We got off to something of a slow start this morning. I was
up really late, and none of us has had an easy time sleeping here, so it was
well after eleven before we got our poop in a group and headed out. Today was
Town Day, the day we’d decided we were going to see some of Old Town, the flea
market, El Malecon and eat some good food. I tried to get a cup of coffee
before the trip, because I am barely human without caffeine in my system, and
ended up having to leave because the Starbucks staff was having a particularly
difficult time with a lady’s credit card. Because I had not yet had my first
coffee of the day, I hated them to my core. All of them. Forever.
The bus had a board nailed over a hole in the floor. The
ride was incredibly hot, as Puerto Vallarta was rocking a solid 27o C
(80.6o F) on the way out and for most of the day. Still, the scenery
was quite nice, and we all decided to judge our previous bus driver much more
harshly for calling out “Last stop,” before driving off with people still on
the bus because our latest driver did no such thing and we got quite a bit
closer to the boardwalk because of it.
N was a trooper today, walking for hours despite a heavy
belly, swollen feet and a back that hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a
week. We got off the main drag pretty early, and were treated to some of Puerto
Vallarta’s slightly less visible gems: a gate trimmed in gold, a beautiful
spiral staircase that led to a platform made of sticks, a parapet, crumbling
old brick buildings and beautiful white plaster masterpieces, a restaurant
painted like a huge work of graffiti, a rocky beach where locals sip pale
yellow beers and don’t bellow their wares at you. It was nice to get another
look at the city that lives just beyond the tourist plazas and resort malls,
though I caught more than a few dirty looks as we made our way.
With a little foresight, we could have planned a bus trip
straight to the Malecon, but where’s the adventure in that?
El Malecon is like an outdoor tourist mall. Standing on the
beach, you can see where it starts: everything is pristine and beautiful,
nothing is falling apart, the buildings are well kept, the statues are
polished, and every restaurant is offering some sort of deal on food, booze, or
both. We wandered a little aimlessly, shooing off the persistent salespeople
who insisted we should go to this restaurant or go into that shop, or take this
tour, or make these reservations. We took in the statues, from the man with a
half-skull face holding a pair of swords to what could only be described as a
matron yelling at two young girls on a ladder to be careful (Z postulates that
the statue was actually a single alchemist creating two homunculi in her own
image). There was the statue of the boy riding a seahorse that is in every
advert for the city, and a pair of naval mines we’d seen in the airport. There
was a mermaid and a merman looking at one another in apparent conflict; I was
particularly impressed with the attention to detail on the hair.
Oh, and we forgot to bring anything that takes pictures.
Getting peckish, we decided to see what the area had for
food. We had no intention of eating at Senor Frogs, and have thus far managed
to keep to that, so we chose to get off the main drag again and see what we
could find as far as more local cuisine goes.
When we were getting off our plane and into the city, there
was a fellow who was both incredibly helpful and determined to sell us a
timeshare. I don’t make nearly enough money to buy a timeshare (my income,
combined with N’s, wouldn’t come to half of what you need to buy a timeshare).
Z works at the same place I do. But he did give us a lot of information about
the city that we have found really valuable. He told us about buses and where
we could find one at our resort, he told us about the Malecon in the first
place, and about tours and activities we could partake in, he told us about the
city’s main cathedral, and he’d also told us about a restaurant we’d need to
try if we were in the Malecon area. N suggested we start walking towards that,
and if we found anywhere else that looked like it would be a good place to eat,
we’d stop there instead.
First, we were confronted with the Cathedral of Our Lady of
Guadalupe. Turns out, the Cathedral was pretty much exactly on our way to the
restaurant, and we had completely missed that we were getting closer to it. The
place is gorgeous, but I’m not really a Cathedral guy. I’m not Christian, for
one thing, and certainly not Catholic. Also, there’s a sign at the front that
tells you, in Spanish, exactly what you’re not allowed to wear, but it doesn’t
make it all that clear in English, so while I was able to go in and take a boo
around, N and Z decided to stay as near the entrance as possible because neither
was wearing their Sunday Best.
I’m always in my Sunday Best.
The Cathedral is a beautiful example of Mexican Catholic piety,
with incredible stained glass windows and a giant, tortured-looking Jesus
Christ fairly close to the entrance. There are pews, and there were people
praying at them, and there was a crucifix off-center at the front of the
worship hall. I didn’t stay long, and I certainly didn’t explore or anything,
but it was a neat little bit of architecture in a city that is filled to the
gills with nifty architecture.
