A Visit to a War Zone

Juarez, Mexico

I pick up my Z-Coils in El Paso. They feel strange, like my heel is sinking into a soft inch-thick cushion with every step. The pain fades quickly. Encouraged, we decide to trek across the long pedestrian bridge into Juarez.


There are no other Gringos. None. Nada. Zip. We speculate that either drug violence or the swine flu has killed tourism entirely.


We pick a restaurant for margaritas and tacos. They are playing American 60s rock. We suspect its for us, the only customers. As we dine alone, a series of street vendors enter the restaurant trying to sell us music, wallets, belts, compasses, watches and CDs. I buy a wallet.



We see convoys of black jeeps in the streets. The soldiers are dressed in black with automatic weapons at the ready. They wear flak jackets. It looks like New Orleans just after Katrina. Everywhere are the young soldiers guarding intersections. I find this article in the Miami Herald.

Crossing south on the right side of the bridges is lonely, with only a smattering of people, mostly Mexicans living in El Paso. The army base has banned soldiers from crossing, and few if any kids come looking for a good time -- most of the bars have closed anyway.The reason: Juárez is at war. The city is fighting drug cartels, and the cartels are fighting each other.In 2008, more than 1,600 people were killed in Juárez in drug-related violence, often assassinations carried out in daylight.

n an effort to stem the violence spinning out of control, the Mexican Army deployed about 2,500 soldiers in Juárez last spring. Another 5,000 soldiers were deployed last month to take charge of the police department.

I thought I got a deal on two cartons of cigarettes, but the Texas Department of revenue is waiting as we cross the bridge to get $30 in Texas tax. It's about breakeven after this surprise.


It's a shame what we've done to this poor country by providing a vast market for illegal drugs and a supermarket for smuggled firearms. We stole Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado from Mexico. Maybe we could give California back?

Base 20 Numbers

Cozumel, Mexico

We drive around the Island and park the rented jeep on a dirt road in the jungle. Alfredo steps out of the jungle and offers to be our private guide to the pyramids and ruins. We are alone here with him. He has a clipboard.

Before we start down the trail Alfredo announces that he is of Mayan ancestry and tells us that the Mayans were very advanced and, for example, used the base 20 numbering system. Alfredo begins to teach us base 20, using his clipboard.

They had 20 symbols for numbers. They had a zero and 19 other symbols (dots and lines).

They stacked their numbers. The first row would represent the numbers zero though nineteen.

The next row up used the same symbols but had place values of 20, then 400 then 8,000.

For example:

1 * 8000 = 8,000
3 * 400 = 1,000
2* 20 = 0
5* 1 = 5

So the total is 9,045

The year 2008 would be written as:

5 (The symbol for five is a horizontal bar)
0 (Zero looks like a toothy smile)
8 (Eight is three dots over a horizontal bar)

Alfredo challenges us to express the current year in base 20.

I write the answer:
4 = 1,600 (four dots)
19 = 380 (four dots over three horizontal bars)
16 = 16 one dot over three horizontal bars)

Satisfied that we are worthy, Alfredo leads us to the ruins. He has a collection of documents that helps to explain what we are seeing and how this sacred place was used to worship Ixchel, the Moon Goddess. All Mayans were expected to make a pilgrimage here once in a lifetime. We wonder what forces drew us here for ours.

Later we stumble upon a remote festival in a tiny town. It is a Cinco de Mayo celebration. There is a bullfight. We are the only tourists. It’s a little like a county fair without the rides, 4-H exhibits and Italian sausage vendors.

Later we stop on a wide, white sand beach in a solitary tent restaurant for margaritas and cheeseburgers.

We pick up two young hitchhikers for the long ride around the island back to town. On the lonely jungle road, a squad of soldiers with sub-machine guns wave us to a stop. They don’t speak English. Our hitchhikers talk to the soldiers and they wave us on. The hitchhikers tell us that four divers were lost yesterday, sucked down the wall by kind of a downdraft flushing action. One was a divemaster who was reported to be last seen chasing three foolish touristas. The soldiers just want to know if we’ve seen any bodies or dive gear washed up on the beach.

