Mexico has a faint physical smell all of her own, as each human being has. And this is a curious, inexplicable scent, in which there is resin and perspiration, and urine, among other things. – D.H. Lawrence, Mornings in Mexico.
A pack of Debt Dogs From Hell may have snapped at my heels on a regular basis. What do you mean, you want money every month? Those were the days – get this – when I got paid albeit poorly to go on adventures and return to tell the truth about them. One December many years ago, maybe thirty, I took a long bus trip from Portland, Oregon to Baja, Mexico. And hopefully back again.
There’s a right time for adventure and a wrong time. This was one of them.
When I fell on my head, turned upside down on a sun-blissed beach near Agua Verde in Mexico’s Baja, I finally found the proper angle by which to examine the Green Tortoise experience.
It was a beautiful sight. Because at that moment, I felt – besides awkward – flushed with energy, recharged with, I don’t know, clarity, youth, hope, insight and a bunch of other stuff that’s rarely mentioned in a tourism brochure. It was practically religious.
“Now, you’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus,” Mr. Kesey is alleged to have said. “If you are on the bus and get left behind, then you’ll find it again. If you’re off the bus in the first place, then it won’t make a damn.”
In Portland, you get on the bus twice weekly at Northwest 23rd and Savier, near Besaw’s Cafe. (Call 1-800-Tortoise for imprecise details. As one leaflet puts it, “We don’t guarantee arrival times, but we do promise to get you there and make it a trip you’ll never forget.) The Green Tortoise runs from Seattle to Los Angeles and back again as a low-cost travel alternative.
This isn’t your father’s Greyhound. Above the driver’s head is a sign: “Boldly go where no man has gone before!”
I join a couple dozen adults of various ages and two children of the same degree of crankiness. Most of the passengers are clad in denim, long hair and earrings. One guy’s reading Casteneda, another is studying “The Art and Science of Modern Innkeeping.” Before we hit I-5, music of the Grateful Dead blasts from numerous Blaupunkt speakers. A deaf lesbian couple, enjoying a silent duet, sign in the winter’s dusk.
The pace of the trip takes some getting used to. It’s not just slow, it’s calm.
There’s no bathroom on board, so the bus stops frequently. Dave, the driver, is the bass player for the legendary Holy Modal Rounders, and somehow that makes perfect sense. There seems to be only people of few pretensions about. A truck passes. Batesville Casket Company. “Dedicated To The Dignity Of Life.”
The sense of family grows when we stop for dinner at Cow Creek, the company’s private park, south of Eugene, about ten miles west of downtown Riddle. We pile out of the bus and head up the hill to “The Thought-Provoking Structure.” The glow of the potbelly stove through the translucent blue plastic sheeting gives the impression of a hovering UFO. The coffee is ready and the evening’s repast is laid out, guarded by a large dog of indistinct background named Mudflap.
There’s a cornucopia of fresh vegetables, potatoes for mashing, gravy, oysters for cocktails, today’s fish for grilling, juices and everything else needed to feed us each twice. Driver Dave organizes half the troop to prepare our meal. The rest head outdoors to sing around the campfire. Conga drums appear. The forest stillness is soon broken by the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island.” Stars hover just above the treetops. The moonlight carves through the evergreens that puncture the property like exclamation marks.
Dinner is exceptional, though later, elbow-deep in soapsuds, I couldn’t help but be amazed by the number of pots and pans that are dirtied when you feast nearly thirty hungry people. Fresh fruit pie and whipped cream made me feel better. Two pieces of pie and the sense of communal togetherness that comes from helping others. And being helped in turn.
The “clothing-optional” sauna means that we each enter the dry heat the same way we did life. Full of belly, warmth pummeling every pore, I started to feel REALLY CONTENTED, an unusual state, it seems to me, for a voyager on a public conveyance. I looked around. These people are so mellow I half expect more than a couple to dissolve into a puddle.
“I think,” said one, “we should sell corporate enhancement packages to all the uptight business executives. A few days on the Tortoise would do wonders for them.” (Green Tortoise buses may be reserved for group tours.)
“No,” drawled another, making that single syllable last for moments. “Make a week on the bus compulsory for all bureaucrats and politicians.”
“Oh, wow. Harsh. They’d argue over who chops the celery. And the dishes would never get done. They’d starve to death.”
A sprint through the winter air along a lighted path and then a screaming dive into the creek – trust me, it’s chilly this time of year – brought us all together again to reality.
