincerely hope we don’t have to do that in our quiet, picturesque, all-inclusive resort in a hotel on Mexico’s west coast as far from Mazatlan as we can get.
But why tempt fate, you may rightfully ask. Well, we did talk to our travel agent about the Mexican situation before finalizing our tickets. The agent said other concerned clients talked to her for the same reason, but the reservations keep coming apace in spite of the concerns, the agent said. And I have to admit that often when I hear about Canadian tourists coming to grief in Mexico it turns out later that they were drunk and not exactly behaving themselves which can (and does) happen anywhere. Not to deny that some Canadians have been homicide victims in the land of tequila and fast living but that can happen anywhere too.
This will be our third trip to Mexico and we’ve immensely enjoyed every one and found the Mexican people to be warm and kind and great hosts for foreigners. And the country itself is spectacularly scenic with dazzling white sand beaches on both coasts, the turquoise, blue waters of the Caribbean Sea, the ancient ruins of the Mayan Riviera, the rugged cliffs of the Baja Peninsula and the lush, green rainforests of Chiapas in the south not to mention the friendly Mexican people in their colourful outfits. Sometimes you have to roll the dice and get out of your bubble if you want the excitement of new experiences and dynamic cultures.
And a couple weeks of sun and surf sure beats the gloom of a Cranbrook winter and prepares us for the joys of a Kootenay spring.
e-KNOW file photo
– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who learned the joy in Mexico of a small shot of tequila before breakfast.
