View from the deck of our cabana

I’m writing today from beautiful Tulum, Mexico – about 130 km south of Cancun along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. We decided to vacation here because it’s one of the remaining “unspoiled” coastal regions of Mexico that has a few amenities (like running water and electricity!). Something happened here the other day that got me to thinking about preconceived notions (PN’s) or stereotypes and how easily they can influence our lives.

PN #1: The highly-publicized “drug wars” in Mexico have made it a place U.S. tourists should avoid at all costs. Virtually everyone I talked to about our vacation asked “is it safe?” and several wondered aloud if it was prudent to bring the family here. REALITY: Mexico is a large country with many diverse regions and subcultures; and most of the drug-related violence is confined to specific cities and regions that can be avoided. Having said that, the various roads we traveled had separate state and federal checkpoints where the police and soldiers were heavily armed. The people we talked with resented these checkpoints as another form of government intrusion into their lives – particularly in a region where illegal drugs and arms are not prevalent and most people’s livelihoods are dependent upon tourism.

PN #2: Crime is rampant in Mexico. Most Americans probably believe this is due to widespread poverty and people’s need to do anything to survive. A corollary to this is that Mexicans are always looking to “rip-off” unsuspecting Americans. REALITY: In the larger cities there are gangs, violence, and criminal enterprises; but the same is true in the U.S. Like at home, most people are hard-working and honest. Vendors regularly joke about special prices for those who speak Spanish; but it’s simply that – a joke. On the other hand, it is a culture where “bargaining” on the price of goods and services (other than food) is expected and in that regard, language is not usually a barrier.

PN #3: There are all kinds of “crawling things” to watch out for in tropical Mexico and one can’t afford to be squeamish. REALITY: That’s right! We’ve already seen flying cockroaches, large spiders, and small geckos in our cabana. The good news is that it’s made our girls particularly diligent about checking their bedding and securing the mosquito nets before going to bed.

PN #4: In an economically-challenged country like Mexico, all tourism is good because it brings needed money and jobs. REALITY: Virtually everyone we spoke to had significant misgivings about the large-scale expansion of tourism in this region. Tulum and the surrounding area focus on three things: cultural history (i.e. Mayan ruins), ecological beauty (including miles of mostly undeveloped beaches), and a relaxed pace of life. At one time, Cancun was like Tulum – only to become highly developed and replaced by Playa del Carmen further down the road. Playa was once “the place”, but as the result of rampant development, has lost its cachet. High-end tourists looking for a resort experience now come to the Riviera Maya – further down the coast from Playa. In this environment, Tulum has carved out its own unique niche – one the people here would like to maintain.

If you’re still with me, I’d like to close with a brief story. Wednesday afternoon, I pulled out my wallet to pay for something at our hotel and was shocked to find that my VISA card was missing. In a panic, I looked all over our cabana, in every pocket of the clothing I’d worn, and in my luggage and backpack – NOTHING! I remembered that the last time I used my card was the previous evening when we had gone into town to get some cash and eat. Since the card was nowhere to be found onsite, I figured that I must have left it in the ATM machine at the bank. I threw on some clothes and rushed to town, hoping to make it before the bank closed at 5 pm. To my absolute amazement, someone had found my credit card and turned it in to the bank. During yesterday’s trip to Chichen-Itza I was recounting the incident to our driver and he wasn’t at all surprised. He told me that the people of this state (Quintana Roo – he was born here) are known throughout Mexico for their generosity and kindness to everyone. In his opinion, it would be unthinkable for a local person to make off with the card and attempt to use it. Thank God he was right. So much for preconceived notions…

Looking back chronologically, a lot has happened in the past few months and I’d like to share a few, random things with you. I’m writing to you on my new MacBook Pro and have stepped boldly into the turbulence between the Mac and PC worlds – I now have both. Despite the cheerleading and vilification on both sides, I’ve already found that there’s plenty to like and dislike in both types of devices.