The next day we dive the wall. Mrs. Phred wants to stick close to the Mexican divemasters. I tell her if they look like they're getting flushed, we're out of there, rules or no. The towering pillars of coral are like nowhere else.

The Desert of Altars

Pinacate Desert, Mexico – January 8, 2007

The desert is named after the Pinacate beetle, known for standing on its head and emitting foul odors.


As we leave the sandy wind-blown town on Puerto Penasco on the Sea of Cortez in the morning, we see billowing black smoke from a tire fire and packs of wild dogs in the street.

There is a run of 60 miles north though the desert to the Mexican town of Sonotya on the border below the Organ Pipe National Monument. The desert gets so little rain that it can’t support cactus…only sand dunes and volcanic cinder mountains. This area is so like the moon that the Apollo astronauts trained here…some think the moon landings were filmed here.

We pull over for breakfast at a small altar. There is a large pile of apparent trash near the altar. I see inside the altar a statue of Jesus and several candles burning inside glasses in the windy morning. The wind whistles, obscuring the morning sun in a sandstorm.


I look closely at the trash pile and see that there are thousands of candle glass containers with pictures of Jesus…spent candle glasses dumped in the desert to make room for new candle glasses…

There are dozens of small roadside altars on the road to Sonotya…but no people…it’s too dry with less than five inches of annual rainfall….white crosses are erected on the volcanic cinder peaks…

This desert has been described as, "the bleakest, flattest, hottest, grittiest, grimmest, dreariest, most useless desert of them all." I find an unusual beauty and strangeness to the sand beach and cinders that stretch hundreds of miles in all directions from the Sea of Cortez.


The last 20 miles before the border we begin to see cactus again. I Google to find examples of the cactus we see flying past.


The customs and border patrol agents treat us much better this time. We came though in ’72 with a VW bug decorated with peace symbols and they dismantled the car before passing us though.

Here are some pictures of cactus…We are familiar now with Organ Pipe and Saguaro, but there are others…

And some more pictures of the altars…

Can You Get Bird Flu From Tacos?

Nogales, Mexico – 12 April, 2006

We stop at the Nogales, Arizona visitor center to get information about entering Nogales, Mexico. I push the button to restart the engine and the motorcycle is dead. The tools and battery are under the seat and it takes a 10mm wrench to remove the seat. They don't include kick-starters on these things anymore. I push-start the bike and the engine fires easily.

We drive to the border and park and walk over the border though a turnstile. There in no line and no official greeters going in. However, there is a line of people extending ten blocks waiting in the hot Mexican sun to cross back to the US. We suspect we've made a mistake.

People come here for prescription drugs and inexpensive medical and dental work. The lady at the visitor center tells us her aunt had all her teeth pulled and a complete set of replacement implants done for $2,000. That would probably run $30,000 across the border. The streets are packed with small shops offering belts, jewelry, boots, motorcycle saddlebags and other objects. Every shopkeeper implores us to enter.

Agents hand out cards for surgical face lifts. I need one, but we're on a schedule.
I buy a hand-crafted belt adorned with hand-painted panthers, sunrises, eagles and rattlesnakes and we order chicken tacos for lunch. Mrs Phred worries about getting bird flu from the chicken. I tell her not to worry because bird flu is eliminated if the flesh is well cooked. She shows me that it's pink. I eat all three of mine and one of hers.

We wait in line an hour to re-cross the border and Mrs Phred wonders about bird flu symptoms and says her legs feel weak and she has shortness of breath. A Mexican lady with four children in tow touches Mrs Phred's bicep and admires her muscle tone. One man gets pulled out of line for additional processing in a back room, but they average about three seconds for interviewing each person crossing on foot.

Back in the US, I push-start the cycle again and we drive to our campsite. Back at the Lake Patagonia State Park camp, I put a voltmeter on the battery and it tests right at 12.4 volts. I tighten the connections on the battery and the engine starts right up. I put the little tool kit back in the handlebar saddlebags instead of under the seat.