Cabo turismo

April 17, 2018

            We visited Bruce’s timeshare at Cabo San Lucas, and when that turned out to be inadequately equipped, the families of Bruce’s three children spread out in a Penthouse apartment with an elevator leading directly to our rooms, two large balconies overlooking the resort, three bedrooms, and open sky hot tub for four. The turning blues and greens of the ocean were beautiful every time of day. Sometimes a cruise ship would block our view to the very southern tip of the Baja Peninsula at Land’s End, but it would be gone by the afternoon. Mickie left pieces of bread around the corners of our balcony, so we were visited by light breezes and also five or six birds, and one tiny lizard.

            Getting these families together is a rare event. We haven’t had a Christmas together in a while, and last year, even Mickie and Bruce didn’t come because they get sick in a Seattle winter. Eating together, basking in the sun, listening to a Mexican serenade us to music Mickie remembered from her youth, waking together, and gathering on the balcony in our pajamas and heavy morning sun beneath the long shade of an umbrella was so special—we moved through it with slowness and ease.

            But I never got over what it meant to be a tourist in Cabo. I never needed to speak Spanish. I never needed to use anything other than an American dollar. And everywhere we went, there were brown people calling us amigos and asking how they could serve us and white people manspreading their voices and bodies all over the beach in a frat bro tequila party. That was me too, though: every time I ignored someone who was asking if I wanted to buy, every time I avoided eye contact, and then too when I did start bargaining for something—all those times, I was a tourist, benefitting from an arrangement long, long in my favor. As a family, we talked about how Mexican shopkeepers and waiters seemed so happy; they seemed to enjoy their jobs; we saw them relaxed with each other and relaxed with us, solicitous of where we were from and joking easily. They really might be happy. But it is also true that everywhere brown people were cleaning up after white people, and white people were enjoying the luxury and access to beauty that money bought them.

            I react badly when every few feet someone beckons me to buy. And yet, this is livelihood; this is what a job looks like in a tourist town. And yet, tourism in the southern hemisphere mimics and maintains a racist post-colonial structure. And yet, if I don’t participate, is my not-money doing anything at all? And yet, when I do participate, when I help provide the other end of someone’s livelihood, am I perpetuating something deep? And yet, what good are my guilt and discomfort?

            I want to say that my favorite parts were the free ones, spending time with family, hiking up the rocks over Land’s End with Amelia, reading my books. But all that time and peace was paid for, too, and my mango margarita, fresh orange juice and flan are things I would happily consume again.