Day 4-6 I’ve written in the past of my barber shop experiences in both Bucerias and in Montpeller at the barber school; both visual disasters. So it was with some trepidation that I set out on Thursday morning in my elusive search to find a stylist that could give my head the George Clooney treatment, in my price bracket (cheap).
I had gone on a scouting mission the previous day and had narrowed it down to two choices. One near Centro was staffed by a young man who had some of his many successes captured in photographic masterpieces all around his spacious, tastefully-decorated shop. He reeked of confidence and talent. I assumed it would be over my $9 price ceiling.
The second option was two blocks further and was a one hundred square foot concrete cubicle with 1980s posters of middle-aged Mexican women peeling off the walls… it seemed an obvious choice.
Hola seniora I stumbled as it came out as Hole seniors. I detected a discernible eye-roll as she answered me with a couple of sentences in spanish. Zing, her words brushed my scalp as they sailed over my head. Hopefully her clippers would be kinder. Haira cutta I blurted out as I scanned my kneecaps hoping she could translate my babble. More spanish followed by a gesture to sit in the vintage (aka: worn out) chair. For the third time out of country I had failed to download a picture of the style that I wanted her to replicate.. uh, oh.
Numero dos I stammered as I whisked my hands along the side of my head but didn’t have a clue as to what I wanted her to do with the mop on top of my head. Don’t worry I can fix it she said. I didn’t even know it was broken I thought as I was taken aback at her bilingualism.
Eleven minutes and $8.70 later I was whistling a non-existent tune down the street with the best haircut that I had in years, except for the foul-smelling pomade that she used to sculpt my hair into a shark fin. Too bad the airfare back and forth to Canada would probably make it impractical to come back every four weeks.
On Friday morning I left the hotel via the front street and turned the corner and there was a gaggle of locals congregating around a mobile bbq that was attached to a motorcycle. The smell was tantalizing as the smoke wafted towards me. Everyone was dispersing now, all with fistfulls of taco goodness in their grasp and despite the fact that I had just finished my breakfast in our room mere minutes before I recognized the fact that this could be a culinary life changing experience.
It was indeed a mobile bbq with a husband and wife team preparing the sizzling beef (carne) with handmade tortillas and copious quantities of fixins on their sideboard. Cheerily they addressed me Hola amigo and I made my best attempt to order. Buenos Dias. Dos carne tacos para llevar but instead my carefully crafted attempt was once again botched and it came out Bones dees. Does carny tacos part levy. This wasn’t their first gringo contact and they smilingly prepared 2 tacos with the works, served it to me on an aluminum foil covered plastic plate and showed me the most convenient place on the curb to savor their cooking.
The hot sauce ran down my hand onto my last almost-clean pair of shorts and I slobbered down the golden brown semi-circles of bliss, wiped my mouth with a provided napkin, stood and thanked them effusively. WOW!! That was terrific and I barely got any on me I gushed.
With Fred in my pocket I was on my way to a Telcel shop on the nearby service road to change his brain from Canadian to Mexican at the cellular store.
Now Fred wasn’t new to this game as we had already made him tri-lingual in Spain and again in France the previous spring. He had weathered the changes well and was not at all worried at this latest lobotomial incursion. I, on the other hand, was a tad concerned that I would not be able to properly navigate the technological divide and be able to access my data with my sparse (pequito) grasp of the spanish language.
I held Fred close in my palm and told him if we never met again in English that he had been a good companion and he would be remembered fondly (plus we still had Wilma, Carol’s phone back at the hotel room). He just stared blankly back at me blinking in his upper left-hand corner as always. In the back of my mind I was wondering what an S9 might offer as an upgrade should Fred suffer a catastrophic demise, but seriously it was only a SIM card exchange and this was as common as a quadruple heart bypass in this day and age.
I reached the store in mere minutes and read the laminated sheet on the counter that spelled out the options. A new SIM card plus 3 GB of data for a month for C$17… WTF? That would be $9000 back in Canada! Maybe I WILL fly back and forth every 30 days. Let’s see… $8.70 haircuts AND cheap data? It was looking more doable every minute.
The 20-something hispanic girl assured me that no information would be lost and would still appear in English so Fred was merely getting a refresh and not a wholesale gender swap. Whew, this girl is good. Proceed please.
Ten minutes later, with Fred’s Koodoo brain in my pocket and his Mexican Telcel conciousness installed we were merrily on our way whistling a non-existent tune down the road. Fred was filled with bravado and looking forward to stacking up on Wilma and showing off his new cultural identity. Hey baby… parlez vous Francais… er no, habla espagnol?
Blue Delivery 