"Tequila!" - The
Rosarito-Ensenada Bike Race Team"Tequila!" - The
Rosarito-Ensenada Bike Race Team
It's that time of the year again; Tom has once again given me
the call; The 10th annual Spring Rosarito-Ensenada bike ride is
here!
This time, we decide to make it a party! it almost
coincides with my birthday, so I send an email around to all of
my guy friends detailing all of the fun we had had so far
(why no girls? wouldn't want to bring sand to the beach would we?
;-)
The response was astronomical! After string of emails entitled
"38 brown eyed girls that make me smile"
12 of us decided to go (4 later dropped out)
Abe and Perry decided to drive down, Tom already lived in
Orange County, and was going to drive to San Diego to meet us and
arrange the Van rental to take us into Mexico.
The rest of us boarded a SouthWest Air MD80 in SFO and proceeded
to make the rest of the plane jealous. Before we landed, the
stewardess had dubbed us "The Fun Row". We even dragged
other passengers into it.
We land in San Diego, get our bikes, and board the shuttle for
the car rental agency, where Tom is waiting for us. There is a
problem with the van; it's a little mini van, and there is no way
in hell that the 5 of us and our bikes are going to fit. The ever
resourceful Tom however, has a solution; we would rent a huge
Ford Econoline, the type that nameless government agencies use to
show up at mysterious crime scenes and spirit away innocent
bystanders.
Awesome! It's party time!!
The rental agency will not allow us to remove any of the seats,
forcing us to jam the bicycles on top of the back couple of rows,
and all jam into the first two rows. So what, there's still
plenty of room. After loading our no longer needed bike boxes
into Tom's car, We head North! to rent bikes for Aaron,
the bikeless wonder and Santanu. After an eternity, we finally
head for the border, with only one stop to make; a Lucky
supermarket to purchase water and disposable camera's.
We arrive at our hotel to find everything all screwed up. We had
made reservations for three rooms that sleep three apiece. Nope,
no reservations at all. Abe is upset, Chris goes ballistic. I try
and talk calmly with the hotel management to get everything
fixed. They say that they have more rooms, but not at our price,
that the agency that I booked through had canceled our
reservations. Bullshit. This is a very common ploy in Mexico; you
book a room, show up and find out that all rooms at your price
are "under renovation" or "over booked" or
your reservations have been canceled, and the only alternative is
a much more expensive room.
I persevere; it was difficult enough to do as it was, but I had
to loose the peanut gallery of the other guys in order to do it,
but I get them to give us the new rooms at the same rate as we
had booked at.
We convince (read: bribe) the doorman that night into taking us
in the Hotel van out to the bars. First stop: BancoAutomatico
(ATM). Next Stop: Taco stand. Next Stop: some bar or other. In
the course of the evening, we ended up hitting Hussongs, Papas
and Beer, some place with sand on the inside, some other place
with a firemans pole, and at least 3 other bars. And we lost
Chris. Don't know what happened to him. We waited at the Taco
stand at the end of the night, (and Santanu had to pay twice for
the same burrito), but he never showed up. We didn't see him
again until the next morning.
The next morning we all look pretty grim. We get on a shuttle to
the start somewhere like 5 minutes before dawn. We all look and
feel like shit. As the bus loads with very quite and
shell-shocked looking people, I exclaim while looking into the
bus's mirror to the entire bus like they were all old, intimate
friends instead of total strangers: "Jeehz, after all these
years, I finally realized that my mom has been lying to me"
Chris looks at me funny and asks "How's that?"
and I respond "I'm ugly! and she's always told me how
handsome I was!"
Well, that sure broke the ice. Most of the occupants of the van
were smiling weakly, or sniggering a little now.
As things settle down, Tom boards the bus, and I can't help
myself, and exclaim as loudly as before: "Boy Tom, it looks
like your mom lied to you too"
Well, the entire bus screeches out in laughter, and poor Tom,
having been absent for my earlier comment, hasn't a clue what I
was on about.
We get to Rosarito, and assemble our bikes. We have a replay of
1994! Chris's bike is missing a part! The quick release from his
front wheel has fallen out of his box. Mad race around the
starting line, but Chris manages to find a new (albeit expensive)
one. We pop into the Salty Dog for breakfast, and off we go!
The race is on. Chris bolts on ahead of everyone, intent on
finishing first. Has he forgotten that the object is to meet
girls while enjoying a ride in the Mexican sunshine? Probably. I
take a leisurely ride in the rear. I also start to tire, although
not as badly as last fall. About 1/3 of the way into the ride, I
stop for a break, and Perry and Santanu ride up. Perry is taking
drugs for stamina; something called oxygen pills. He gives me
one, and off we go.
