CHECKPOINT ADVENTURE – Published January 2005 – Western Outdoors Magazine Baja Backbeat
We had just come up off the beach and I was driving the shuttle back to town with a van load of happy-tired anglers who had just spent a day on pangas being humbled by too many big dorado. The single-lane road was bumpy and the van rattled and shook as is often the case with any vehicles in Mexico traveling on shocks never meant for the Baja outback. I was dusty and blood-covered myself from guiding and cleaning fish but smiling broadly as the raucous boisterous, and often “blue-tinted” conversation behind me reflected a good day on the water. Lots of laughs.
One of my clients had come down with his wife, which is not uncommon and usually I’m a little un-easy when the fishing conversation gets a little loud and salty around the ladies, but Marcie was right in on it and could hold her own with the boys. In fact, she could more than hang.
She was a successful marine biologist, but (what a resume!) had spent her early summers and a deckhand and working galley on S. Cal sportboats and then worked her way through college as a waitress at Hooters. So, believe me, she could walk the walk and talk the talk from football to fishing. On top of it, this tall girl-next-door blonde insisted on wearing a bright eye-popping orange thong bikini while fishing that had other boats trolling near she and her husband all day long. The captains really got a kick of posing with her on the beach holding fish and she was more than accommodating striking model-like poses with each of them.
But, nothing quite puts the brakes on travel in Mexico like running into the surprise military road blocks that can happen anywhere. You know how you feel when a black-and-white zooms up behind you with its lights flashing on a U.S. highway. Well, imagine being pulled to a stop by a military officer in fatigues waving a pistol and half-a-dozen young soldiers sporting the latest in M-16’s. I pulled around a curve and there they were.
These guys are just doing their jobs looking for guns and weapons, but it’s never comfortable being stopped. I’m pretty used to it and my Spanish gets me by, but for most Americans, normall secure in their privacy, it’s the equivalent of being taken in for an IRS audit or worse!
“De donde vienen?” (Where are you coming from?) asked the officer as I stepped out of the van. I explained that I had a group of fishermen and was taking them back to town.
“Perdon, Senor, pero estamos checando por drogas y armas, por favor.” (Excuse me but I’m sorry we’re just checking for drugs and guns.) I said of course and told everyone to just step out’ve the van for the routine check. Nervously eyeing the “kids” with the automatic rifles, everyone got out. Most were trying to smile. Everyone piled out…one grimy, sweaty fisherman after the other.
So did Marcie as one long leg then another unfolded out of the back along with that orange thong bathing suit and her blonde hair. “Hola amigos!” She smiled and waved at the officer and soldiers who literally stepped back as I watched eyes-go-wide and guns suddenly dissolve into mouth agape stares.
Then, just like the young boys/men they were, imagine a whole squad of soldier trying not to giggle, almost embarrassingly. It was like the prom queen suddenly smiling to you in the hallway and noticing that you existed. Understand that many of the soldiers are just country boys conscripted into the army and then sent out on duty like these young kids. I could almost hear a collective Mexican “aw shucks, ma’am” coming from the fatigue-dressed “combat team.”
The officer cleared his throat and awkwardly said it was his duty now to search the vehicle. But he flashed the biggest smile at Marcie and seemed to keep one eye constantly on her even as he cursively looked around the back of the van trying so very hard to act “official.” Our group, with Marcie in the lead, followed him around still a bit nervous as anyone would when they are being “inspected.”
Then, we heard a giggle which made the officer look up. Where was his squad? They were nowhere to be found. He stood up straight and heard another giggle making us all look up and around. A movement to the right caught our eye and we could see several heads poking from behind a huge saguaro cactus each attached to a big grin. Lined up rigidly behind the cactus in single file so as not to be seen, these young soldiers were obviously looking at Marcie…each head at a different level, but trying hard to appear as one line behind the giant cactus like young high-schoolers who suddenly found out that they could see into the girl’s locker room!
Embarrassed, the officer yelled “Attencion!” and marched his squad out from behind the cactus shaking his head and apologizing to me, the clients and the “senorita bonita” for the actions of his soldiers. Apparently, they were newly recruited and this was their first check-point assignment. They almost bumped into each other trying to form rank, but never taking their eyes off the smling blonde gringa. He made a point of apologizing to Marcie who took it all in stride and said she would like to take a photo with “all the boys!”
That got ‘em! In fact, we lined them all up. Dusted them all off and watched them all push and shove as to who would get to be closest to Marcie for the photo. Of course, it was the officer who had the largest grin of all. A full 6 inches shorter than her, he, of course, got the official “spot” next to the senorita.
Piled back into the vans, we were wished well and shoved off down the road with just another great adventure story to add to the happy hour that evening. As Fred Hoctor used to say, “Baja-ha-ha.” Just another day in paradise.
