Nice story Jeff!

Now I'll have to dig out Part One and read them together...

Seeya, Jake

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Jeffrey Olson <jjolson@gwtc.net> wrote:

> Our last report was from the Monument Valley in the southwest.  We spent
> a couple weeks camping and day hiking and working out the bugs we knew
> would come from moving from the suburbs to our 85 GL/camper.  All the
> emotional stuff we felt about leaving home - selling the house, storing
> the furniture we wanted to keep, selling the rest in garage sales and
> finally giving away what we couldn't sell - it was all over...
>
>
> It only took two weeks of hanging out in the desert in the bus (I know a
> vanagon isn't a bus - so what!) to get into a routine so everything had
> a place, and each of us had our functions.   Isis continued to have a
> major thread in her fabric that wouldn't let her be comfortable.  I
> guess I had one too, but I could more easily hide it dealing with bus
> issues and making camping spots perfect.
>
>
> In 1974 three friends and I had outfitted my 1966 SO42 for a two month
> trip to Mexico.  In the winter of 1971 Rob and I, and three others, had
> spent a month searching for the "perfect beach" on the west coast of
> Mexico.  The 1974 trip was envisioned based on our 1971 experience.
> We'd found a three bedroom apartment on the top floor of a three story
> apartment building in Tecoman, MX and spent two weeks writing winter
> theses for college courses.  In 1974 we just wanted to find good surfing
> and the perfect beach and the idyllic life.  WE found it.
>
>
> We landed in Boca de Apiza, a little fishing village on the border of
> Colima and Michoacan, two of Mexico's states.  A year earlier the town
> had experienced a hurricane that flattened all the beachside buildings
> in town.  We hooked up with a family that fed us breakfast and dinner
> each day for about a dollar and a half, and we spent the days surfing
> and taking the little two man inflatable up the river into alligator
> country and ten foot reeds and true jungle weirdness.  They build us a
> two room palapa on  the beach next to their restaurant/home.
>
>
> This was pretty much the archetypal Mexico experience.  WE were 25 miles
> from the nearest paved road and town/hospital.  While surfing I was
> stung by a stingray, a big one, and not knowing about the poison,
> crawled up on the beach, lay back, and felt the pain move up from the
> sting point in my ankle up my inner thigh to my crotch.  I figured it
> would reach my heart and that would be it.  My friend came in from
> surfing and asked what I was doing, and insisted I go to talk with
> Maria, the "Mom" of everyone.
>
>
> She laughed, and said, "Uno rayo egh!"  She pushed me into a chair, went
> to the five gallon jug of "alchol" - the bottom of the cactus used to
> make mesqual - and poured out 12 ounces into a water glass.  She said -
> "Tome eso" and I did...
>
>
> I didn't die.
>
>
> Isis and I agreed that we would travel the west coast of Mexico "at
> leisure."  This became an ironic rallying cry as we got deeper into
> rural areas and social realities we weren't prepared to deal with.
> Mexico in 2009 is much different from what it was in 1974.  We didn't
> find an "unspoiled" spot.  Wherever we ended up, we weren't persons, we
> were rich marks.  Kids, moms, luscious 15 year olds, drug dealers - all
> wanted our money.
>
>
> There was now a highway travelling the west coast where before it had
> been dirt roads, plantations, the 18th century...  Lots of development.
> We couldn't find any beaches we would consider unspoiled.  There was
> always a lurking presence on the edges of our camping that had us keep
> our guards up.  It wasn't as bad as when in 1974 we drove south of urban
> Mazatlan to find a beach to camp on.  We were hit up by fake cops who
> tried to plant pot on us.  Luckily we'd read in Rolling STone about this
> very pheonomon and were prepared.  The fake cops left really frustrated...
>
>
> One of the things that opened doors for us was the bus.  There were lots
> of rattletrap vanagons held together with hope and baling wire.  Isis
> loved to talk about the bus.  Over the months she got to know it better
> than I did.  I mean in intimate ways - I still had a better grasp of the
> internal combustion engine and peripherals.  She, on the other hand, had
> a total grasp of cultural experience of living in a bus and people's
> interest in what that was like.  Whether in Grand Escalante, Sedona, or
> the tiniest pullout on the new highway in Mexico, Isis loved to answer
> questions about living on the road.
>
>
> Isis is beautiful.  At 56 she has white blond hair that has aged into a
> straw blond streaked with really thick gray hairs.  My hair is graying
> at the temples.  Her's grays in individual strands.  She's almost 6'
> tall, with broad shoulders and ribcage, a relatively thick waist (my
> beautiful sister calls it a "wine" tummy) and surprisingly narrow hips,
> and really, really beautifully muscular legs.  She has stretched and
> yogaed and danced so that she hasn't gotten fat.  I think it's genetic
> because she really doesn't do any more than I do, and I struggle with
> weight.  She is bemused whenever I talk about weight and fitness.
>
>
> In 1974 the woman travelling with us - Sharon - was 22 and wore a skimpy
> pink bikini.  Because she didn't wear a wedding ring, slept with her
> boyfriend, and talked to other men, she was considered a whore.  The
> Mexican man's approach to a beautiful American woman hadn't changed.
> Because Isis didn't wear a wedding ring, she was fair game...  And she
> loved it...
>
>
> Isis took men into the bus to show them the cabinets I'd built, the way
> the bed folded out, the storage capacity.  I loved how the men would
> look at me guiltily, as if they were transgressing, but somehow up on
> me.  I love the self-confidence of Mexican men when they are wooing a
> woman...
>
>
> I had never liked the Westfalia setup of the 80s and early 90s, and had
> bought an 85 GL I stripped to the bare bones.  I found two rust spots -
> a seam on the drivers side just forward of the engine compartment, and
> one next to the passenger's seat.  I ground them down and sealed them
> and put together the busses interior.  I followed the general layout of
> the SO42.  Mostly, I wanted the facing seats, one behind the driver's
> seat, the other the westy seat.  A table rises up inbetween.  There is
> storage underneath the seat behind the driver's and an icebox behind the
> passenger seat, with shelves that fold out.  I did put in a wardrobe on
> the passenger side behind the sliding door, but made it so it was
> shelves to store stuff.  It works...
>
>
> I installed a 2003 Subaru 2.5 liter engine that had 7K miles.  I'm so
> good to go until I die!!!!
>
>
> Isis and I have been on the road in Mexico now for four months.  The bus
> and its Subaru engine are our platform.  I have over 100 pounds of tools
> and instruments stashed in nooks and crannies Isis doesn't feel the need
> to visit.  I'm waiting for a response to my query to a listserv whose
> members are heading to Tierra del Fuego in the fall.  We hope to meet up
> with them and join their excursion.  We want to drive to the tip of
> South America and as far north as we can get in Alaska.  We have enough
> money.  We have the vison.  We have the will.  Now, we need the
> camraderie and help.
>
>
> Go well
>
>
> Isis and Jeff
> From Integora, MX
>

--
Beverley Anne de Villiers   April 20, 1930 - July 4, 2009

Jake

1984 Vanagon GL
1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"

Crescent Beach, BC

www.thebassspa.com
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
http://subyjake.googlepages.com/mydixiedarlin%27