My daughter Rachel has started high school at Lowell in San Francisco and has made the transition better than her parents could have hoped. This can be an intimidating process for freshmen because classes at Lowell are grouped into three categories wherein the meeting days and class duration for each category are different. Due to the variable starting and ending times for classes, there are no bells and there’s almost always people on the move. Classes are held in different buildings on campus, so students must develop a proficiency for “logistics”. Finally, Lowell has over 2,600 students, so it’s as large as some small colleges and can be overwhelming for students accustomed to a small school environment. The upside is that Rachel will come out of high school completely prepared for the “open”, self-propelled environment of a college campus.

We had a fun summer vacation in Bend, Oregon and I fulfilled a promise to my family by not bringing my golf clubs! Here’s a link to some of our photos.

I had an opportunity to be one of the featured speakers in our church’s summer series. Here’s the link if you’re interested.

The small consulting firm I work for is in the final stages of being acquired by a larger firm. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of September, so I’ll share more details when it’s appropriate to do so.

As I look back, I realize that things have definitely crystalized for me this year. My life has come to be characterized pretty simply by four things: God, family, work, and golf. Who could ask for more?

]]> http://carlosjimenez-sf.com/2010/08/25/the-wee-hours/feed/ 1 Carlos http://carlosjimenez-sf.com/2009/04/10/roads-less-traveled/ http://carlosjimenez-sf.com/2009/04/10/roads-less-traveled/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:36:19 +0000 Carlos http://carlosjimenez-sf.com/?p=345 Continue reading →]]> San Francisco native Robert Frost concludes his famous poem, The Road Not Taken, with the following phrase: “two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference”. As some of you know, I’m a healthcare financial consultant whose specialization is rural hospitals and clinics. This focus has led me to many “less traveled” roads over the years – visiting or passing through places that few city dwellers have ever even heard of: Heber, Landers, Walker, Beckwourth, Greenville, Westwood, Fall River Mills, Cedarville, and Adin to name a few.

Last week in the midst of a road trip, I decided to explore two “less traveled” California roads…Highway 247 between Barstow and Yucca Valley and Highway 62 between North Palm Springs and the Nevada border. As noted in my previous post, I was on a combination business/personal trip in southern California. After spending the weekend with family, I started the business portion of my trip with a drive to Victorville, a small city located at the southern edge of the Mojave Desert northeast of Los Angeles (~90 miles). When asked about the desert, most people would probably say “desert is desert” – what’s the difference? Actually, as someone who lived a significant portion of his life in the southern half of California, I can tell you that there’s a big difference. The Mojave is a “high desert” (“high” due to its elevation above sea level), which experiences all four seasons of the year and where sagebrush and joshua trees predominate. The southeastern corner of California, including the community of Palm Springs, is in the Colorado or Sonoran desert. The city of El Centro, which I wrote about last July, is in the Colorado or “low desert”. You know where my preference lies when I tell you that the primary features of the low desert are its extreme heat and the creosote bush.

When I was young, prior to the construction of Interstate 15, Victorville was a sleepy little town on Route 66 that I mostly remember as the first “potty stop” on the road from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Today, the communities of Victorville, Apple Valley, and Hesperia form a mini-metopolis of approximately 250,000 people. So much for time marching on! After completing my work in Victorville, I headed east and picked up Hwy 247 just west of Lucerne Valley. At this point, the road runs along the backside of the San Bernardino Mountains and provides a “back door” access to the various mountain communities (Big Bear, Running Springs, Lake Arrowhead) via Hwy 18. As soon as I passed through Lucerne Valley, I entered the great wide open (see below, with a wink and a nod to Tom Petty).

The road continues southeast, eventually turning south into a pass that separates the San Bernardino Mountains from the Little San Bernardino range. Heading south through the pass, I came upon the community of Landers. There’s no town center or main street because it’s pretty much a scattering of houses and trailers bordering the highway for several miles. Landers is best known (if known at all) for two things. It’s the home of Giant Rock – an enormous freestanding boulder (see below), which in the period from 1950 – 1970 was a popular gathering point for UFO aficionados. The area was also the epicenter of a magnitude 7.3 earthquake in 1992 that caused considerable structural damage in the surrounding area.

At the southern end of the pass, joshua trees began to appear as I started the short descent into the town of Yucca Valley (still in the high desert), where Hwy 247 meets Hwy 62.

