Just back from 8 days in a little rustic town about 45 minutes north of San Juan de Cabos called Los Barriles. Yup that means The Barrels for hapless gringos and gringas like us. Its a sleepy little place, formerly the exclusive haunt of red-faced, big-bellied fisherman hell-bent on wholesale slaughter of marlin. Nowadays its more of an adventure travel destination with incredibly lean muscular teens from the US, Brazil, Italy --doing unbelievable things on kiteboards and windsurfers -- sharing the limelight with said rednecks. And then there's the latest generation of American vacation home colonizers, now it's the 40 something year olds' turn to invade Mexico. Ahhh, the joys of a global economic upturn as it trickles down to the Third World...
Los Barriles is rampant with new residential and commercial building, road construction, street paving and general mayhem all done in the name of civic beautification and the almighty gringo greenback. Amen. Amen. Streetlights are even going up on the main streets where you wouldnt have seen a thing at night previously if not for the accidental neon burnish of a few tourist bars and restaurants. And most telling of all there are slightly bemused workers painting crosswalks on streets. Unfortunately, the behaviors of local drivers haven't caught up to the good intentions of Los Barriles bureaucrats...no one actually stops when youre in the supposed safety of the hash marks. Which phenomenon I learned the hard way...
And such hard-won wisdom isnt confined to yours truly. The stray dogs or "pie dogs" (as they say in Asia) laze about the streets and sidewalks in search of shade. Some of the large bullying breeds actually snooze in the streets or even in the freshly minted crosswalks, daring pedestrians and drivers alike to make them move. Which they generally do with souped up pickups bearing down on them. Yes, my friends, all is well in Los Barriles, and everything is as it should be. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was...
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