An Imperfect Paradise
 Eileen Pierce - PVNN
| | For more information or to make reservations at the Inn de la Gata Gorda in San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico call (311) 258-4190. From the US call (413) 553-3628 or send an email to finefix@gatagorda.com. |
The guests came in three rounds, a harried Mexican week tucked between each visit. I hovered over our new casitas, a postnatal mother turtle anxiously shifting the furniture, hanging pictures, watering plants.
This was the Inn of the GataGorda's debut, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted my dear, old friend and editor Julie to walk in, set down her bag and feel as if she'd come home.
I wanted the water pressure to be constant, the electricity to stop surging, the new maid to show up and for God's sake not to forget the toilet. In short, I wanted everything, every little thing, to be perfect.
Of course, those of us who have sold out up north and moved across a restless border with a crock pot, a computer, and a satellite telephone stashed in the back of the SUV, know that Perfection in Mexico is an oxymoron.
We who have waited weeks, not days, for a repairman to appear as promised, know the dark side of Paradise - the plumbers, the electricians, the carpenters who never show. We know better than to ask why, when or how in a world where things just happen.
"Another mystery in Mexico," a friend recently said when we discovered the heart of our champion agave plant had been plucked out like an old chin hair. One goes on, of course, but the agave sticks around, nudging you like a cat every time you start to forget about it, sort of like Frida Kahlo with Diego's face planted square in the middle of her forehead.
It is so easy to obsess in this drama queen of a country where excess is part of the DNA. Paradise, yes, with biblical sunsets and pounding surf, remote rocky coves, swarms of butterflies fluttering through the house, yellow birds falling out of the sky. Paradise indeed - except for those little things like water pressure and high speed internet that can't always be depended on to function as designed.
When Julie arrived everything was operating smoothly. The plane landed on time, no one in customs was interested in checking her underwear and we drove north to San Pancho without incident, i.e. broken trucks, tragic accidents, new construction.
"I love it!" she cried entering the casita, putting her bag on the floor and clapping her hands. "It's perfect."
The week unrolled like a tortilla, the humidity lifting halfway through. We snorkeled at Los Arcos, ate fresh fish in Yelapa, walked the beach in San Pancho at sunset. These were good days, rich with el sabor de Mexico.
Julie left with a grin on her face and a camera full of photos she could hardly wait to show everyone back home. She used the word perfect again and again. I forgot about the agave.
Our second set of friends were not as enthusiastic, though they clearly loved San Pancho and the GataGorda. Still, Julie had clapped her hands. Susan and Frank were far more pragmatic. They hooked up with a realtor and began to wonder if Mexico might be the solution to their retirement.
At the pool, we drew up penciled plans, two apartments on the lower floor for revenue, a sweeping 2000 sq. feet of living space for themselves on the upper level. We played the numbers, and they danced across the days like magnets, pulling us all this way and that, out of the moment, away from the Calandrias that flocked to the big palm tree beside the verandah each morning. No matter where we went, they brought the future with them, to dinners and road trips to other fishing villages where the prices were less demanding.
Susan had suggestions for the casita - a fruit knife, perhaps, a flashlight, more throw pillows for the couch. All good suggestions, but all irritatingly pointed to a certain imperfection in the very same casita that had made Julie clap her hands.
Our next guests are family, my youngest son, his wife, my granddaughter. I ask myself why I am so concerned about putting Susan's suggestions into place before their arrival.
One learns to roll with the punches in paradise, but it is a slow journey toward acceptance. "Why cannot this place so full of beauty and color and life get its act together," I say to my husband. He mutes the TV for a moment before saying, "It's OK. They'll have a great time," knowing that I'm afraid the GataGorda won't be perfect for my family.
Whenever I make a statement in life, as I did when we moved to Mexico a year ago, my parents settle in my mind and my childhood anxieties rise to the surface like chili beans. What will everyone think? Do they wait, as I do, for the other shoe to drop?
Do they think we're brave or stupid or out of our minds? That's when I have to take a walk on the beach, or put on my goggles and swim a few laps. I have to cuddle with my cat Whisky, the house's fat namesake, or lie on the veranda in ocean breezes that sweep deep into my old, ornery New England soul.
The next Mexican week between visits has been cluttered with problems. The water pump - the eternal, infernal 'bomba' of Mexico - needs to be replaced, the street suffered a brownout a couple of days ago and I, of course, worry about a relapse in an electric grid served by a country without an infrastructure. Our electrician has disappeared (another mystery in Mexico), and we have a new cleaning girl, the last one having moved on for no discernible reason.
I remind myself how much I love it here, how I just about clap my hands with joy when I wake up and remember that this body, this Eileen, is here in a big bed with a vast view in a country that is continually beautiful, mysterious and exciting. "It wouldn't be an adventure," I remind myself, "if it was perfect all the time."
For more information or to make reservations at the Inn de la Gata Gorda in San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico call (311) 258-4190. From the US call (413) 553-3628 or send an email to finefix@gatagorda.com.
 Eileen Pierce is a former staff writer and columnist for the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA and in the last few years was the PR/Marketing Director for the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA. The co-author of the 2005 Fodor's Guide to the Berkshires and Pioneer Valley, Eileen continues to freelance for various publications, including the Boston Globe. She and her partners run the Inn of the Gata Gorda in San Pancho, Nayarit where they live year round. |
Vallarta Weddings
Travel & Outdoors | December 2006 
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