My destination was a hospital in the town of Joshua Tree, so I turned left (east) onto Hwy 62 at the junction. Like Victor Valley where I’d just come from, the towns of Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, and Twenty-Nine Palms (never use the number when writing it) now form a much smaller “urban” enclave (according to the U.S. Census Bureau) of about 50,000 people. Also like Victorville, I remembered these communities as consisting of a few storefronts that we would pass on our way to what is now Joshua Tree National Park (see below) or to the Colorado River.

Much of the area’s growth can be attributed to Joshua Tree’s elevation to National Park status and to the increased importance of the Marine training base outside Twenty-Nine Palms. That base is the staging area for Marines headed to Iraq and Afghanistan. If I had turned right (west) at the Hwy 247/62 junction, I would have descended through the Morongo Valley and into the completely different climatic and ecological zone of the Colorado Desert. In fact, while it seems to be a world away, Yucca Valley is only 20 miles from North Palm Springs and Interstate 10.

Back up in the Twenty-Nine Palms area, I remembered a road trip we once took along Hwy 62 to the Colorado River. From where I lived in the Los Angeles basin, it was much easier to get to the river (a popular spring break destination) by taking  I-10 east to the town of Blythe and going north on U.S. Hwy 95. One year, we decided it would be more of an adventure to take the “back road” (Hwy 62) to the river. Of course, only in car-crazed southern California would this be considered an adventure. Anyway, the adventure was in courting adventure, not actually having one – because soon after you pass out of Twenty-Nine Palms, a roadside sign provides you with an innocuous, but ominous warning of what’s in store (see below).

We “got across” that day (using the famous phrase from the “Grapes of Wrath”) without any problems, arriving at the Vidal Junction where we turned south onto U.S. 95 headed to the town of Parker. All of the prime river destinations at that time were below Parker Dam. I could go on with spring break stories and to tell you about the dam, which is the deepest in the world and creates Lake Havasu – but you’d probably sleep through it all.

Suffice to say that for me, the roads less travelled represent a wonderful opportunity for reflection and peace that is one of the best parts of my job. Are you still awake?

El Centro, with a population of about 50,000, is the largest U.S. city below sea level (-50 ft). It’s approximately 120 miles east of San Diego, in the middle of the Imperial Valley, which is essentially an irrigated desert. Given its location, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s hot there, with normal temperatures in June and July ranging from 103-107 degrees. In fact, the city’s motto is: Where the Sun Spends the Winter. For a wimpy San Franciscan like me, coming from a climate where 65 degrees is a warm summer day, the heat is pretty near unbearable. When visiting during this time of year, I enjoy walking around a local park in the morning just before dawn, when the temperature is a “mild” 80-85 degrees.

Anyway, why am I writing about El Centro? Because after I got home last week, I read an article in the local paper on Saturday about a section of the border fence that’s being built in Texas – right through the campus of a local university. The further one gets from the border with Mexico, I can imagine that the concept of a fence actually securing our borders seems more plausible. On the other hand, the plausibility of this concept seems to diminish the closer one gets to the border, particularly in communities like El Centro. A short drive to the more recently developed parts of town will take you past ”big-box” retailers like Lowe’s, Home Depot, Best Buy, Costco, Wal-Mart, Marshall’s, Mervyn’s, Target, and then to the Imperial Valley Mall – with 108 businesses, anchored by Macy’s, JC Penney, and Sears. How can a community of 50,000 support all of this? It can’t – but Mexicali, a city of about 1 million people just across the border in Mexico can.

What’s more, it isn’t just about who shops in these businesses – it’s about who works there, and in local agriculture, and in the local medical center that employs over 700 people. In communities like El Centro, the border is a living, breathing “membrane”, with each side simultaneously nourishing and being nourished by the other. Every time I visit, I’m struck by what I perceive to be the ridiculous notion that people can be successfully ”walled-off” from one another without any negative impact on their communities. As for national security, what’s to stop someone from quietly joining the stream of thousands who cross the border every day in communities like El Centro to shop and work?

Integrated border communities demonstrate that the “security” of a wall is illusory. Unfortunately, it’s an illusion that many have bought into, notwithstanding numerous historical examples to the contrary. From my perspective, it’s simply the latest attempt to separate those who are different into “us and them”. As a resident of a border state, I acknowledge the risk but refuse to live my life based on fear.