Mexico IV: The Betrayal of Tuita

11/12/06 – 11/14/06

 

Map: http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/jalisco-state-mexico/jalisco-state-mexico-map-a2.shtml  (El Tuito is near the left middle, just south of Pt. Vallarta on Mex 200)

 

(the photos corresponding to this update – and several more to come in the near future - and the others are up on our flickr account now so you can put images with the stories!

 

The road west from Tuito was supposed to go uphill at first and then be downhill all the way to the Pacific.  It was the last time we believed anyone we asked about hill.  Unless they’re on a bicycle nobody has any idea what a hill is, what a mountain is, what dirt and stones and gravel do to your travel time.  “Pure downhill” we hear, or “Only a small hill, for a short while.”  Sure, if you’re in the ubiquitous Nissan pickup or autobus.

 

We stopped early on to put on our bike shorts (laugh you may, but these in combination with our Brooks leather saddles are saving our asses!  I am wearing mine under regular shorts, Christina under a skirt), filter water, and curse the folks who told us it was mostly downhill.  The going was very slow on the road.  Not only was it loose dirt, but it was littered with rocks and covered on the insides of the curves with deep sand.  The hills are also extremely steep.  The weight on Christina’s bike is unbalanced, and several times she has bad falls.  Nothing serious, but big bruises and cuts.  It also scares her and brings our pace down to no faster than a walk.  Getting started again on uphills is near impossible and loosing control in the rocks and sand of downhills is likely.  We stop for a snack at the turn off to Biotio (a new road perhaps, it’s not on our map –this whole road and area will be paved within 2-3 years we were told by some gringo developer in Tuito) and then continue on into the dusk. 

 

It’s getting late and we’ve seen nowhere to camp.  Suddenly we hear laughter and voices – over the next hill is a small rancho (sometimes these towns are no more than one building – this is one of them).  Out front is a birthday party: children swinging at a piñata, adults sipping drinks at the edges.  Their dogs begin the bark like mad and come out to chase us.  We bend over as if to pick up rocks and they back off.  So far this has worked for any angry canines.  In fact, despite dire warnings, most of the dogs we’ve seen so far seem well taken care of and not too aggressive.  One of the men comes out to talk to us.  We ask him how far it is to Llano Grande, the next rancho.  Not before dark he tells us.  And then goes on to say: “but that’s okay, the roads are safe at dark, not too many cars” Right, and there are no uphills either.  “What will you do when you get to Llano Grande” he asks.  Good question, it could be a rancho like this.  We ask about camping but he seems to think it’s not going to happen.  As we’re talking we notice a small dog, maybe a still young dog, watching us.  Unlike the other dogs who have lost complete interest and are back at the birthday party, this dog is sitting watching us.  We can see his ribs he’s so thin.  We scratch his head a bit.  Okay we tell the man, we’ll go on and see how far we get.  And so we leave.  And the dog follows us.  And follows us.  And keeps following us.  Half an hour later he’s still following us.  Running alongside first my bike and then Christina’s – whomever is behind.

 

A little while later, at a wide bend in the road, where it crosses a stream, we find a semi-hidden place to camp.  The dog watches us unpack our bikes and set up our tent.  It’s obvious that the people he came from didn’t take care of him.  He has what looks like burn marks on his back.  He hangs his head and dances in those skittish movements like an abused dog does.  As if we might hit him at any moment.  From kindness to cruelty in an instant.  He’s well used to it.  We decide we have to give him some food.  He’s so thin that it would be a crime not to. We look around and he’s a little bit up the road, almost as if he’s going to return to his rancho.  He stops in the middle of the road and looks at us.  His eyes are human like.  He asks us: “What will it be?”  The moment hangs there.  It’s a crossroads for sure.  If we feed him, maybe even just smile at him, he’ll stay with us forever.  If we turn our backs he goes back to the rancho.  The moment seems to last forever.  We give him a small loaf of bread.  Our fate is sealed.

 

We name him Tuito.  It’s from where we all came.  It sounds like a great dog name.  Christina begins calling him Tweety.  He guarded our tent all night.  Barking and growling at a herd of cows who wandered down towards out tent (I think we were sleeping by their nighttime watering hole).  He loved us so much for the little bit of attention and food that he insisted on sleeping not next to the tent, but ON the tent.  He found Christina’s leg and curled up on the bottom of the tent, outside of it, so that he could feel her leg on the other side of the tent fabric.  We fed him some breakfast and checked him out.  Besides being sickly thin and his two patches of raw skin on his back, his ears looked ragged and dirty, and I found three ticks on him.  With alcohol and tweezers I went to work on them as Christina held and soothed him. 

