I first hitchhiked to San Blas, on the west coast of Mexico, in December of 1964. At that time it was a quiet village with no paved streets—though I remember some cobblestones. There were Mexican tourists getting away from the Americans, a few Americans trying to get away from America, and there were a few ex-pats, usually ex-military. I do remember an ex-air force sergeant who was most delighted to see an English speaking human, so beers were on him. That worked well for our poverty struck wallets.

We stayed at a little hotel on the beach that had barely survived the previous hurricane season.  Since we had been on the road for a few days, and since being on the road did not include a shower, we needed to indulge in the amenities. But there was no soap. I went looking for soap at the opening in the wall that served as the front desk. I did not know the Spanish word for soap.

I had some hope that the two winsome young women would have some English in their repertoire, but that was proven ill-conceived when I said, “sopa”. I’ve since come to learn that that’s the word for soup; she tried to explain that she had none, gesturing earnestly at the counter where no kitchen could be found. I pantomimed a person in a shower washing his armpits with soap. I smiled. They laughed. I probably looked like an escaped monkey hanging from a vine.

We did solve the problem and the next day we went for a boat ride up La Tovara river—more like an estuary. This was paid for by the other American citizen, a very pleasant schoolmarm from the Midwest. We took a great jungle boat ride to a clear pool of water, where we may have gone swimming.

Somehow, maybe on the way back, we managed to get in some body surfing outside of town and decided to swim around the point to get into town rather than walk.

I tore my feet to ribbons on the coral and barely made it back to town. My memories following this are dim, unclear, and foggy—it’s been over 45 years and they probably weren’t clear even then.

We ended up later that night at a hole, and I’m being very polite here, in the wall bar with no Americans in it besides the two of us. The men’s room—I could see no women’s room—was the north wall of the room and reeked appropriately. But there were plenty of very friendly Mexicans who invited us gringos to their table to drink mezcal, which we thought was tequila, being uninformed Americans. I don’t remember who drank the worm at the bottom, and I am glad for some malfunctions in my memory. We didn’t know that the worm is a sign of inferior mezcal and at some point I doubt that it mattered at all.

After finding our way back to the “hotel”, I had the bright idea to take a shower. Some of the water got in my mouth so that by morning I had a raging case of Montezuma’s Revenge and feet that were so sore I couldn’t walk.

As soon as the “Revenge” let up a bit, we started heading into town to find a doctor. That’s why I remember cobblestones because I crawled most of the way to town. Fortunately, there was s doctor’s office on that street. I think El Señor Doctor was also the town veterinarian. I went in and showed him my feet and pointed at my rear end, which was all the information he needed. He excused himself and in a moment or two brought out this very large steel-jacketed hypodermic needle—the kind used for large livestock. I balked. I looked for the door. I thought I would rather be sick that be impaled with that spike.

The doc must have also been the town psychologist. He excused himself again and returned with a very pretty nurse who, 100 megawatt smile on her face, held the weapon of ass destruction.  He, and she, knew that my teen-aged male ego would not let me back down, so I dropped my shorts and bent over. I bled for a while, but the pain went away instantly. I think, judging from the prescription he gave me, that it was morphine. I didn’t get a refill.

We made it to the highway and started hitchhiking back to Santa Rosa which is in northern California and a long way from San Blas, Mexico. The editor of a Chico newspaper was good enough to pick us up and deposit us at the junction of Highway 15. I got out of the car and promptly lay down in the roadside dust and went immediately to sleep.

It’s amazing that we weren’t run over, because when we did wake up to a man poking at us, we were indistinguishable from any other mound of dirt. He was the driver of a cab and in the backseat was a woman who was very solicitous about our well-being. She was a very brave American woman, picking up two piles of dust like she did.

I don’t remember much else, but I do know that the dreams were good. I think watermelons followed.