2011.12.30 – Cancun: One Degree of Separation
Hostel Mayapan, in a disused shopping mall, is the
only budget accommodation in Cancun’s ‘hotel zone,’ otherwise the purview of
high-end chains like Intercontinental and Ritz-Carlton. These hog the white
sands along the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea, but city planners did
scatter a few public beaches in between, with access points cleverly disguised
as truck loading zones. Hostel Mayapan proudly proclaims on its web-site: ‘Only
200m from the beach!’ That beach turns out to be 20m of sand next to the ferry
terminal to Isla Mujeres; but 800m further on, Playa Caracol is indeed a slice
of paradise: meter-high waves of an unimaginable blue roll in rhythmically,
gently buoying surfers waiting patiently for that occasional high crest. And
the temperature is perfect, no wet-suits required -- though the boys all look
very cool in their black neoprene muscle-shirts.
On the main street nearby is Coco Bongo, which puts on a nightly
show to rival the Cirque to Soleil if the advertising is to be believed. Some
sober Swiss-Germans at the hostel shelled out for it, and related the next
morning over a breakfast of Special K and filter coffee that it was in fact
‘unbelievable’ – so now I am a believer. On big party nights the clubs on the
remaining three corners of the Coco Bongo intersection collude and offer
common access and an open bar to wrist-band wearers. Electronic rave
music pumps out into the street and six-inch stilettos dominate the dance
floor. Revelers don’t leave until dawn.
I returned to the dorm-room one night about midnight to discover
that my British bunk-mates had checked out, and two new boys were getting ready
to go out and party. They were speaking something that sounded like Spanish
with an Italian twist (or Italian with a Spanish twist), so I was amused to
learn from Mauro that he was from Buenos Aires born of an Italian mother, and
his friend Nicolas was also Argentine but of German and Italian origin: “I feel
like I know Europe, you know; even though I’ve never been there.”
I shared that I was at the beginning of a longer journey through
Central and South America, and Nicolas’ face lit up. “That’s awesome! I drove
my motor-bike from DC to Argentina a couple of years ago; that was an amazing
trip!” I said I was thinking of catching a boat from Panama to Colombia, since
I’d heard it’s unsafe for travelers to cross by road a border area dominated by
narco-traffickers. Mauro, already very drunk, launched into a diatribe about
gun-ownership, and how regular people should all carry arms to balance
ownership by criminals. Nicolas, his eyes alight with memories of his
adventure, steered the conversation back to the logistics of making the
crossing by water. “Take a boat, but don’t let them drop you off at any old
island along the way. There’s this one island – I’ll remember the name in a
minute – where some German guys got dropped off, and it was like a week before
another boat came by and picked them up!” I pulled up Google Maps on my laptop
and Nicolas pointed out the village as far south as I could go on the
Panamanian coast, and the village I’d arrive at in Colombia. “They charged us
about $900 to transport our bikes. I was travelling with these two other guys,
another South American and this Gringo we met on the road. We all had to get
our bikes to Colombia on the boat. They weigh a lot!”
Once you land in Colombia, you’ve still not arrived. You’ve got to
take another boat to a town where there’s a border post with immigration police
to get your passport stamped and file papers for any vehicle you’re taking into
the country. “Then we walked back. Me and the Gringo. He was hard-core. He was
bare-foot, and we walked through the jungle, over this mountain.” Nicolas was
glowing, re-living the adventure. “This Gringo, he was tall and blond and had
blue eyes. There was no mistaking him for a Gringo. And he didn’t speak
Spanish. Wherever we’d be with local people I’d say ‘He’s with me, he’s cool,
don’t worry about him.” Nicolas waxed on, “We were like brothers. I liked the
other guy we were with just fine, but me and this Gringo just clicked. We liked
the same stuff. Like, when we were camping on the beach one time, we decided to
go spear-fishing to catch our dinner. The other guy, he just wasn’t into it.”
Nicolas recounted how the Gringo had come to stay with his family for
about a month once they got to Argentina. “I come from a family of mechanics.
That’s why I love bikes so much (he shrugged at this). By this time, the
Gringo’s bike was all fucked up. The steering wheel didn’t point straight
anymore – he’d be trying to drive straight but his arms would be way over here
(he mimed the awkward driving position). My uncle took care of it. Like I said,
he was like my brother; that’s the reason I invited him to stay with my
family.”
Mauro was getting bored and said something in Span-lian (maybe
it’s just that he gesticulated like an Italian and was all wound up like a
Napolitan caught in traffic). “Yeah, we’ll go, we’ll go, in just a minute –
let me show her some photos on Facebook.” Nicolas logged in to his
account and found the album of his motorbike trip and flipped through a
succession of photos of guys and motor-bikes against various back-grounds. Then
there was one where the Gringo was standing upright, full-length, in the right
side of the frame. I leaned in closer. It wasn’t a super clear shot, but I
couldn’t help asking, “This Gringo, his name wasn’t Trale, was it? Trale
Bardell?” Nicolas paused to remember, then missed a beat as he subconsciously
consulted some probability charts buried in his brain against the evidence of
this name hanging in the air. “You know him? You know this guy?! Yeah, Trale,
that was his name. But we called him Tomas coz Trale was too hard to remember.”
I said, “He’s my cousin.”
Trale Bardell. The son of my cousin Patti Bardell-Leininger. He
grew up on a farm outside of Rock Island, Illinois, was home schooled through middle
school, and was elected valedictorian of his graduating high-school class.
After college he worked on oil-rigs in Siberia and Indonesia, and saved up
money. When he got home, he bought a motorbike and rode it all the way from
Rock Island to Patagonia. In my mind Trale is a Lone Ranger, capable of
tackling any eventuality in the wild, surviving winter blizzards and parched
summers, mending any piece of machinery and tending any kind of farm animal.
I’d met him twice, once in 1988 on the farm when he was a bleached blond boy of
five, and again in 2010 at a family reunion when he was twenty-seven, a
seasoned veteran of overseas adventures, but a reticent conversationalist.
“Oh my god! Oh my god!! You’re his COUSIN!? That’s unbelievable!
He’s like my brother and here I am with his cousin! Now I see; you do look
kind-of like him.” And we both laughed in disbelief and delight, and clapped
our arms around each other.
More unbelievable than the Coco Bongo
nightly show.
No comments:
Post a Comment