 

That morning he followed us like a champ.  We kept thinking he would tire being so thin, but he kept up with us.  At one point we came to a group of cows blocking the road.  Tuito took off after them at a full out sprint.  The cows began mooing like mad and galloped off in the opposite direction with Tuito hot on their tails.  We biked after them, laughing hysterically. After an hour of so he began to tire.  We realized no matter how much spunk this fellow had, there was no way he was going to be able to keep up with us mile after mile in the hot sun.  At the next rancho (another 1 house one) we found a woman and her dogs.  She gave us a milk crate which we strapped to my bike.  Tuito was placed inside and the woman tied him with some heavy rope into the crate.

This was the way we were riding up and down the dirt mountains when Roberto found us.

 

Roberto had a mullet.  And a pickup.  And was probably already drunk by midday.  But he was offering us a ride to the ocean at a point where we were frustrated beyond belief.  I had already told myself that we wouldn’t ask for rides unless we had to, but that offered rides would be taken for the sake of interesting adventure.  Little did I know that a couple of turns behind me, Christina pushing the bike up a hill with her radar on, had already refused a ride.  So when she caught up to me, I was loading my bike and Tuito into Roberto’s pick up.  I rode in the back with Tuito cowering in the corner.  The wind was in my hair, Roberto had handed me a beer, and we were flying over those damned sandy roads.  Damn those sandy roads.  At each rancho we stopped and it was understood we were supposed to drink a beer.  As the miles passed, and my buzz grew, Tuito became more and more brave.  By beer 4 he was standing with his front paws on Christina’s bike wheel, his head over the side of the truck’s bed, tasting the wind.

 

Half hour into the drive Roberto stopped at a graveyard.  He wanted to show us where his father and brother were buried.  His father he told us was killed at 32 by a pistol shot to the head.  In a cantina.  His brother had his head cut off by a cousin.  In a cantina.  I poured some beer on their graves and we rode on.

 

Roberto took us to his brother Antonio’s home in Mayto (or Maito).  Mayto is a small rancho on the Pacific.  Antonio’s home sat 20 yards from the beach and a turtle sanctuary.  We unloaded the bikes, met Antonio and his family, were assured that all our stuff would be safe there, and got back into the truck to go to lunch.  Roberto took us to the next town over which I can’t remember the name of…maybe Aqui something.  By this time we were seeing Roberto’s plan.  He was going to milk these two gringos for lots of beer and lunch and stick them with his brother for the night.  The restaurant he took us to, while out of some Mexican west coast movie set in its beauty, was expensive as hell.  Which with no menu we didn’t know until the bill came.  Well the view was spectacular and the beer flowed.  Then Roberto wanted me to drive his truck back.  5 on the floor, Nissan of course, on those crazy dirt roads, round curves – now that was fun!

 

I should have known by his face and demeanor, it’s not like I haven’t been around coke heads before.  But he was so friendly and we were full of good food and beer.  And he had saved us from dirt hell.  And we had a place to sleep in beach front heaven.  And we had Tuito to protect us.  I drove back to Antonio’s and we convinced Roberto that we didn’t want to go with him to his place.  This place was just fine.  God knows how many more beers we’d have to buy him on the way there.  His speech was so slurred and fast by now that Christina couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying.  And Antonio and his family just ignored him.  Finally Christina told him in a loud blunt manner: “We’ll stay HERE”.  He smiled, told us he would drive us back to Mex 200 in the morning at 8am, and got into his truck.  We agreed.  It would take us days to bike those back roads.  Plus his route back would drop us many kilometers south on 200 from El Tuito so we’d be on a nice flat road for a while.  He then waved me over and spit several sentences at me.  I understood nothing but the international sign of thumb to nose.  That and the word “pesos”.  I handed him what change I had and he waved for me to come with him with more thumb to nose signals.  No thanks I said and waved him on.

 

After he left Anotonio’s family sighed in collective relief and offered us to eat Squash with them.  We said thanks but we’re full from lunch.  And by the way your brother is insane.  Yes, yes, they knew.  He was good, but the beer and the coke, you know.  Shrug of the shoulders.  We walked the short distance to the beach.  It was magnificent!  Not a nasty development in sight.  In fact nothing in sight but a tiny thatched hotel a half kilometer one way and the tents of the turtle sanctuary watchers a few k’s the other way.  Tuito bravely ran straight into the waves and tried to bite them.  He would run in and out in a grand attempt to hunt the receding water.  We swam and watched him laughing.  After getting tumbled one too many times he retired to sit by our clothes and watch us with worry.  For a dog that had most likely never seen the ocean, he was sure brave and we congratulated him on not cowering upon the sight of the mighty Pacific.

