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 Travel & Outdoors | November 2005 
Tale of a Pacific Virgin
 Wesley Miller - Massachusetts Daily Collegian
| | "Who would have known that such a beautiful place, with such lovely people could be so negatively stereotyped by the very people I considered my friends and family." |
One of the best effects of being abroad is the heightened sense in which one perceives the world around him or her on a day-to-day basis. The senses become sharpened, colors more vivid and smells more sensual, more pungent. Inevitably, this brings on a fierce sense of introspection. Revelation is a powerful force of change and something that we often take for granted while living in what we perceive a normal model for reality. When that's turned upside down, when you're thrown into a situation that you have no ability to make sense of, you begin to wonder why.
Up until a week ago, I had never seen the Pacific Ocean. A true New Englander, the beach trips I grew up with were to my grandparents' house in Maine's Penobscot Bay. I still think of that area as one of the most beautiful in the world with its rocky coastlines, endless pine trees and weather beaten cottages. I had initially turned down the first trips to the coast of Mexico, notably to Puerto Vallarta, the mere mention of which made me think of Bob Barker and "The Price is Right." A few of my friends got together and decided they would rather rent cars and search for virgin beaches around La Manzanilla. That struck a more positive note.
When I first got here, everything knocked me flat. Who would have known that such a beautiful place, with such lovely people could be so negatively stereotyped by the very people I considered my friends and family. I eventually had to learn to just sit back and let things take affect, consider them in their pure form, let them reveal themselves to me. I took this philosophy out to the Pacific, where I would let it literally wash over me.
We left at 5 p.m. on Friday and pulled into Manzanilla at around 10 p.m. We ate dinner at a little restaurant run by a French expatriate. All the while, we were a stones throw from the ocean. I could hear the waves crash and I could taste the salt. Unfortunately it was still too dark to utilize my sense of sight, so I caught an early night and fell asleep to sounds of the ocean like I used to do as a child in my grandparents' cottage.
Before I could even rub my eyes, I was being herded into the waiting rental cars outside the hotel. Apparently, the beach was too rocky and violent to swim in and thus we were headed out to Tenachatica, a protected cove with fine sands and minimal riptides. The road there was long and winding, nestled in cliff sides and forests of palm trees. My mouth hung open like an excited child, completely speechless. Then we were there: a beach miles long, flanked by rock formations 30 feet high snarled in cactus and of course the waves crashing musically on the shore.
"Not a bad introduction to the Pacific" a friend commented to me. I realized I had probably said "I've never been to the Pacific" 30 times between the commencement of the trip until this point. I doused myself in sunblock and waded into the water. It washed over my ankles and then pulled me in like a warm, inviting Latin American mother. I swam all day without fatigue. The waves were big enough to body surf so I did that too until one threw me in a full somersault. After a fit of hysterical laughter, I decided to take it easy.
When the sunset finally came, a friend of mine from Winnipeg and I bought some beer and took our plastic folding chairs down to the water's edge. We sat there and talked about our lives, our families; the kind of conversation that you want to have with the people around you but can only manage to have while drinking beer on a Mexican beach in the sunset. It looked like something out of a Corona advertisement. If only I had a beeper on me I could have skipped it out into the ocean in defiance. Of course, someone had to come down and take the facebook picture. Just as they did a wave came through and knocked me out of my chair, making my beer nice and salty.
Driving back to Guadalajara, I felt as if I'd experienced something great, something soul changing. Art was going to be more beautiful, food more delicious and life more enjoyable. Being abroad makes you feel fortunate to be able to experience well ... anything. Your values begin to change along with your perceptions, perceptions of the world around you, others and most importantly, yourself. |
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