El Gringo Pelon

Marcia and I have been exploring cool, little towns in Mexico and we stopped in Sayulita, a city of about 5,000 people on the Pacific coast.  It’s about a 45 minute drive from Puerto Vallarta, to the north.

The first person we spotted in Sayulita was a shirtless, older American guy with a huge gut. He was adorned with several tattoos and a pony tail that began at the back of his head, his crown being bald or, “pelon”, in Mexican slang. In the next few minutes, we saw several men wandering the streets who, for the most part, matched this description.  A few of them actually wore shirts, mostly, “wife beaters”.

This is not to say the place was overrun by gringos.  There were many locals manning the surf shops and bars.  Indeed, one young entrepreneur approached me and said, in perfect English:  “Hey, do you want some ‘weed’ or ‘coke’?  I can get you anything you want.” The way he said “anything”, was a little creepy, yet, strangely charming.

After declining my young friend’s offer, we sat at a table planted in the sand and ordered rum with fruit juice.  As we sipped our drinks, we noticed an Aztec mask nailed to the palapa that we were sitting under.  Looking puzzled, Marcia said:  “I don’t think the Aztecs inhabited this area of Mexico.”  I couldn’t resist offering a cynical response:  “Maybe the Aztecs came here to do business with the gringos.”   

Watching the people drift by, we could see that Sayulita is a place for alienated Americans to escape, hibernate or to just wait for the next big thing to happen.  I suddenly had a bright idea:  “Ok, so this place is a little sketchy, but it’s interesting.  I’ll write an article for one of those In-flight magazines…they love this stuff, right?”  Marcia looked at me quizzically and said:  “Sure, I bet they just love stories about places where people go to take drugs and waste away their last days.”

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I wrote this for the Trifecta Week 94 Writing Challenge where we are to write a 33-333 word composition using the word “mask” as a noun.

Needless to say, after Marcia pointed out the obvious, I didn’t submit this piece to any “In-flight” magazines. 

Your comments are appreciated.