This week I've been staying in the home of Angel Garcia, a legendary local stone mason, and his wife Irma who is a fabulous cook. Good conversation and fresh red snapper, straight out of the sea. I'm not stupid enough to want to leave. "Can I stay here one more day? Por Favor?" Sure.
We had chili rellenos for dinner last night. Home made. About six inches long and six inches around so I'm not exactly starving. But. Yelapa is famous for its pie and I'm having big trouble tracking down the pie lady. What's with that? Have I got to go back to freaking Puerto Vallarta to get Yelapa pie? That's just not right!
"What are you gonna do tomorrow?" asked one of my fellow estudiantes.
December 13: Usually the main beach here is perfect for swimming but there must have been some fierce storms up north or something recently because today the surf was definitely UP. And to get from the pueblo (where they don't sell pie) to the beach (where they do), you gotta wade across the place where the river meets the ocean. Gulp.
"Would you carry my day-pack when you cross," I asked a strong-looking man, "so that when I get swept out to sea, at least my passport and my BART card will be safe?" He said okay. So I took off my jeans and held the man's hand. He held my day-pack and we did it.
And it turned out that the man was from Stillwater, Minnesota. Go figure.
So. Now I'm on the beach. Where is the pie lady? Then I heard shouting, looked around and there was a motorboat filled with tourists capsizing in the surf! This is crazy! I'll NEVER get to my pie! I set down my pack and joined the rush of young Yelapa men who were diving into the surf to try and save the women and children. Too late! No one could even approach the boat let alone keep it steady. Tourists were being thrown out of the boat like rag dolls as it bucked up and down in the high waves and shook about like a mad dog. It was amazing that no one was badly hurt. But a lot of purses, day-packs and digital cameras are now at the bottom of the ocean.
Bravely I proceeded on in the search of pie. There she is! The pie lady. "Stop her!" I cried. She had lemon meringue, coconut cream, pecan, chocolate, custard and apple. ''Apple, please."
Meanwhile, the tour guide for the capsized boat was gathering his little tourist flock around him and trying to talk them into boarding another motorboat while simultaneously talking to his boss on his cell phone and trying to cover his [bottom] as to why he had been attempting to herd 20 tourists into a 10-person boat in the midst of the wildest surf Yelapa had seen in years.
He could always tell his boss that it was the Pope's fault that he didn't expect erratic waves. After all, according to Rob Kall, the Drudge Report had just stated that the Pope had condemned the "prophets" of climate change and global warming. "Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology." Drudge! The Pope did not say that! What he actually said was, "Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow. "
Misquoting the freaking Pope? I'm not even going to go there. I got my pie. I'm happy.
December 14: My speech on Iraq went well last night. I'm totally shy when talking to one or two people but give me a crowd and I swim like a fish. And someone even offered to buy my book! When I get home, I need to go on a book tour. Gary Kohls has offered to help me get a lecture gig in Duluth, Minnesota. I should do that. Is it anywhere near Stillwater? And if anyone ever wants to buy me a plane ticket to come to your town and flog my book, PLEEZE let me know. I'll even come speak to your garden club, your bachelor party or your Girl Scout troop!
It's so nice here in Yelapa that I want to stay another day. I'm content here. And when I get back to America, will that nagging sense of discontent that drove me to come to Mexico in the first place take over again? "It is the winter of our discontent." Who in America isn't discontented? Raise your hand.
Last night at my lectura on Iraq, some guy came up to me and started talking about shale oil in Canada. Huh? "They extract the oil and what's left is sulfur, which they pack into lime-green cubes and stack in pyramids so high you can see them from the moon. There are three of them now -- with many more to come. They have one million times more sulfur stacked in those three pyramids than everyone on earth could EVER use." What the freak can one use sulfur for anyway? Then he actually asked me for my autograph! Wow.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