 

When we returned from the ocean, the family offered us the Squash again, knowing what a swim does to the appetite.  It was amazing.  Antonio’s wife (whose name we got but can’t remember right now) had cooked the squash for a long, long time with sugarcane.  The end result were these large chunks (the original squash must have been several feet long!) of the hardened rind which we would pick up with our hands and eat out the soft dark flesh.  It was so sweet and so good.  We offered them a pint of milk, some bread, and some eggs we bought in town.  The rest of the evening we spent talking to them.  Antonio had spent 15 years in Florida picking oranges in order to build this place.  Antonio Jr. was from his first wife who lived a few houses over.  The little baby was from his current wife whom he married when he returned to Mexico.  She was 24, beautiful, warm and laughed at amazement at our stories.  Antonio was 38, very serious but extremely generous and friendly.  Antonio jr. just wanted to play with us.  He called me “guapo” when I changed into my collared shirt.  He loved the Frisbee that Christina brought.  Tuito slept by our bikes while we humans gabbed.  He was tired and his belly was full of fish and beans that the family had fed him.  He was also a She!  We discovered suddenly that evening that Tuito didn’t have a very small penis, Tuito had no penis at all!  So we apologized profusely to her for our mistake and the family laughed at us.  Tuito was now Tuita!  We pitched our tent under a covered section of their driveway.  The family slept at Antonio’s first wife’s house because it was too hot in his.

 

The next morning Antonio and company were off to Pt. Vallarta for the day.  They ate and were gone quickly, possibly trying to miss when Roberto came.  We thanked them and exchanged addresses.  We were exhausted from the night before.  Sleep had been hard, disturbed by Tuita’s barking at beach bound strangers, and the decision we had to make. 

 

The night before Antonio had offered to keep Tuita.  They didn’t have a dog.  And Antonio jr. seemed to like her.  Also Antonio said: “It will be good to have a dog to eat all our spoiled food”.  We silently flinched.  But could we really continue to take Tuita with us?  Was it selfish of us?  She would have to ride most days for hours in a crate on my bike, tied up in case of a fall.  We couldn’t take her on a bus (which had planned to utilize a bunch on the trip).  We couldn’t bring her into a hotel (which we planned to stay at every once in a while for showers and rest).  We were certain we couldn’t cross any borders with her.  It would basically mean completely changing our trip and just staying in Mexico.  Were we willing to do this?  The only other option was sending her home right now.  There would be a ton of paper-work, money spent on various bureaucratic crap, time spent in isolation for her, etc.  And then whom at home would take her?  We couldn’t think of anyone we were willing to spring that on.  “Hey guys, sorry for the short notice, but here’s our starving, stinky, bug bitten, dirty eared, dog from Mexico, thanks so much, see ya.”

 

Antonio and his family were kind and their cat looked healthy and taken care of.  She would be much better off than starving at the rancho she came from.  Even if she was to be used as a canine garbage compactor.  What was best for her?  There doesn’t seem to be the same relationship between Mexicans and their dogs.  We thought this just an economic issue.  If there’s no food for my family why the hell would I feed and care for a dog.  But it seemed to cross class lines.  Even with families who had plenty of food, families whose dogs were fat and healthy, there didn’t seem to be the anything beyond canine loyalty.  There didn’t seem to be affection or love.  Despite our brains telling us this was just a cultural difference, and we were trying to impose ours, we couldn’t help calling it as we saw it.  But really, what could be done.  It was breaking our hearts.  And Tuita knew.  She was underfoot all morning watching us with sorrowful eyes.  Even while jumping on the tent to protect Christina from the hissing of the deflating air-mattress, she looked sad.  Finally we decided we had to leave her behind.  Tuita curled up by our bikes and waited.  We packed the tent in silence.  We washed our dishes and loaded the bikes in silence.  She knew we were leaving.  Roberto came at 8am and we loaded the bikes into the truck.  He offered me a beer and although I wanted it more than anything to soothe my sorrow, I shook my head.  No, we wouldn’t start that today.  No more money on beer for him – and that meant none for me.  Tuita came to the truck and curled up under the rear end.  This had been her usual shady waiting place when we traveled with Roberto.  She was hoping her fears were wrong.  Maybe we’d put her in back too.  We finished loading and tried to distract her with a can of beans.  She loved beans.  But she wouldn’t touch them.  Roberto said she was full, but we knew better.

We kissed her forehead and got into the truck.  As we pulled up the driveway she began to walk after us, then run after us.  She probably would have followed us all day.  Roberto stopped the truck and looked at us.  We were both on the verge of tears.  We got out and got a rope.  We tied her to a wooden bench and put the beans and some water nearby.  She began to whimper.  We got into the truck and she began to cry.  We pulled off.  We began to cry.  Roberto kept quiet and just drove.

 

A few silent hours later we reached Mex 200.  I was so sad I couldn’t argue with him when he asked me to fill his entire gas tank.  He asked if we wanted lunch.  We were clear enough to say no to that.  He helped unload the bikes and waved goodbye.  We stared out at the flat, straight, near empty highway.  Not even the lack of hills and curves could lighten our spirits.  Not even the cheap and delicious Sopes at the crossroads shack could brighten our spirits.  We started off back down Mex 200 with our heaviest load so far, the betrayal of Tuita.