South of the Border

 Ever hear a song whose melody brings a nostalgic, knowing smile to your face? The last R. J. Decker show had him and his girl dancing to a lovely tune, Liquor and Love sung by Theo Lawrence. [The ‘official video’ on youtube is a bit creepy — a lady lip syncing the lyrics but the song is worth a listen, just watch something else while the video plays.]

Anyway, the elegant guitar riffs, the evocative melody and the absurd lyrics made me want to sing and dance like I was young again; back to fun times south of the border, at least what I can remember of them in my carefree and merry youth. Getting blackout drunk in Mexico was practically a rite of passage to young Californians, me included. I remember south of the border adventures with my husband and our friends gave way to ludicrous questions like “uh, what’s this stuff on my shirt”, “is that guy dead, no, good” or “does anyone remember what happened to my shoes?” I had quite the wardrobe of huarache sandals by the time we left California.

The usual MO was to drive our cars as far south as San Diego, then rent camper vans and drive them across the border. We always chose the optional extra insurance coverage since the chances were better than good that we would make highly questionable choices that could - would - possibly lead to somewhat bizarre misadventures during our stay. The extra coverage cost was cheaper than our cars disappearing in Mexico or worse, finding them stripped bare. 

We traveled in caravans for the simple reason that even we knew ourselves to be naive white gringos who might be able to skirt a minor offense with a cop who’d look the other way when a couple of twenties accidentally fell into his hands but if something worse should come about we could count on each other to find the nearest US embassy and to call a lawyer. Not that any of it was ever our fault.

We’d arrive at customs in our camper van. The ‘seen it all’ officers would look at our eager, starry eyed faces, ask the usual questions and wish us good day: “tengan un bien dia” then stoically, close their eyes and shake their heads as our camper caravan passed through. After customs, we powered through dilapidated Tijuana, long past its glory days as a party hub for thirsty Americans during prohibition and made our way further south, rolling through Rosarito Beach (those stories for another time) to Ensenada. 

And, of course, as any neophyte knows, or learns the hard way, don’t drink the water, don’t eat the lettuce and don’t put ice in your refreshments. Montezuma’s Revenge was not the road to a healthy bowel movement or a healthy blow out of anything from any part of the body. Ergo, our last stop before crossing the border was to purchase our own bottles of water, ice and lettuce. And this was why, we rationalized, we would only drink margaritas, tequila shots or mezcal while dining in cantinas. 

Tecate or Modelo beers were a nice alternative when relaxing on the beach and watching a sunset while listening to the ocean’s crash. Open containers were illegal so we oftentimes buried the bottles while drinking, in case the local cops snuck around or in case we passed out. And sometimes, when parking oneself on the beach, sitting on a hard spot due to some miscreant leaving an empty bottle buried in the sand confirmed that we weren’t the first to place our butts in that sandy spot.

Our first stop was the perennially popular Hussong’s Cantina. The story goes that Hussong created the first margarita. How Hussong came to own the bar was another one of those mythical tales, the true facts of which were lost in the mist of time— something to do with the original owner asking two complete strangers, who had randomly wandered into the place, to watch his bar for a couple of days while he went up to California to retrieve his errant wife. The guy was carrying an axe so the fellas said ‘sure’. Who knows what happened up north, since neither the man nor his wife ever returned. In the meantime, Hussong, a nice German lad, kept the shop going, candle in the window and all that; eventually renaming the place after himself. We all speculated, during highly intoxicated and highly absurd “what if” queries and debates, whether the original owner did leave town or was buried under the cantina. We further opined that certain events and facts may have become lost in translation with the passing years. Ultimately, what was a unanimous decision, what most mattered!!! was that the margaritas were stellar.

