Mexican school children parade with their heroes on El Dia de Revolucion
Mexican people love parades. Seems like every time Jackie and I are in Mexico, there is some sort of celebratory parade going on. But the one we witnessed last Monday morning, Nov. 19, Revolution Day, was particularly exceptional. Jackie and I, and our new friends Karen and Eno, who we met within ten minutes of our arrival at La Playa, watched the annual Revolution Day Children’s Parade in Bahia de Kino Viejo (60 km east of Hermosillo). Niños de la escuela of all ages, dressed up in proto-revolutionary costumes, carrying placards bearing faces of revolutionary heroes, shouting Viva Mexico! Viva La Revolución! paraded, marched, and danced down Acapulco Blvd. The streets were lined with enthusiastic parents, family members, and village citizens.
A narrow band of desert highway separates Bahia de Kino into two very distinct parts: Kino Viejo (old Kino) sits on the southern part of this pristine bay. There is so much natural beauty here that during certain times of the year, that it attracts hundreds, maybe thousands of visitors, both Mexican and American. I’m certain with so much natural beauty that surrounds this village, the village itself, its people and its often extreme poverty, is barely visible to most visitors; that is unless you do not keep your eyes open. Kino itself is the perfect metaphor representing Mexico as a country top-full of mysteries, contrasts, and paradoxes. While Kino Viejo is essentially a small, and very poor fishing village where most of the families live in crudely constructed hovels, often fabricated from nothing more than cardboard coated with asphalt tar or corrugated steel roofing painted black. Many families have received donations of concrete block building materials from the local part-time residence Americans, or RV trailers that American snowbirds have abandoned for one reason or another and donated to families without any housing at all. Mexican people as a rule are both resilient and resourceful if necessary, but they are also a very grateful people, and they understand that some Americans want to help simply out of the goodness of their hearts. There are many Americans here who are like that.
Isla Alcatraz as seen from La Playa RV Park, Bahia de Kino
Five miles of fairly decent road separates Kino Viejo from Kino Nuevo where the wealthy Mexicans and Americans own spectacular hacienda style houses that loom over the upper part of the bay. We are camped at a virtually empty RV park, La Playa, that also sits above the bay, affording us with a privileged and beautiful view of the islands Isla Alcatraz and Isla Tiburón. Mexican families tend to be weekenders, driving in from Hermosillo. American Snowbirds take up residence often as long as six months out of the year, especially the Canadians desperately trying to escape from the Canadian winters. Some Americans, such as our new found friends Karen and Eno, drive the five or so hours from Tucson, Arizona, and live in their very modern, very comfortable travel trailer. They rent their space, which has a spectacular view of the southern bay, by the year for an insanely reasonable rate. As I write this, they have just left for Tucson for a couple of weeks, planning to return as soon as possible in early December. When we arrived just two weeks ago, they were the only residents; now, with them gone, we are the only ones in this paradise. But don’t feel bad for us: while the news from Warrenton and Astoria reports the residents suffering from early winter rain and wind storms (the highway to the high school is flooded under four feet of water; buses, somehow, plow through with teachers and kids), we celebrate the 80 degree air and 70 degree water temps with daily walks up and down emerald-water beaches, devour the large blue and brown shrimp fresh off the boat; eat flounder, so fresh that cooking it evokes the very essence of the sea; consume crab (just in season now for a couple of weeks) that an old fisherman in a wheel chair spent hours cleaning and cooking, then selling it to me for 100 pesos a kilo; and least I forget, there is Poncho, who cooks for the gringo tourists out of his house on weekends, and who during the week carves Salvador Dali (he told me in his splendid broken English that he had seen a poster of one of Dali’s Christs) inspired crucifixes out of iron wood using an old washing machine motor and an old Craftsman carbide blade that’s been modified and repaired a thousand times. Yes, Mexico is full of mysteries, contrasts, and paradoxes.
Hasta la próxima vez…
Not a scene from a Greek isle, but empty RV sites…
Isla Alcatraz from our modest campsite…
Call and Response 