A COCKTAIL PARTY TO DIE FOR

The side-glances are frequent, and blatant; the eye contact prolonged. Shortly, he and his two sidekicks accept the unspoken invitation and meander to our side of the ferryboat. If you can call it that: a 20-by-40-foot wooden raft that hauls six cars via a stretched steel cable across a no-name creek flowing into the Gulf of Campeche is hardly a modern miracle of transportation, let alone a seaworthy vessel.

This remote part of the Yucatan peninsula between Merida and Campeche has already delivered an ample range of surprises. Uxmal, a Mayan temple hidden in the dense jungle is more sensual than any Caribbean nudie beach. All-you-can-drink, all-night discos in Cancun are wickedly physical. The half dozen or so “ferryboats” connecting the two-lane blacktop road that stretches 100+miles along this rural coast tweak an anything’s-possible-attitude. And the broad-faced Mexican swaggering my way holds all the promise of temptation and thrill rolled neatly into one big, blond package.

My two amigas and I have been touring Mexico for 10 weeks in Libby’s VW convertible, and thus far, the quick shifts from pine-covered, arid mountains to sweltering palm-lined beaches peak our senses as surely as the local gentlemen have gone out of their ways to show us a grand time. Eduardo leans on the frayed rope railing and points to dolphin offshore. Says he’s a fisherman, has a five-boat shrimp fleet in some nearby village.

“Would you care to join me for coconut milk when the ferry docks?” he asks in fluent English.

A quick huddle with the girls, and “Yes, that sounds good,” I reply.

Sunglasses on, hair flying in the wind, we’d follow Eduardo and his buddies anywhere. Their apple red pick-up truck turns left into the jungle here, right onto a gravel road there. We pass through luscious banana groves, up hills, down orchid-laced ravines and around massive banyans strung with Spanish moss.

“Are you keeping track?” Libby asks nonchalantly. I am, after all, the navigator riding shotgun: “Yes, and no I don’t know where we are. According to this map we’re going in circles. None of these dirt roads are on it and I haven’t seen anything that remotely resembles a coconut milk stand.” As grim reality settles in, I shriek to nobody in particular, “What the hell are we doing here?”

We three glance nervously about the thick, treetop canopy and almost ram the back of the blood red truck breaking to a stop in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere. Out pop Eduardo’s pals with machetes in hand, and our terrified eyes collectively scream: “This is the place; this is where we’re gonna’ die.”

Libby already has the VW turned around when Eduardo opens my door. From her position in the back seat, Adriana grabs at my sweat soaked t-shirt, but in a single swoop I’m lifted out of the topless Bug into Eduardo’s arms.

Libby screeches to a dirt-raising, rock-spewing halt: Real friends do not leave girlfriends stranded in the jungle.

“I own this island; this is my banana plantation,” he whispers smoothly and slowly into my ear as his arm sweeps my whole body in a semi-circle that lets me focus on two men shinnying up a tree. “My men, there, are climbing that tree to cut down coconuts for us.”

And then Eduardo throws in the punch line: “Have you anything alcoholic in the car?”

“Oh sure,” I sputter weakly. “Wild Turkey or Absolute?”

With the precision of surgeons, these guys whack off the tops of six coconuts. Three strokes each and natural milk cups are readied for Vodka cocktails.

“Limes by any chance?” Libby wonders out loud.

Better yet, Eduardo’s machete swinging compadres serve up lemons, the only ones we’ve come across in all of Mexico.

And of course, this was just the beginning: Libby and I were invited to Eduardo’s village to partake of the already-in-progress weekend fiesta honoring the patron saint of fishing. Shrimp boat captains were partying-up for the opening season. Then Eduardo offered Adriana the services of his private airplane and pilot. She wanted to get on to Mexico City to keep her date with a man she met last week in Cancun.

These events, and much, much more highlighted my South of the Border summer in 1976 when the United States was atwitter with its Bicentennial Celebration on a tourist-packed East Coast, just a little farther up the North American continent.

Back then, I was insatiably curious and hopelessly smitten with the heady stuff of adventure and romance and fantasy inherent in travel. Still am, in fact, these days I rarely bypass impromptu cocktail parties in the jungle.

© B. Bowers, December 2001