Which is back on the bus. It’s thirty-eight feet long and ten feet high and every square foot (except for the cockpit and stairwell) converts into sleepings areas. In some places, three berths high. The set-up couldn’t be much more comfortable, given the circumstances, and I did manage to log about seven hours. But a padded board on a bus moving fifty miles per hour is only so cozy. There’s room for a big man to stretch out; one just needs to lay claim to it. Helps to stake out your position early. By the way, don’t worry much about losing anything. “Tortoise orbit” is where your stuff is when you can’t find it. Whatever, it’ll come circling back around sooner or later.
I woke up in the middle of the night, a cacophony of snoring nicely washed away by the hum of the tires. Daylight crashed through the windows about seven a.m. and my first view of California was a settlement named Miravista Estates, which is Spanish for overpriced-little-boxes-on-the-hillside.
Los Angeles reminds me of the images of Hades my grandmother used to paint when I was a bad little boy. Which was often. Eighty degrees and fat women in elastic halter tops and orange wigs were buying skinny Christmas trees on the hot concrete in front of a take-out sushi restaurant. The scenery off the Interstate is entirely paved and franchised.
Mexico, however, is a step back…down…and out. The weather’s even warmer and if there was grass, it would not be green. These people have vultures like we have robins. A bit of culture shock. You get 96,000 pesos for two 20 dollar bills. Soldiers in droopy camouflage uniforms,carrying automatic weapons,stand guard in liquor store doorways.
Let me describe this part of the country… rock, cactus, dirt,rock, scrub brush, dirt, rock, cactus and dirt. In more urban areas, it’s much the same,with fewer cacti. Dirt, shack, dog, 1974 Plymouth, taco stand, dirt, shack, dog. Also, a place to rent videotapes. Litter everywhere, like whitecaps on a choppy sea.
There’s twenty-eight of us now, all bound for Baja. Half foreign, half women. A Canadian geologist, a French college student, a German Attorney, a New Zealand farmer, and an amusing Aussie blonde who claimed insincerely to be a former Vogue model. The Americans included Neil, who – looking almost combustible with fiery red hair and pale fair skin – spent most of his vacation in the shade. And then there was Leo, from Mist, whose motto was “Diversify or perish.” All but one are intelligent, personable and caring, full of life.
I left my couch, my neighborhood, home and honey, winter, and climbed on a bus that seems to have arrived out of the late ’60s. But there is no ignoring the individual who was loud, rude, boorish, insensitive and a drunken lout. We tried. He obviously made a mistake by coming on a Green Tortoise trip. His first one was his last, I’ve been assured. But, he served a purpose. He was the Ugly American who taught us anew how not to act.
The Tortoise can hold thirty-eight passengers and often does. The bus is not only a means of transportation, it’s the housing, too. Close quarters, where strangers sleep side by side for days on end. Without bathing. The food is delicious and plentiful but this is no restaurant; passengers cook the meals, as well as clean up. With each passing mile, with each sunrise, there is less talk of MY stuff and more What Can I Do For You. Everyone pitches in because it’s the right thing to do. Simply that.
Each according to his need, each according to his ability, a sixty-two-year-old retired fireman suggested. Just like a union man.
Eventually, you get where you are going. For this Green Tortoise expedition, it’s a deserted beach on the Sea of Cortez, a reserved camp area where the mountains reach the sea in the middle of nowhere. (Other trips go to Mardi Gras, Alaska, Belize, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Mexico City, as well as coast-to-coast.) There are no people, no phones, no utilities, no buildings, no noise. Nada. Well, nothing a city slicker is used to. There is snorkeling and windsurfing and hot springs and volleyball and hiking and sunbathing and sitting on a rock watching dolphins frolic in azure waters. A typical winter day.
Suddenly, the country seems beautiful. What once appeared barren to me, a shell-shocked Northwesterner, now seemed unblemished. You just have to know what you’re seeing. The land hasn’t changed, I have. I have. I really have.
“Philosophy?” Gardner Kent, the charismatic founder of the Tortoise, seemed disappointed to me. “There is no philosophy. And if there is, you’ve been living it for a week now.” He took a moment. “As great a vacation as possible, as cheap as possible.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” I insisted.
“Well, hell, of course there is. Hand me that wrench, will you?” he said from beneath the bus. “We get you out of your comfort zone. We burst the bubble.”
And they do.
Don’t be quick to judge. Get along. Play nice. Wait your turn. Share. Nap when tired. Help one another.
Hey! That stuff isn’t just for kindergarten.