Retirement Life in San Carlos, Mexico
San Carlos curls around a mostly sandy shoreline describing a graceful arc the shape of an elongated scythe. At the north end of town, beach front homes, shoulder to shoulder line the shore. At the southern section, mostly open beaches stand free for public use.
At the northern most end is a white pointy rock – an outcropping that stands alone. A narrow channel separates it from the mainland, which rises rather steeply at that point, creating a hillside where homes have been set into place in the most ingenious ways. This section of town is called the Caracol, which means conch shell or snail.
This Caracol neighborhood-hill stands out like the jagged spine of a dinosaur, and so the homes look both ways: southward into the San Carlos Bay, and northward into a smaller bay which serves as an anchorage for several dozen boats, although a couple of hundred could easily fit inside its quite protected waters. On the far side of this bay is yet another settlement of charming homes, that climbs up another hillside. If you were to stand at some Archimedean point above the land/seascape you would be looking down upon what resembles something like a lobster’s claws. Inside one of the claws is a modern marina, which communicates with the anchorage. Boats leaving the marina make their way around the backside of the Caracol hillside into the anchorage basin, and from thence head west passing through a narrow channel that is guarded by two very steep rocky hills.
All the rocky hills around here jump into the sky, as if they were firecrackers about to explode. There is a very tall double pointed mountain dominating the whole scene quite dramatically. It has the most peculiar name: Tetakawi. It means goat tits, which doesn’t make much sense because the udders are facing up instead of down. It is said the Indian aborigines sent their braves up to Tetakawi to strengthen their courage. This is what goat milk does?
Then south of Caracol a graceful sweep of the beach front curves for about three miles before it too ends abruptly, melting into another mountain of rock. Behind that mountain is another bay, a section called Miramar where wealthy Mexican families have their homes. At night you can look across the wide expanse of San Carlos Bay and become enchanted by the lights twinkling back at you from Miramar.
There is an Institute of Oceanography located there. One of the things they do at the Institute amounts to a small commercial enterprise. They farm cultured pearls. Indeed are world famous for their pearls, supplying jewelry makers far and wide. It’s quite a labor-intensive procedure, which produces a relatively small quantity of pearls, not sufficient for any big business tycoons to want to get involved.
I stood there one day, watching four laborers clean the oysters’ exteriors of barnacles. The oyster shells have to be scrapped clean by hand at least three separate times during their lives as pearl growing sea creatures. If the barnacles are not removed, the oysters cannot open themselves to nutrients, and so die. The workers scrapped and chatted and laughed among themselves all the while listening to gay Mexican music blasting any eardrums in the vicinity. This, while a few yards distant, tourists soaked up the story of pearl farming carefully explained with impeccable English by a rather handsome scientist type, a young Mexican in his thirties with an unusually dry wit. He had the superb good sense not to laugh, smirk or otherwise acknowledge his humor while everyone else guffawed.
But I am slipping away from describing San Carlos and its inhabitants. More than half the people living in this small town are Norte Americanos. Their cars, parked in front of their houses or behind wrought iron fences of delightful designs, wear tags indicating their owners come from many different places of the west, mostly from Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, California, Washington and western Canada, but also from Missouri and Kansas and Idaho�and even Quebec and Ontario.
And many of the people in the RV camp where we are staying come from these same places. Only once did I see another Virginia license plate.
Some of the people live here through the winter months in rented houses. And many own their homes. They come for most of the year, staying away during the painfully hot summer months of August and September, when the air and summer breezes are very humid. This is not a dry heat such as what comes to Arizona. I am told it can get up to 110 in August and September, but with the heavy humidity, the temperature is more like 140 degrees. The humidity factor keeps all but the hardiest away. And many, if not most, of the expatriates are older folks who are definitely not hardy.
In the winter, as now, the breezes reach down from the north bringing a pleasant coolness under the sun, that even now, in February, is quite vividly blazing away.
In the summer months this Mexican Riviera becomes the playground for wealthier Mexicans who come from the inland cities nearby to resort.
Meanwhile, the working class stay put and suffer all the seasons. Edgar, the young man who works in the RV office, lives in Guaymos. He is the one who described the summer to me as being Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½painfully hot’. Edgar is an interesting and complex person. He actually grew up on Los Angeles. His father’s family all live there. It is his mother’s family that lives in Guaymos. He is 25, is married to a quite pretty young lady, and has with her a three month old son named Jonathon. His wife’s name is Dulche [sweet as in the Italian].
They live with his parents in a four-room house in one of the barrios. Edgar studied mechanical engineering in college, has a three-year degree. He was working in a plant owned by an American corporation where harnesses for automobile airbags are made. Two months ago he was laid off, he says. But after many conversations with him, I am beginning to suspect that he was fired. Not for incompetence, rather I believe because he tends toward seeing injustice everywhere and he makes a fuss about such incidents. He has been working here only since we arrived; and now tells me all the bad things his boss does to the workers. Edgar tells me that when he finds another job, he will start proceedings to report his boss, Joe, for the illegalities that apparently abound here. For example, Joe doesn’t pay his workers for their day off, which is the law. Those who work six days in the week are supposed to be paid for the seventh day. Edgar wants justice.
Edgar is not the usual macho Mexican guy. He is tall, but also rather stout, making him seem somewhat shorter than he actually is. His face is as round as koala’s, wears thick glasses, and waddles when he walks. We had a long discussion about things in general. He tells me, he doesn’t smoke nor drink, doesn’t believe in the Catholic religion, doesn’t like to go dancing in the discos. He complains that his wife likes to party. Also he complains that she doesn’t know how to cook. Even so, he seems happy to be married to a stunning creature who has a practical side that matches his. He was taught by his mom to be a help in the house. So he helps with the cooking and cleaning and the getting up in the middle of the night to feed the baby, who appears to be growing like a bean stalk minute by minute right under their noses. The kid eats a great deal. The kid most likely takes after his dad.
