Monday, January 30, 2006

Along the Malecon

This afternoon I took a walk along the malecon, the walkway that runs along the ocean front and beach. The weather has been overcast and humid for the last couple of days, only adding to the oppressive atmosphere. The puestos were shut up for the most part, the chairs and tables collapsed and piled up and roped together, the umbrellas furled and tied close. The sidewalk was deserted, the hotel verandas empty, the houses shut tight. Palm trees planted by the town have been sadly neglected and are in desperate need of trimming and of having their coconuts harvested. Garden walls of the houses along the way are chipped and cracked, a combination of usual disintegration and the earthquake of 2003. There are benches and cement seating areas along the malecon that are in dire need of paint and repair. The whole place had an eerie sense of total abandonment; even the beach dogs were not in evidence. Nobody was swimming in the ocean, nobody on the beach, nobody on the walkways. It was very still, the feeling before a big storm, but there were no clouds and no wind. It was a perfect setting for a indy movie about some 3rd rate seedy, dilapidated, deserted Mexican beach town sweltering under a tropical sun, waiting for something to happen.

Like a South-of-the-border "High Noon."

Like Cuyutlán.

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