The hill
is upon us. Shit, it's as bad as I remember. 12 miles of steep
uphill, with no end in sight. Perry and Santanu take off ahead of
me. I'm wobbly, but still upright. A nice hispanic woman is
abreast of me. We start to talk. Why is it that in the heat of
pain I always can find the energy to chat up a woman? Well, I do.
We finish the ride together, and she locks my bike up at the
fiesta alongside hers. Her friends are ecstatic that she seems to
have found a male to keep her company.
My new found friend has too head back to San Diego,
so after a nice peck on the cheek, off she goes. Everyone but
Perry is at the Fiesta already when I arrive; Perry decided to
stop at the hotel and take a nap rather than finish the race. Too
bad, his loss. We are having a great time!
After heading back to the hotel, we take a much needed soaking in
the hot tub before heading out. Chris want's us to all head to
this bar that he found the night before when he disappeared, so
we agree and pile into a couple of cabs and off we go.
We walk around Ensenada for a while, and Chris is a bit lost; he
can't seem to find this bar. He thinks he remembers the name, and
asks a guy on the street where "the Placenta is"
Amid hoots of laughter, the guy asks if we mean "la
Protranca"
Yes, that's the one we want replies Chris
"You don't want to go there" says the man
"Yes we do"
He leads us there through a very rough section of town. We
arrive at La Potranca as a couple of cops drag some poor soul out
on his heals. Perry and Abe bolt. The rest of us go in and have a
seat. A man sitting next to me folds open a napkin, revealing
what appears to be a lump of soap, and asks me if I want to buy
some heroin. There is a knife fight in the corner. A prostitute
grabs Chris's crotch and asks for $50.00US for a fuck. She
eventually works her way down to 3 Pesos for a dance. The
Waitress is stacking passed out drunks up in the corner like so
much cord wood. Santanu orders another round.
The next
morning we head out, and make a quick stop in Rosarito. Abe and
Perry need to leave Rosarito early, as they have a long drive
ahead of them. We follow suite, as we have to return Aaron the
bikeless wonder and Santanu's rental bikes.
On the way back, Chris suddenly remembers that he has a bag full
of pot that he "obtained" the night he disappeared.
Deciding that it was a bad idea to take it across the border, he
sparks up.
Tom sees a toll booth ahead, and shouts to the back of the van
"Hide The Pot!"
Chris, thinking that it's the cops, freaks, and throws it out the
window (to this day I wonder why? if it was the cops wouldn't
they see it?)
We uneventfully pay the toll, and head for the border.
If you have ever driven across the US-Mexican border at Tijuana,
you will know that it is something of an event. Every resident of
Tijuana is out on the freeway, attempting to sell all manner of
junk to the departing gringos that are stuck in the snarled
traffic. Chris, inebriated, decides he needs lots of it. He is
proud that he managed to aquire a Mayan calendar for $31.00US,
having talked the guy down $7.00. Aaron and I laugh, and I bet
Chris that I can get one for $5.00US. Chris, says that there is
no way I can, because the guy that sold him his claimed it was
one of a kind.
Aaron hands me a 5, and the bet is on.
I'm on a mission. I take Chris's calendar amidst his protests,
and hang out the window, shouting to all of the vendors: "Me
quiero un otro de este y tengo solamente cinco dolares"
I'm flooded with merchants shouting all sorts of counter offers
at me, but I hold strong at $5.00.
Finally, just at the border one woman relents, and gives me the
exact same calendar as Chris has. Same colours, it's even still
wet just like his.
We finally arrive at the airport, and Tom speeds off home. we
check in, all of us hung over, and board the plane real grumpy.
As we sit in the back of the plane, we strike up conversation
with this girl, who his pretty mad at SouthWest for some reason
or other, so we tell her to cheer up, as she's sitting next to
the fun row.
She replies that she just needs some sleep.
"Not a chance! I reply
As we take off, Santanu orders a round of Tequila and beer for us
all. We sing the Tequila song, and down it. 5 rounds later, we
had drank every single bottle of tequila on the plane! and
sung ourselves hoarse. There were people on that plane that swore
the would never fly SouthWest again we were so obnoxious.
We were so grateful for their hospitality, that we gave the
flight crew one of the calendars before departing for home.
The
Iron Butt Club |