They met at the auto factory.
I asked Edgar about economic factors here in Guaymos. I’m not sure if all his information is accurate. For example, I ask about the average wage for workers, particularly those who are trucked in to San Carlos to work on the constructions happening here. Many houses seem to be in the process of construction. The workers lay bricks, dig foundation trenches, and so forth. Edgar told me that their wage is about $8.00 US a day. Later I found out from an American friend that construction workers earn anywhere from $8.00 to $12.00 US and hour. Those who work in the American factories make about the same amount.
Edgar himself is paid $200 US a week, plus tips and bonuses. It is the cleaning women and the grounds people who get much less. Other wise, Guaymos seems to be a booming town. Ford motor company is building a plant in Guaymos that is expected to employ about 15,000 workers. Edgar’s uncle teaches school and earns about $250 a week, plus he gets a full month vacation each year with pay, as well as other benefits.
On the other hand, Henrique, the night watchman here at the RV camp reveals a different side of the economic scene in Mexico. He is 65 years old. He worked for over thirty years as an industrial welder, mostly for large American corporations that built the tall buildings, which required steel construction. He earned a good wage, he said, and when he was ready to retire, he was expecting to receive the first retirement balloon payment of $50,000 pesos. But the man who was then the president of the country, Salinas, pulled some sneaky trick and stole money from the government [I remember reading at the time something about the scandal]. The consequence for Henrique was that his $50,000 pesos became a mere $2,000 pesos. So he still has to work. He has two children, a daughter and a son. The son is married and on his own. The daughter still lives at home. Henrique is working hard to learn English. He asks anyone to talk with him and help him to pronounce words. His boss, Joe, tries to keep him away from the Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½guests’ believing that we don’t want to be bothered. Joe is a rather pig headed person, always smiling at the Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½guests’ and frowning at the workers he employs.
Edgar also told me how workers get a house. There is a system sponsored by the government. Wage earners get points according to their salaries. When they have accumulated sufficient points [it can take as much as three to ten years depending upon the salary a worker receives] that person is then qualified to buy a home valued at the equivalent of $20,000 US with no money down. The points serve as the down payment. Then, in buying the home, 25% of his/her salary is automatically deducted from the monthly pay and sent to the building company. The Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½villas’ that are constructed for this kind of housing are tiny two room structures, plus bathroom and tiny yard, jammed against each other. I’ve seen literally acres filled of these houses. They look like rows of chicken coops.
A better way for a young family to get housing, is to buy a piece of land, earn the points and then build their own house with the $20,000 loan. The chicken coops, I am told, cost the builder about $5,000 to construct. But an individual can build a mansion with the $20,000 that otherwise goes to the builder.
Just about all the homes here are built from brick that is supported with concrete and rebar columns and lintels, then a layer of cement covers the brick, and the cement facades painted in bright, cheery colors. There is a wide variety of shapes and designs of homes made in this fashion, many of the homes quite beautiful and ingeniously put together according to the terrain. All the expensive homes as well as the modest homes are built in this same manner.
I saw a quite charming and attractive two bedroom house on a good sized lot, well landscaped and situated in a prime location on a hill with vast and beautiful views of the sea, the mountains and the town�a quite new home with central air conditioning, which lowers the electric bill in the summer compared to window air conditioners�all this for the asking price of $65,000 US. Homes that Americans are selling, go from $50,000 to $1.5 million.
Food is somewhat less expensive here than in the states. The plain yogurt here has a sweetener ingredient, alas. The veggies and fruits, especially the pineapples, are superb. A vegetable vendor, Alejandro, comes to the RV camp everyday. Besides fruit and vegetables, he has tamales, eggs, and different kinds of fish according to what is caught by who knows whom, tortillas, homemade guacamole and salsa. Every other day a small truck carrying agua purificada in five-gallon jugs comes in. And in between come men peddling arty object and crafty items. And even a young guy with what looks like very delicious cheesecake, which my diet, nor my wife will let me eat. And once a week the LP gasman shows up. LP gas is half the price of what sells in US. But automobile fuel was $2.50 a gallon last winter. Pemex is the government owned gas station, the only gas station in Mexico, hence a monopoly.
Turn your back on the sea and you are looking at the most breathtaking scene of desert and mountains imaginable. This is truly a gorgeous landscape that embraces like a cloak that has soaked up the sun’s warmth. One side the exquisite sea with its deep blue color and its myriad of bird life, pelicans sweeping down out of the sky, piercing the water’s surface and coming up with a floppy bill full of fish. Sea gulls and terns in abundance, dancing with the surf, trotting in and out of the water’s reach while snatching food from under their feet, their beaks, like spears, plunging into the wet sand. Dolphins in large pods rush across the bay, diving in and out of the water.
The tide here is only about four feet, in and out once a day, instead of the twice a day tidal change in the East. The waves are quite gentle. The roaring Pacific barred from crashing against this shoreline that is protected by the Baja peninsular some seventy miles to the west.
And then, looking back to the land, all the mysterious shadows cast by the afternoon sun playing on the mountains a silent song of rare colors – in numerous colors: yellows, pinks and intense reds, purples and mauves, and the speckled greens of the plants and cacti, dusky greens and tiny colorful blossoms.
When I bike along the inner trails, the smell of wild sage, like a swarm of bees, floods my senses.