In any event, Hussong’s was an idyllic hole in the wall. It was dark and dank, the floor was covered with sawdust and other unidentifiable ‘stuff’; the bar maintained the underlying aroma of stale liquor and old cigarette smoke. We were very impressed with ourselves because we thought the place was so charmingly authentic. (We were young. We didn’t know any better.) One wall was covered with business cards from everywhere; some even looked reputable. I don’t recall that there were windows or maybe we were never there during daylight hours but the drinks were strong and generous and the mariachi band was outstanding. We sang loudly, we danced erratically, we laughed at each other’s singing and dancing and we were just so happy to be young and alive and having fun with each other. This was south of the border joie de vivre hospitality at its best. We felt like such international sophisticates: Scott and Zelda, Hemingway, Gerald and Sara Murphy had nothing on us. Of course, the people at the next table probably were from Pasadena but they looked mean in the dark. By the time we left the cantina at our evening’s end we were long past that nice middle lane of social inebriation between giddy and sloppy. We were blind drunk, teetering with raucous laughter and holding each other up as best we could, busting up at each other’s antics. In short, we were an embarrassment to ourselves, each other and our entire country.

Even drunk, we realized that we needed to be careful; different rules applied in a foreign country. A man getting drunk can do crazy things, a woman getting drunk can have crazy things done to her. The unsavory looking amigos loitering outside the doors of cantinas in the area might not have earned their Boy Scout badges by ‘helping’ the ‘amigos’ back to their van; yet another reason we never traveled alone. Occasionally, one of us tossing our cookies just outside the cantina’s doors may have kept a few more seedy types away from us, thereby allowing us to wend our way back to our campers in a perhaps unrefined but relatively linear line.

Mornings would arrive too soon and inevitably there would be senoras knocking on our door with the singsong “tamales”. For those of us who could keep food down these fresh hot tamales were manna from heaven; something to soak up the stomach corroding acids, while others of us continued to lay still, eyes closed to keep the sunlight and vertigo at bay; the very aroma of the corn tamales causing our bodies to convulse, while begging for water from anyone daring to stand upright. We understood the concept of our ‘body as a temple’. We also rationalized that temples appreciated offerings and each evening we did our best to lovingly offer ourselves up to the tequila gods but the mornings brought another, more certain, clarity. Tequila gods did not love us back.

Being exquisitely young and foolish, by early afternoon we were relatively sober and ready to spend the rest of the day enjoying the warm sunshine, buying ‘authentic’ clothes that we would never wear, lunching on chicken mole and bartering for genuine huaraches. By evening we were revived and ready to repeat the previous evening’s performance at another ‘original’ location to further our dining and dancing pleasures. 

Too, we learned that if we didn’t move our vans fast enough each morning, there would be another knock at the door by someone in a uniform advising us that we were parked illegally and would be required to visit the local “officio” to settle matters. We knew that this was no time to make up a wild excuse to the local cop (sign? there was no stinkin’ sign!), but was the time to pull out another twenty and then vamoose to another location. That was how things were settled, in true south of the border style. What followed each evening was, of course, another repeat of the previous evening. 

And the ride back to California after those glorious three day holidays ensured equally memorable moments. Camper vans had their own lane due to the various options for contraband delivery to the US. We would watch to determine which lane was moving the fastest. Of course this took time too. During one trip, I irritably opined that it might be easier and faster to just take our chances and let them take our van apart but someone said that that would still put our names “on the list”. The list? Besides, how many of us had brought papers to prove who we actually were and to which country we owed our loyalty. No list. My husband would admonish me to say nothing about my new huaraches and, in fact, to just say nothing at all. The police and the federales didn’t expect women to talk anyway so that worked out well. Once the local police entered the cabin, surreptitiously looking for all manner of forbidden exports, we merely had to give them our apologies - disculpas, give them the last of the Dos Equis beers that we didn’t mean to bring back with us and give them the last of our twenties. The police would then see to it that the federales need not search the premises. Again, south of the border hospitality. And I was getting away with sneaking my huaraches into the county. Those days are long gone, while  the memories remain but I still wonder what happened to all my shoes down there.