Falling for the French Girl 3

“A towel…is about the most massively useful thing an intelligent hitchhiker can
  have… any man who hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it,
  struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is
  clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
                                                Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy




It was paradise. No doubt about it. Paradise. It was named Bahia de la Escondida (Bay of the Hidden Woman), after the young Mixtec girl who had jumped ship to escape from Francis Drake’s brother, Andres. She disappeared into the jungle, just beyond the white breakers of the emerald and cobalt blue water, and the white powder shore between the rocky cliffs. When I got off the bus, I went the other way. In 1980, there were only a few fishing families, and a couple of thatched roof restaurants. I walked down the sand, away from the palapas, and set up Diogenes near some caves. I fell asleep right on sunset, to the music of the surf playing outside the Gold Kazoo.
Over the next few days, I got to know Manuel, the owner of one of the restaurants, Bar ‘Liza.’ I spent a lot of time under his cabanas. With cheap breakfasts of hotcakes and honey-laced fruit, dollar fish dinners, and fifty cent Bohemia beer to wash it down, I had stopped firing up my white gas stove. The stars lit up the firmament at night, and the topless European girls lit up the beach all day. The earth shook with each pounding of the waves. I’d never seen anything like it. It seemed like months that I had been in Mexico, but it had only been 20 days. I still had my cold, and my stomach was learning about Montezuma. The village marching band practiced their drill formations along the palm tree backdrop.
A different sound of wooden flutes caught up with my siesta, beside Diogenes one afternoon. I looked out from under my towel, to find Doni, Janine, and Georgette, sitting cross-legged in the sand. They worked in the same hospital in Aix-en-somewhere, and were on a week’s holiday. They had brought an extra flute. We became fast friends. Later, after a fish dinner and a few Superior cervezas, we headed down the beach, under the stars. We began to notice that, every time we took a step, a luminescent ring flashed brightly around our footprints. We sat, and Doni began making sand drawings. The red, white and blue noctiluca organisms produced an incredible amount of light for their size. Georgette tried to make a French tricolour. I sat beside her to help. Doni whispered in my ear.