Tourist Trap

Some jerk was having his wedding reception that night at the resort. It kept us from being fed dinner for hours because most of the hotel’s employees and all of their kitchen staff were being overwhelmed by the wedding party. I drank bottle after bottle of Negra Modelo, which is one of my favorite dark beers. Autumn and I waited, sitting patiently at a table in what was probably the resort’s cafeteria. The wedding group had seized all of the main dining area. I peeked through a doorway to see what was going on in there and I spied hundreds of people in tuxedos and expensive formal dresses having a wonderful time. Meanwhile we were sitting in a cold, utilitarian style room, quietly starving thanks to them. Fuckers. By the time we were finally served some dinner Annoying stepmom and Q had discovered our table and seated themselves with us. No escape. There wasn’t much on Autumn’s or my plates, for me it was a mere inadequate snack. I have to say the food was decent though. I wanted much more of it in my belly.

The next day Q and his wife were up early and gone to go see some rock formation on the coast that as waves crashed into it caused a geyser. Neither Autumn or I were too interested in going along so we stayed behind and slept in. When we finally hauled ourselves out of bed we found our way to the dining hall and had one of the best meals of our entire trip. The resort had set up one of those serve yourself all you can eat deals with all kinds of tasty Mexican dishes. I got up from the table for seconds and thirds and fourths. It was so good. After both of us were quite satiated with food it was time to go back out past the pool for a long walk on the beach together.

I have never seen such pure white sand with so much flakes of gold stuff in it. Each wave that rolled in seemed to be made of liquid gold in the sunlight. Truly beautiful. I’m sure it was something non-precious, like mica, but it was so pretty to look at in bright daylight. Autumn took a couple pictures of it. The sand was soft to walk barefoot in. It felt warm and nice. I wished we had more time to stay there and that we were alone, instead of with her folks. We were going to have to leave for home in a few hours.

The rest of the time we spent in Ensenada was horribly rushed. When Q returned from the coast later that afternoon he took us to the tourist trap part of town because all of us wanted to find some junk trinkets and souveniers to bring back. Q got us lost again though, and we had to stop at a small run-down shopping center to ask where the chump section of town was located. While we were there he decided to hit a drug store and buy a bulk package of nicotine patches. He could get them in Mexico over-the-counter in a stronger doseage than you can in the States.

I wanted a real switchblade and some good brass knuckles. Q brought me a crude but rowdy set of brass knuckles he had picked up on their coastal day trip. It set me back ten bucks. I was a little disappointed in his choice of skull buster because they were so funky looking. The knuckles he handed me were cast out of some low grade metal and spray painted gold. I anticipated buying polished, high quality brass knuckles. It wasn’t until much later I realized the shrewd wisdom of Q’s purchase for me. He really knew what he was doing. Autumn’s brother had put in a request for brass knuckles too. Autumn hoped to find some Oaxacan animals and Day of the Dead figurines. Q and Annoying Stepmother were also after some goodies, but I already forgot what they desired to find. After we made it to the tourist trap part of Ensenada and parked the car we split up in two groups and went our separate ways. We planned to meet up at four in the afternoon. That gave us plenty of time for lunch and to scrounge around for trinkets and contraband.

Autumn was so cool to me that afternoon as we window shopped. By this time in our trip I was pathetically broke. She not only fronted me the dough to get a nice Italian switchblade, but she also gave me some money to buy Senor 23 a hand carved marble pipe, and she bought me an entire figurine skeleton mariachi band for Day of the Dead. She spent over a hundred dollars at one particular shop on all sorts of things. The Mexican shop owners were a married couple and they were amusing to watch her barter with. When Autumn was trying to decide what kind of carved Oaxacan animal to buy the shopkeepers kept trying to make extremely silly deals wth her. Autumn would say how much she liked an Oaxacan figurine carved in the shape of a deer and the shop owner would say something like, “You have to buy the one next to it as well since it’s a female and you can’t take the male one away from it.” Shit like that. They were doing everything they could to work more cash out of her.

When I was looking at a shelf full of little dead mariachi skeletons holding different trumpets and acoustic guitars Autumn noticed me eyeballing them and she asked me if I wanted one. I said sure, so I picked out a good one and held it in my hand. The pesky but amusing merchant was like, “No man! You can’t break up the band! You gotta take them all!” So Autumn bought me a whole band of dead mariachi guys.

~ by factorypeasant on October 14, 2005.