"San Luis Potosi," mused Coyote. "Sure, I been there. Me and some amigos started a little brushfire down there. Twice"
Yes, I'm sure you did. San Luis Potosi is an important city in Mexican history, but few Norteamericanos could place it. It isn't huge and bloated like Mexico City, doesn't have the tourism of Monterrey, or the notoriety of Tijuana. San Luis Potosi is still a good-size metropolis, however, and halfway between the Rio Grande and Mexico's capital in the heart of the desert hills.
I don't doubt Coyote was there. In 1810, Father Hidalgo, a priest a bit crazy to put the needs of his Indian friends over the aristocracy he was born into, let loose the bells of Dolores to summon Mexicans to independence and war; San Luis was an early victory. A hundred years later, a crazy vegetarian and teetotaler proclaimed the opening of the Mexican Revolution (different name, same game) after escaping prison in San Luis. Something about San Luis Potosi just inspires the Coyotes of the world thirsting for some radical change, I suppose.
So, in the summer of 1997, my friend Danny and I plunked down thirty-two bucks to ride Greyhound to Laredo. From there, another thirty-two bucks (translated to pesos) took us twice the distance in a bus twice as nice and half as crowded down to San Luis.
Now, I had no idea at thee time I was traveling Coyote style. We hit a dusty trail with no idea what we were doing. At least I didn't.
Here's a little tip if you want to travel south of the border, from Texas into Mexico. And I don't mean a quick trip for some cheap shopping or to linger around the pool in a fancy resort. I mean deep. Grab your passport, get a visa. It's an easy thing to know now, in a post-9/11 world it's absolutely required, but when an ignorant I passed Nuevo Laredo and the bus headed into the desert, trouble started. So here's the second tip: do the research yourself. Our purpose was to visit his extensive family living in San Luis; Danny was Mexican, born in the Yucatan, so this came regular to him.
"Danny, am I going to need a passport or something?"
"No, no, you don't need anything. It's Mexico."
Coyote is laughing across the fire, hooting and yowling something terrible. I can only grumble I was 18, and had never been outside the USA before, what did I know? I didn't come from a traveling family. When I told my mom what Danny and I were doing two weeks after graduation, she laughed and said, "No you're not!" Sure I was, I was an adult, and as I packed my bags it dawned on her that maybe it was true. I was going, I was a man, and that was that. She even drove me and Danny down to the bus station.
Coyote growled and tipped his battered hat. He respected that.
All that machismo vanished when the nice young men in fatigues with machine guns escorted me and Danny off the bus about dozen miles past the border.
Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus I'm going to die in the desert and no one will ever know. All I could picture were the Federales mowing down Pancho and Lefty splitting with the loot, just like a Willie Nelson song. And, unkind as it was, I prayed I was Lefty.
We were paraded into a small government building. Tiny. There was a pudgy, middle-aged Federale with a mustache, so cliche it hurt. He shot a stream of Spanish at us and Danny handled it all, with me growing more and more nervous. "What's he saying?" "Don't worry." "What's he saying now?" "It's okay, it's okay."
I would discover later it wwasn't me in the most hot water; they were convinced Danny was Guatemalan. One thing about racism and discrimination, there's always someone below you to kick down the ladder. His eyes, they said, weren't right; well, he had Yucatan blood, he said. The Federale let that go. Then he asked if we were priests.
So here's you're third tip: Bring a bible. No, seriously. We grabbed a taxi to get us over the bridge into Nuevo Laredo. The Mexican customs agents searched our luggage as we watched (we had a suitcase apiece), but stopped immediately when they saw a bible packed on top of the clothes in each one. We were both a bit more religious back then. May it was intense Catholic respect, maybe it was a smuggling code and they were on the take; I will never know. But a strategically placed bible can save you some hassle in Mexico.
No, we told him, we're not, just like to keep some churchin' in our lives (I imagine Danny explained it much more eloquently in Spanish). So he pulls out a paper, and gives me instructions on how to sign it for a temporary visa. In perfect English. I'm shaking in my sneakers the whole time as a world of machine guns and the Law breathes down my neck, not understanding a word spoken, and it was all unnecessary. Well, fair enough; it was his country, not mine.
And that's how I got into Mexico, completely backwards. I didn't do a thing you should do. I was smart enough to have had a birth certificate copy with me, just in case (a copy useless now, since the laws changed), but I didn't have nearly the documentation I should have had. I didnt ask the right questions. The things I did right I had no idea I was doing.
We didn't land in a posh resort; I awoke after my first good sleep in San Luis in the concrete ghetto. Danny's aunts and grandmother were downstairs watching telenovellas, and Danny nowhere to be seen. Still, between his abuela and me we figured out she was our host and lived a block over, across from a collapsed home nestled between more concrete homes holding up its lost walls. She was a former history teacher, and I have fond memories of her guiding me and Danny around the city and giving us its Revolution and Independence history. On those steps, she said when we visited its cetral cathedral, Hidalgo called for the Revolution. And there are lost tunnels connecting that cathedral with others throughout Mexico.
Some of her history is a bit suspect, actually. But they were good stories. "I liked her," said Coyote. I assured him so. "And think about those guys, starting there, or near enough," he continued. "Scared as hell, I bet. Didn't know how to do a thing, just went and did it. The last guys you expected to buck the system and have an adventure. And for Mexico, if not for themselves, it worked out pretty well. It's not a chance if you don't take it, and not a journey if you never leave something behind."
San Luis Potosi, where I became addicted to tortas sold by a guy on the corner. Where I dared Mexican carnival rides (and I thought the Federales were scary). Where peasants were still begging in the alleys or kneeling and praying their way to the cathedral steps as vendors sold kneepads and ice cream. Where we shot pool everyday. Where we never saw the lake because the rains made it impossible for ten people to get up a mountain road in a Volkswagen.
I won't say I became a man, or anything so trite. But it was the first decision I made as a man, that couldn't be contradicted or overruled. And it got guns pointed at me and paperwork tossed at me. But it worked out all right, in the end.
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