Sex, Drugs, and Public Health

NAMES

Begin in Loreto. There’s a small airport by the Sea. Just outside the terminal, the environment is immediately categorizable.

After sailing from Loreto out of Puerto Escondido, we anchor the boat in a small bay of turquoise water, surrounded by rock walls on three sides with a small, empty-looking sand beach. Agua Verde, this bay is accurately named. We dinghy ashore to see if the “restaurant” is open.

“Restaurant?” I don’t see a structure anywhere.

But, as we approach the beach, I see, where the sand gives way to the cactus and scrub beyond, a barely visible primitive structure.

We wade ashore, shoes at first wet, then full of sand. There’s a grass roof on this structure, which looks to be just four posts protruding from the sand. As we approach, a small brown table of crude wood and four similarly constructed and colored chairs separate from the sand of the same color.

Three women emerge from the shadows beneath the roof. They greet us, ask us if we wish to eat, bid us sit down.

We order beer – Ballenas – much touted by my two fellow mariners, and the only thing on the menu – fish tacos.

I’m a little concerned about sanitation, given my grumpy intestines which, ever since a brutal siege of dysentery acquired in Bolivia and enduring well thru graduation from Med School in New York, have rebelled every time I’ve gone to Mexico.

I need to pee. Their “bathroom” is a crude rectangle of blue plastic behind the restaurant. I push aside the plastic cutain of a door, then push my way thru a swarm of flies and dense vapors of excrement. The source of the vapors stares up at me from a hole in the sand. The head on the boat looks pretty good, now.

Back at the table, I see one woman cheerfully pour flour into a battered aluminum can (probably once held canned peaches). She then pours in some water. She plunges her fist into the can and begins to work it while the other two deep-fry their husbands’ catch of the day on a camp stove.

“What are your names?” the Dueña asks.

“Carlos,” I respond, comforted to think that the tortillas she is making will be fried to a temperature lethal to most bugs before we are served. “And this is Tomás,” I point to Tom. “And Tomás,” I point to the other Tom. “Easy to remember.”

She laughs, removes her dough-covered hand from the can, and points. “You are Tomás Uno and you,” she moves her finger, “are Tomás Dos.”

These guys are both so mellow that I know they won’t fight over it.

The fresh tortillas and fried fish are delicious. The beer is delicious. Our Mexican hosts are delightful. Agua Verde is paradise.

(Photos by me and Tom Marlow)