To get to the restaurant in question, a place called Pipis
that apparently enjoys an international reputation, we worked our way through
streets just off the main. If you were to come at the place from the main drag,
it’s a single block away, and that block has a number of cute tourist shops.
Coming from the direction we did, we got narrow streets and tiny corner stores,
a couple of beautiful restaurants that weren’t really what we were looking for
(I don’t come to Mexico to eat Italian food!) and school kids just getting out
of class in their smart-looking white and red uniforms.
The restaurant was clearly designed with tourists in mind.
It’s the sort of clean, Americanized eating experience that makes for a good
meal, but not necessarily a memorable one. Where the first in-town restaurant we
ate at was chock full of local flavor and small-town charm, Pipis is a well-built,
well marketed, American-style Mexican restaurant. The food was undeniably
better prepared, with fresh ingredients and a keen understanding of seasoning
for a Gringo tongue. But the place oozed with stereotypes, from the musicians
playing La Cucaracha to the signs offering a big bowl margarita.
I had the “Aztec” soup to start, which was just a tortilla
soup. It was spicy and well balanced, and the avocado slices helped cool the
tongue a bit, but I was hoping for something a little more exotic. I had the
Supreme Fajita, which was a beef/chicken/shrimp stew with onions, peppers and
mushrooms, served with a plate of guacamole, refried beans and salsa and soft
tortilla shells to wrap it all in. Z went with the beef fajita, which was the
same thing minus the chicken and shrimp (fellow doesn’t much care for seafood).
N went with the Fajita Burrito, which was a monster. It was easily a
hand-and-a-half long and would have taken two hands to wrap around, served with
refried beans and iceberg lettuce.
It was far too much food, which is pretty much the best way
to do food.
On our way out, we crossed paths with a pack of stray dogs.
They were clearly starving, ribs showing through their fur, and they were
digging through garbage looking for something to eat. There were a bunch of
different breeds, from small lapdogs to larger hunting-breed mutts, and it was
deeply saddening to see suffering creatures so near the luxurious resort side
of town. They noticed us looking at them and started following us some,
interested in N’s leftovers, and we hurried on towards the flea market, but not
before stopping at one of the incredibly small corner stores to pick up a
Mexican Fresca, a thing about which Z has been quite excited since noticing
them. He was hoping they were the same as a great Fresca he’d had as a child –
he was happy with the experience, and I found it largely to my liking as well.
There was a rope bridge. I think that any time an excursion
involves a rope bridge, it’s officially an adventure.
Across the river, there were dozens of kiosks where people
had their wares out for display. If the Malecon was annoying for having
salespeople approach you, the flea market was ten times as bad. We couldn’t
pass a kiosk without someone telling us to go in, asking us to look at
something, telling us how good the deals were or asking if we were looking to
get high. The stuff for sale was all the same kitschy souvenir bullshit you can
find all over Mexico, with the inclusion of large knives and bullwhips, so we
didn’t spend a ton of time there. N bought a present for her friend T. Z and I
picked up a present for the boss that we think he’s going to like and on which
we spent entirely more than we should have. Then we made the slow trek home,
bellies filled with food that insisted on naps immediately.
Tonight, N and I spent some time at the pool cooling off
after the long, hot trek into town, and spoke with some precocious children
about how awesome Canada is. Canada, for the record, is pretty awesome.
Game Stuff
So, I basically had a random encounter today. I wasn’t
expecting to see a pack of stray dogs. I certainly wasn’t expecting them to
take any sort of interest in us. And I wasn’t scared of them, I was sad for
them.
One of the things I’ve been thinking about in regards to
role-playing games is the concept of Engagement play. We don’t always play
role-playing games because they’re fun (or at least, I don’t). Sometimes, I
play incredibly difficult games. Sometimes, I’ve played games that have made me
sad or hurt my feelings or made me angry or brought me a sense of happiness.
Games of all sorts are a vessel for experience, and the range of experiences
that can be brought out by role-playing is incredibly wide. Wider, I think,
than any other sort of game.
While this is just a brief note rather than an exhaustive
study on the subject, I felt it was worth bringing up, at the very least.
Sometimes I want a random encounter to hit me in the feels, and I think that’s
something we should be looking at carefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment